Goreifying

[lurch70]

Negative. When you're out and about and you're thirsty, what the hell are you gonna do? Drive up to the mountains and drill your own well? Drive around looking for a water fountain that doesn't exist (well, at least around this city), no, you're gonna sip from the bottle of water you just bought so you can quench your thirst.

that might be true ... but I think a lot of the US missed this story from a few weeks ago ...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/07/27/pepsico.aquafina.reut/index.html?iref=newssearch

 

[dorian gray]

Negative. When you're out and about and you're thirsty, what the hell are you gonna do? Drive up to the mountains and drill your own well? Drive around looking for a water fountain that doesn't exist (well, at least around this city), no, you're gonna sip from the bottle of water you just bought so you can quench your thirst.

What'd did you do before bottled water?
Which brings up the somewhat related topic: I get sick of hearing people bitch about stuff for which a remedy has been around for only 50 years or so. Like down here, the big news story is people are hot and that we should feel sorry for people without A/C. Air conditioning is what? 50 years old? Humans existed for tens of thousands of years without A/C, furnaces, cars, oil, running water, electricity, the list goes on and on....

 

[dorian gray]

Lurch, you are the link-master

 

[dorian gray]

"from a spring" (a lie, btw).

.

 

[Reign in Acai]

Actually Sparkletts water >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Municipal Water. I don't know what the quality of H20 is over yonder in Nashville, but down here in the favelas of Los Angeles, the agua is of a brownish taint. I'll gladly spend some clams on water that has been adequately filtered via Reverse Osmosis, deionization, ultrafiltration, etc, which has been extracted from an aquifer, over free "spring" that has been used as a wading pool by Paco and Pepene in their re-enactment of crossing the Rio Grande.

 

[swizzlenuts]

I think environmentallists focus too much on the small stuff.
It doesn't add up to a hill of beans compared to the big stuff.
I mean, a single smokestack has an output equal to that of literally hundreds of thousands of cars.
You want to change stuff in any meaningful sense you have to go after big industry.

Speculation. Prove it.

I don't flush when I piss.
I take 5-6 minute showers.
I walk as much as I can.
I do use a fuckload of electricity though

 

[dorian gray]

Reverse osmosis wastes alot of water. It's like using a gas engine to make some gas.

 

[Reign in Acai]

I rarely buy new clothes.
I eat meat (culling the herd which keep bovine, fish, and fowl populations in check)
I drive a V4 car.
I reuse bottles, cups as much as possible.
I wash my underwear in the river.
I jack off in to the same sock. See above for cleaning method.
I am I and A is A.


Fuck I don't do much. Though I don't consider myself as much of a consumer as the next man. I make conscious decisions by golly!

 

[lurch70]

Lurch, you are the link-master

yeah, I read the NY Times and RC at the same time ... my brain is totally whacked when I attempt this ... hence don't do it often.

going back to water ... and to quote Lewis Black ... "since when does every person in Manhattan need a liter of water clutched under their arms as they leave their building ... you would think they are crossing the Mojave"

 

[dorian gray]

@ Jerry

I've never understood the liter of water thing either

 

[En Vind Av Sorg]

Lots of good things have been mentioned in this thread.
Other things such as using reusable containers to store food in, as opposed to plastic bags, is also pretty helpful.

For those of you living in large metropolitan areas, I dont blame you for not wanting to drink tap water. I can't stand the taste of flouride with water. Water filters for taps (such as Brita Filters) are becoming cheaper nowdays, something to consider.

 

[En Vind Av Sorg]

I also suggest more Ecoterrorism.

 

[Reign in Acai]

I also suggest more Ecoterrorism.

I seriously approve of this.

 

[lurch70]

on a somewhat related tangent ... the other day I was out shopping for new sneakers. Needed something comfortable as I am off my crutches for awhile now but my foot still get swollen sometimes like an old woman's ...

anyways ... looked at a bunch of them ... Puma, Adidas, Nike ... the usual suspects, but a pair of New Balance were the ones that fit best ... ALSO ... big red label on the box ... MANUFACTURED IN THE USA with a short sales pitch. And for the first time in a long time it swayed me to buy American, especially with all this China fiasco out there.

 

[lurch70]

For those of you living in large metropolitan areas, I dont blame you for not wanting to drink tap water. I can't stand the taste of flouride with water. Water filters for taps (such as Brita Filters) are becoming cheaper nowdays, something to consider.

NY water is awesome though ... I personally don't like purified water by those water filters

 

[dorian gray]

Fuck China. I try to buy everything American-made. This has proved somewhat impossible though.

 

[Reign in Acai]

Chinks smell. I can put a label on the aroma, but I reckon that the odor is a cross between ginger and stink finger.

 

[NAD]

I'm going to LOL when China takes down the US, with our own dollar. I mean come on, that's fucking hi-lar-i-ous.

Wednesday's article in the Daily Telegraph titled "China Threatens 'Nuclear Option' of Dollar Sales" strikes a raw political and emotional nerve in the U.S. – coming just a day before stock markets around the world dipped – and sets the stage for another demon to accompany terrorism in the minds of many Americans.

The "nuclear option" of dollar sales would be devastating for China to actually implement. And so this option has always been held as a threat, a political flag to ensure a better position when bargaining with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson over tariffs, investment regulations, WTO requirements, currency flexibility, and a host of other issues. According to the Telegraph, China has suddenly waved the flag in Paulson's face.

Paulson is an old China hand who, like many who have spent a while here, finds an absolutist, black-and-white approach to anything quite inappropriate. That approach is wildly successful in Germany and perhaps Japan. But not in China, where many things, especially business, are made into a longer and more convoluted process than otherwise necessary.

The Chinese love Paulson. He apologizes for their step-by-step approach to the RMB issue and criticizes hawks within the U.S. establishment calling for tariffs to force China's hand. Paulson's accommodating approach allows Beijing to move at its own pace and provides them with the chance to throw out a threat – global financial collapse, for example. Anyone who has done business in China knows that one needs both the Buddha Palm of soft negotiation and the Iron Hand of hard threats and shoves to get things going. Paulson represents the Palm. Who wields the Hand?

There is constant and sharp debate on both sides of the Pacific concerning China's huge trade surplus and America's huge trade deficit. China's undervalued currency is often described as the most vital link between the two – and therefore a call for an appreciation of the RMB is touted as the solution, if there is a solution at all. America's fiscal failure may be a moot point.

The current political debate hinges on Apocalypse Now-style proclamations and simultaneous posturing for advantages at the economic table. The reality is that China's mercantilist, export-oriented economy is in the midst of a progression we have seen before in Asia. Virtually all of the Asian tigers began their economic miracles as kittens suckling at the teat of the American consumer. The more successful of the tigers developed their own industries and global companies and in turn found undeveloped markets of their own to exploit. All of them are sitting on vast stores of dollars. The addition of China has made the issue acute.

Over the past year, in a series of government-sponsored stories in the China Daily, Beijing has pledged to appreciate the RMB steadily over a longer period and eventually create a freely exchangeable currency. At the same time, China's manufacturing base is moving away from the coast and into the hinterland. The wave of export-based riches moves west and is, in theory, replaced by service-based industries. China hopes to stall the RMB adjustment until it is completely ready.

This development is visible here in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province. Intel, IBM, Agilent, Motorola, Microsoft, Oracle – all have set up manufacturing and outsourcing operations of some kind, and a slew of smaller manufacturers – metal stamping from Yonkers, electric bikes from Berlin, printing presses from Japan – have set up shop here. Sichuan province is investing billions of RMB in the IT, education, and tourism sectors to help keep the ball rolling. They have a lot to learn here about BPO, eco-tourism, and even new teaching methods. But in Chengdu the powers that be are charging headlong into change.

Determining China's geopolitical and national goals can help predict whether or not Beijing will cooperate with U.S. Treasury officials and reevaluate its currency, thereby making Chinese exports more expensive and lowering U.S. debt. Almost 200 years ago, China played the same game with the British empire, which resulted in the Opium Wars and the occupation of key Chinese ports. The humiliating defeats led directly to a national leadership crisis and the disintegration of the Chinese nation. A weak China was easy prey for Japan.

With the British, the Chinese too stalled and stalled, building up a large trade surplus through protectionist and mercantilist policies, until the imbalance in silver led to war. The Chinese repeatedly appealed to Britain's morals but never gave the British what they truly wanted: market access. Will history repeat itself with the American empire? It already has, but the conditions are much different and so is the outcome.

The U.S., too, should have the foresight to avert an economic collapse and adapt to a changing world. But the Bush administration will press for protectionist tariffs and an appreciated RMB before it reconsiders its expensive war-making and addresses America's true needs. It is in no one's interest to have the American economy melt down and take half the world with it. China must develop away from mercantilism and cheap exports, and the U.S. must curb its credit-mad consumption culture and expensive adventures abroad. For the sake of world peace, let's hope they do.

"Damn you chinks for investing in our shit and then... using our own... methods... against us. Hmm. Dang."

New Balance are great, those are the only shoes I've worn for many years now. Unless you count Birkenstocks, Docs, and hiking boots. Which I don't, and I'm good at math.

...

What was the question?

 

[dorian gray]

It won't be funny when the entire global economy collapses because of two simple things: the greed of American hillbillies AND China's bizarre unwillingness to revalue it's currency. What money do the Chinese think they're sitting on? It's the dollar. When it isn't worth shit, guess what? Neither are they.

 

[Reign in Acai]

PARIS - Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane.


The European Space Agency said nearly 200 satellite photos this month taken together showed an ice-free passage along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, and ice retreating to its lowest level since such images were first taken in 1978.

The waters are exposing unexplored resources, and vessels could trim thousands of miles from Europe to Asia by bypassing the Panama Canal. The seasonal ebb and flow of ice levels has already opened up a slim summer window for ships.

Leif Toudal Pedersen, of the Danish National Space Center, said that Arctic ice has shrunk to some 1 million square miles. The previous low was 1.5 million square miles, in 2005.

"The strong reduction in just one year certainly raises flags that the ice (in summer) may disappear much sooner than expected," Pedersen said in an ESA statement posted on its Web site Friday.

Pedersen said the extreme retreat this year suggested the passage could fully open sooner than expected — but ESA did not say when that might be. Efforts to contact ESA officials in Paris and Noordwik, the Netherlands, were unsuccessful Saturday.

A U.N. panel on climate change has predicted that polar regions could be virtually free of ice by the summer of 2070 because of rising temperatures and sea ice decline, ESA noted.

Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States are among countries in a race to secure rights to the Arctic that heated up last month when Russia sent two small submarines to plant its national flag under the North Pole. A U.S. study has suggested as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden in the area.

Environmentalists fear increased maritime traffic and efforts to tap natural resources in the area could one day lead to oil spills and harm regional wildlife.

Until now, the passage has been expected to remain closed even during reduced ice cover by multiyear ice pack — sea ice that remains through one or more summers, ESA said.

Researcher Claes Ragner of Norway's Fridtjof Nansen Institute, which works on Arctic environmental and political issues, said for now, the new opening has only symbolic meaning for the future of sea transport.

"Routes between Scandinavia and Japan could be almost halved, and a stable and reliable route would mean a lot to certain regions," he said by phone. But even if the passage is opening up and polar ice continues to melt, it will take years for such routes to be regular, he said.

"It won't be ice-free all year around and it won't be a stable route all year," Ragner said. "The greatest wish for sea transportation is streamlined and stable routes."

"Shorter transport routes means less pollution if you can ship products from A to B on the shortest route," he said, "but the fact that the polar ice is melting away is not good for the world in that we're losing the Arctic and the animal life there."

The opening observed this week was not the most direct waterway, ESA said. That would be through northern Canada along the coast of Siberia, which remains partially blocked.