Open Forum Discussions and Debate

We used to talk about these things on the Easy pages. The whole Stella discussion took place on May 29, 2006. It's interesting to take a moment to review. But it did get much more development here.

And jeb, my lawyers have changed the name of their firm to Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, Habeas Corpus Haberdashers.

Made me look, Ian. Those morons don't know to thank their unlucky stars that I wasn't on their jury. Talk about contempt of court. Looks to me like the oourt is in the process of making its self contemptuous.

On further contemplation, the thought is forming that there are still opportunities for the mass marketing of the Brooklyn Bridge. Maybe I can track down these cases and wait outside the courthouse and sell the jurists chances on a henway at 20 bucks a pop. There's 105 counties in Ks. alone. 12 jurors per county courthouse at 20 bucks each. Thats $25,200.00 in one state alone.

well all i did was,just to use the shirt('coz i was in a hurry to make things ready!) and honest never noticed if anybody was inside the shirt!!will be careful in future(wonder what happened to the pistol that was floating as Jeb made no mention of it)

and Jeb what papers,i am afraid its not the one that i stuffed on the damp firewood to enhance the fire!!or will i be charged for that also??just couldnt figure what all charges in store for making a simple cowboy coffee.

Poor Bean. In the first place yu'd never use yer shootin' iron to test the coffee. There's always a old horseshoe layin around. Secondly, yer probly not from around these parts else you'd know what a poke of duram is. Bull Durham is pretty good, some like Bugle and the papers is what ya rolls it in. And what's this damp firewood bidness? Camp coosie always keeps his kindlin dry. Better keep quiet 'round the rangler till he ropes out yer bronc, if he thinks yer a greenhorn he'll pick out the rankest one from the string for ya.

Mission Accomplished!!!!

You think so? You ever hear tell of the tar baby?

ah!whoever thought i will get to hug a no win tar-baby by brewing a cow boy coffee,the way i know!
now whose gonna lead me to the briars patch?
(spare me Jeb!)

Thats OK, you still couldn't leave it alone. There's still a little wiggle left in that mission of yours, seems to me.

so nothing to discuss tonite?

I think the boys are all tuckered out after their p***ing contest

Ok - here's one, Mary you'll have heard about it... mother is out walking her baby in a pram by the river. Her mobile phn goes off, she answers it - turning her back on the pram. When she goes back to the pram - it's gone. It has rolled into the river, baby has drowned. The same situation happened a week later. Today it was announced that it will be mandatory in Australia that all prams have harnesses fixed to them so that they can be attached to the parents when in use...one safety observer said today that they have to be made 'choke-free' too when not in use...

What ever happened to paying attention to the children? Manufacturers can come up with all types of things to try and fix problems...but you can't fix or protect folks from their own dumb or inattentive actions. Those mothers are paying a very dear price for their momentary inattentiveness. We need to instill more self discipline when it comes to caring for others. Many of us have been guilty of doing something that has been dangerous to our selves or others at some point in our lives. Required safety features won't guaranty safe use or desired results. We just have to learn to be more focused on the job at hand. Multi-tasking busy lives have made us lax about simple precautions I think. Life style changes will be difficult.

Yes Billy I saw that...can you mandate intelligence for parents? or regulatory authorities?

When was it that we stopped having children and started acquiring designer 'accessories'?

This very subject came up at coffee this morning regarding a tragic accident back East where a lady got out of her SUV and it rolled down a hill into a lake killing her and the children inside. She had gotten back into the car but couldn't stop it. The solutions bandied about were draconian in nature, but everybody agreed that the line between stupidity and oversight is extreemly thin at times.

Gail, I think it was when more people started reading more trashy magazines and watching more trashy tv than living their own productive fulfilling lives and minding their own businesses. The airheads rule!

Can't agree more, can't legislate for stupidity.
It's all about paying attention to the responsibility at hand.

Maybe worth discussing
the cost of a house to first home buyers is getting out of reach for many.
what do you think is the cause of this?

My thoughts revolve around the fact that the first home buyers are not looking to purchase a small first home that they can afford to start with but a mansion with all the mod cons that they 'just have to have'.

Rose I agree, I also feel that the First Home Owners Grant contributes to this, those that are unable to save their own deposit are now able to purchase a new home, yet it makes you wonder, if they are unable to save their deposit, how are they able to repay their home loans?

The aim of the first home owners grant was to pay for most of the stamp duty on the purchase of the house, the problem arose when the building companies started to lend 95 to 100% of the cost of the home to tie people up to homes they cant afford using just the grant as the deposit.
It is a formula for disaster.

Has anybody here watched the DVD 'An Inconvenient Truth'? Or, for those in the USA, gone to one of Al Gore's slideshows on the subject? Rick and I watched it last night and can't believe that he was beaten (although controversially) in the election between himself and Bush. Here, in Australia, we don't hear much about the candidates that run for presidency or their policies but if Al Gore was using this stance then I cant believe he didn't win. I also cant believe that the Bush Administration did their best to try to cover up this information on Global Warming by saying that it is all scare tactics and that Al Gore was irresponsible in putting out to the people these facts. The Earth is in big trouble which means 'WE' are in big trouble. We have all got to forget about the mighty dollar and go back to basics if we want to live long, healthy lives and leave nature's beauty to our children and grandchildren.

Australian television recently aired the BBC production, ''The Great Global Warming Swindle,'' but it hasn't been shown in the US that I know of. Has anyone here seen it?

Ian Boston I posted the link to it on a previous debate here not sure which page it is on and yes I watched it. It was interesting but not totally convincing especially as some of the experts were misquoted on certain subjects and they wrote to the BBC to complain.

I doubt that anyone who frequents these pages is capable of an informed opinion on the subject, which is hugely technical and complex. Most of us are forming our opinions on the topic based on our opinions of the people espousing the various sides. For my own part, I think the people pushing global warming hysteria are the same people who were frantic to raise money to stop glaciation and the ''new ice age'' 35 years ago. They're bigger frauds than Exxon.

And slightly more to the point, make a distinction between climate and weather. Any time that a global warming proponent/opponent points to a phenomenon which is a result of weather rather than climate (forest fires, cold spells), he/she is nothing more than a fraud, a fraud who is insulting you by assuming that you can't tell the difference between weather and climate.

well i dunno if it was aired in India..I watched it from the following links,the youtube link will lead to all the 8 parts one by one..its hard to believe this guy..Martin Durkin..he had very cleverly made the film i feel..most probably he would've omitted some data which ppl like us may not have access to..at the same time we cant totally dismiss the fact that the politicians are cashing in on the topic eternally..whatever may be the truth, i am for LESS CO2!!!reduce pollution and make this planet more friendly for the future generations to live..
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/swindle/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f8v5du5_ag

I am all for protecting the environment and doing our bit to make our footprint on the earth as small as it can be but I do think the hysteria of global warming is exaggerated. the weather patterns have gone through cycles before and will continue to do so. we have before and will again have severe storms, heatwaves, coldsnaps etc and it may have a greater effect on the earth each time.
I was taught in school that all these natural events were mother natures way of controlling population.

I have to say the weather patterns in England seem to be changing all the time and I note that some scientists are now trying to link the patterns to global warming which they state they had been unable to do so before. Its now mid July here and it feels as though it is September/October. We have had a handful of sunny days and it doesn't seem as though its set to change. We have had flooding in areas that have never seen flooding and weather predictions are set for us to receive more. However, as someone stated previously the records don't go back that far. The jury is still out for me on whether its global warming, I don't have enough knowledge to argue the case sufficiently, nor have I lived that long to say I have seen this before or some such statement. The weather in England is always unpredictable.. some things never change.

just seeing if I can post....

...which is pretty much what everybody else does...

Ian, sorry but to whom are you addressing your commment to.

well if it's to me Ian - this page had gone 'missing' but i had the link as one of my favourites, which was how I was able to post without the page being present under Forum...I was checking it before i posted a msg to gath - otherwise you're comment is a bit bleedin' obvious...

your

as is mine...

Deb - some of the examples used in Gore's production - like the calving of the Glaciers when they meet the sea, have been happening for as long as anyone can remember. Glaciers are rivers of ice - they flow due to gravitation.

Since there has been a questioning of 'Global Warming' when the same people pushing it were in the '60's decrying a new 'Ice Age' - the politically correct terminology is now 'Global Climate Change'.

If I remember from my days of studying astronomy in grade school - stars go through s life, which ends up as a large red star - before extinguishing. A star (of which our sun is one) expands and then cools (blue is hotter than white, yellow cooler & red cooler yet. Our sun will expand beyond Venus - don't think anyone will be around when this happens - now that is Global in fact Solar System wide Climate Change. It is interesting that Mars is also hotter now, just like Earth. The sun heats the planets in our solar system & there has been an increase in solar flares (this happens from time to time - it is cyclical).

Of course the mix of gases in the atmosphere of a planet also contributes to the heat on a given planet. When you breathe, you expel CO2 (Carbon Dioxide). Also the sheep in Australia and New Zealand are big contributors to CO2. Plants require CO2 to thrive. Without CO2, they would have nothing to synthesize and would die, & without the plants doing their little photo-synthesis we would not have Oxygen & the living creatures including mankind will die. Now CO (Carbon Monoxide) is poisonous to us, this is the pollutant of the combustion engine - which we see as SMOG. Over the years the automotive industry has reduced the CO emissions from automobiles and SMOG has been reduced or lightened (sometimes expanding further). At the same time we have a lot more automobiles operating.

The Kyoto Accord, which Gore signed when he was Vice President, was never ratified by the US Senate (at that time the Democrats controlled Congress - House & Senate). Yes Gore was leading the way - even back then - but to what? The destruction of the American & Western (including Australia in Western) Economies. Countries with the biggest pollution problems & fasted growing are exempt from the standards. Why? Big business is now going to these countries to produce most of what we buy - because of cheap labor and lack of standards.

I prefer to think of myself as a conservationist - most people I know that have ranches, farms, even timber harvesters believe that the land must be treated well, rested, crops rotated, replanted etc., and not have future usage drained out of it. Their future livelihood is at stake, and we have learned from the mistakes of the past.

This bit about having everyone replace their incandescent bulbs with florescent bulbs is almost laughable, when you consider that mercury is used in florescent bulbs. Mercury is a poison to fish and wildlife. They cannot just be thrown in the trash & a broken one is considered a bio-hazard. It is just like 20 years ago or so, when environmentalists pushed using plastic bags rather than paper bags - part of saving the forests. However, trees are a renewable resource, paper disintegrates and is good for mulching, etc. - while the plastic bag is a petroleum product from a non-renewable resource and does not breakdown in land fills.

This latest craze of using Corn to fill our gas tanks (Ethanol) is a disaster about to happen. Who is pushing it? Big Business - ADM (supermarket to the world). It is already having an effect on Mexico. Tortillas are the staple of the poor in Mexico - they are made of corn. Now that corn is being used to make Ethanol, the price has risen and corn used to feed animals and people is going up up up. The amount of energy used to make Ethanol from the corn and get it to market, barely covers the energy produced from Ethanol, meanwhile you are starving the poor and raising prices on food for everyone.

Environmentalist talk about renewable resources - Hydro-electric (but they want to remove dams because of the silt built up - affects endangers species) - Windmills (kills birds & rattles endangered species nesting sites) & Solar (no sunshine when it is raining or just overcast). They refused to talk about the 'N' word – Nuclear.

I suggest you read Patrick Moore's writings. He was the co-founder of Green Peace. He left, when he saw that Green Peace had been taken over by people who had a different agenda. You can probably see from above that the solutions offered don't solve the problem and in many cases further exasperate it.

Eve: you sound as though your interest is more than casual or just a citizen's hobby. Terrific posts. Are you familiar with the Stewards of the Range?

IAN - Yes & People for the USA (now part of the Grange) - they are property rights organization. I have attended a lecture by Patrick Moore.