Jimbo

A sentiment that just cannot be fully appreciated until you've been there. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

These are extremists who are willing to go well outside the bounds of the law, or even civil disobedience. I have no sympathy for them at all. None. By the way - it took about two minutes on Google to find these references, I didn't have to dig at all. The point is this, if this were a responsible group working within the bounds of the law, or even advocating simple civil disobedience, it would have been a bit more difficult to dig up the dirt. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

CrossKeys is right in the middle of NYC and DC. Check the CK Bulletin Board to find out what's going on when you'll be there. Aside from CK, there's the Ranch - just a few hours outside of NYC, and Skydive Orange is down near DC somewhere. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Dictionary.com: Laudable - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

It's a neat idea, but can you imagine the consequences of doubling the gas tax right now? I could be wrong, but I think you'd fuck the economy good by doing that. To answer the original question of what will it take to move the American consumer to alternate fuel sources - I say fuel efficient cars that don't suck. As I mentioned in my original post (I think I did anyhow) diesel will be a great gap fuel until hybrid, electric, or hydrogen cars are perfected. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

I don't think that you have to be a soldier to criticize a soldier's actions, but it would lend credibility to your argument. If you don't know what they've been through, what they saw, and their state of mind at the time, then you're really missing a big part of the picture. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Norway, Denmark, and Poland all have troops in Iraq - at least they did at one time. Poland even headed up an entire division. One could argue that we do it to preserve the security of our country. Affecting the power of other nations is, at times, in our best interests. Sometimes history shows that it wasn't, but I doubt that we ever went in there thinking - "hey, this will fuck us good at home!". Business, economics, and money - if our economy collapsed it would be catastrophic. Yeah - sometimes we need the world to do things for our benefit. It might be ugly, but it's ultimately necessary. Do we always get it right? Nope. But we're doing what we think is necessary to preserve our way of life. Nice idea, but hardly practical. The people at home are affected by the people outside of our borders on a daily basis. It would not be in our best interests to simply close up shop. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

That is absolutely correct, but I'll bet you that as long as we keep focusing the effort on tiny, underpowered, and unluxerious cars that you'll never see widespread adoption. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Fuel efficient cars that don't suck. As I mentioned in my original post, people want cars that a big, luxerious, and powerful. We shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other, and I do believe that in time we will have the fuel efficient cars that we desire. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Krispy Kreme donuts rock! I went to a 4th of July party last year - by 8:30AM we were eating Krispy Kreme and drinking Mimosas. It was a good day.

Hey Wendy, I don't know that we differ there. I understand that everything that they do isn't perfect, but considering the timeline that we had to create the department, I think that they're doing a reasonable job. It is my hope that this department will mature, discarding the practices that don't work, and expanding on the ones that do. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Interesting. I saw a special on PBS the other night about alternative-fuel vehicles (that's sort of what piqued my interest) - and they suggested that the european countries has less strict regulations regarding emissions than the US. They cited that as the reason that most of the euro-diesels aren't yet making headway into the US auto market. Now, they spoke of the european countries as a whole - not individually, so it's entirely possible that England does have stricter requirements than we do. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Thanks, that's what I thought, but just wanted to be sure. Any idea why the biodiesel fuel is more efficient than conventional diesel? - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

The average US citizen may not be, but the US government is. It is my understanding that most of the european diesels are too dirty to run in the US. Bill, is this correct? Thanks, Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

You must have one of the smaller models. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Agreed. I think it's generally accepted that criminals prey on the weak. If they're no longer sure who is and isn't one of the weak, well, that sort of changes things. We'll never eliminate crime, but if criminals aren't sure who will and who won't shoot back, we might make a dent in violent crime - we'll probably trade it for property crimes, but really, that's OK in my book. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

As I understand it, one of the biggest problems with moving to diesel today - at least in the US - is that the emissions don't meet even today's standards. However, as I mentioned in my original post, it seems that there are a few ongoing projects aimed at overcoming that problem. I think that (bio)diesel would be a good gap fuel between conventional gasoline engines and gas/electric hybrids. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

5-10% improvement in MPG over what? Gasoline, or traditional diesel? - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

It is at this point that I believe the gas/electric hybrid will really take off. The majority of car buyers in the US right now just aren't willing to sacrifice the room, luxery, and performance of their gasoline powered vehicles. Really, who can blame them? That's my $0.02, as I said before, I'd love to hear more. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Come on, Bill. This thread was tailor made for you! I have to admit, lately I've been somewhat fascinated by the idea of alternative fuel and fuel efficient transportation. The current gas prices certainly have something to do with it, but mostly it's just new to me. So, I'm wondering, what will be the evolution of these vehicles? As far as I know the current technologies are as follows: ethonal diesel and biodiesel compressed natural gas gas/electric electric hydrogen/electric (burning hydrogen) hydrogen What else? Did I forget anything? Anyhow, following is a quick rundown of the technology as I understand it. From what I understand, pure ethonal is out, but can be used to suppliment gasoline. Diesel is good and I'd like to see more of it. I understand that they're working on a 'soot filter' to clean the emissions. Compressed natural gas seems to be popular with fleet vehicles, though I've never seen a consumer car running on CNG, or a public station to dispense the product. Gas/electric hybrids seem to be gaining ground, albiet slowly. Pure electric, while neat in concept seems to suffer from limited range. Hydrogen/electric (an internal combustian engine burning hydrogen) - I don't understand enough about this technology to comment. And finally, pure hydrogen - sounds nifty - but is it really practical? Aside from the problem of producing hydrogen, what do those of us in the colder climates do when our hydrogen cars turn the roads into the worlds largest slip and slide? What about widespread adoption? It is my belief that to gain widespread adoption of what I'll simply call alternative-fuel transportation, that we need to keep the cars we have today, but replace the power-plant. Not many people want the very basic models that comprise the gas/electric hybrid fleet - probably the most environmentally friendly of what is available today. Why can't we have larger cars with more power and more luxery? I realize that these cars wouldn't get the milage that a tiny car would, but any improvement is better than none, right? Diesel seems the logical choice to fill that gap, but I think that there's a stigma attached to diesel that it's noisy and only meant for school busses and OTR trucks. The other technologies seem to far off right now to really comment on. That's my mostly coherent ramblings on the subject of alternative fuel vehicles. What do you think? - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

Laws designed to prevent people from being dragged to death just because they’re black is all about feelings and has nothing to do with safey??? Stay on track here, Keith. We can scroll up a few posts and see where (A) Andy pointed out that this is indeed all about free speech, and (B) you agreed. Again, this is about freedom of expression. Actually, I don't see anyone passing laws to legalize hate, quite the contrary in fact, they seem to be passing laws to criminalize the expression of hate, in other words, freedom of expression. You don't have a problem with that? - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

I'll tell ya, these people are in an impossible position. If they successfully protect the United States from every terrorist attack they will be seen as unnecessary. If a terrorist attack makes it to US soil, they will be seen as asleep on the job. I don't envy their position at all. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

OK - So, uh, a law aimed at protecting your FEELINGS isn't based on emotion? - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

It's not about being pissed off, or not. It's about the rules of engagement and whether or not the action was reasonable at the time. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

The last time I donated to the United Way I was given more than a few choices of where I wanted that money to go. - Jim "Like" - The modern day comma Good bye, my friends. You are missed.