Which part is bs? That Comcast was exempt from ACA mandates; or that they are big Obama supporters?

I find that hilarious.

He's sorry about that, so he's giving you extra time this year to avoid the fine for next year.

(And if you sign up, get a policy number, and never pay a premium; that will still get you out of the fine next year. See if I'm right.)

It's a big tent.

The only thing they all have in common is that they don't want to be oppressed by you leftists.

We have refineries on the Gulf coast.

Are you saying they can't use this oil? They take in oil from overseas now. But you're saying the Canadian oil has to go overseas?

Also, why can't we just do business with Canada? Does there have to be a national interest in it? If they get more out of it than we do, and we just make a little money off the deal; is that so bad?

The delay is it's own reward.

There are several (more) lawsuits against the pipeline now than there were, in South Dakota and Nebraska, meaning a minimum of 2 years now before anything could move. Even if everything was fast tracked. At least one case is going to the SD Supreme Court.

They've killed it already.

The Republicans are used to losing; I think they mean to lose; they like being the 'valiant opposition'. Losers. The real loser here is Canada. They could have been selling that oil at $120 if we had let them build it when they started. They're probably just going to cancel it, losing millions in prepaid stuff. Also, they already built the bottom half. Now, they still have to start on one over the mountains. I'd call that Royally Screwed.

Hope it was worth fucking over Canada just to beat the Republicans one more time.

Relatively expensive fracking is, but not that expensive.

The Saudis have been soaking us for years. Along with Russia. (Even now, Rosneft? takes revenue in dollars and pays expenses and salaries in rubles.)

North Dakota has changed that equation, and it's looking like about $60 a barrel right now. Even the tar sands make money well under $100.

So it won't go back to where it was for a while. (knock on wood...)

I love how, in the meantime, we're sticking it to Canada too.

Apparently, their politicians don't have a big problem being our political football, but eventually Canadians are going to start taking it personally. Their media will play it up, politicians will then use it, and then they'll say fuck it.

They could build the shit to deal with that oil if they had to, but they were under the impression that we had refineries willing to buy it. Heh, we even got them to build the pipeline.

Obama does one thing very well. He beats Republicans. Every time. At any cost.

Wow. Sad really. Desperate. And embarrassing, conflating astrology and astronomy in a real bill. So, even sadder.

But, they are not really trying to oppress me. They are simply acting out. Taken at face value, that has to be the silliest, most ridiculous bill I have ever read. But don't forget, they mean for it to be that way. (Thinking about it, they may have meant to slip the astrology reference in, but that's a bit more cunning than I want to give them credit for.)

I like the gas of life thing. We are carbon based units, that need oxygen to survive. So, everything you need in a single molecule. What's not to love? Of course I hate it, if you are saying it with a straight face to young people, who can be ill equipped to glean the irony and sarcasm.

There is only one answer to this "debate", and I'm waiting here, like forever.

The answer is to shift some of the tax burden to carbon. Leave the whole more taxes/less taxes political debate out of it. Politically, that would mean:

1. Pretty much giving in to the Republicans on income taxes. A harshly simplified tax code (bigger standard deduction; less deductions), that tops out at 25%. That includes corporate taxes.

- A working man with a simple tax return gets a somewhat noticeable tax cut.
- Romney people pay a bit more than their current 15ish%, but they get to have their money afterwards, instead of locking it up in tax free this and Caymans that.
- Established, normal business, even big ones, see a small tax cut. In many cases, the savings of easier compliance outweighs the tax cut.
- New money, liquid money, and booming business would pay more; how much more depends on how bad they were fleecing the system before.

We are finding the other side of the Laffner curve; we tweak those rates/deductions I described to approach 75% of current revenues, leaving a good amount of tax money on the table. Republicans across the land are juicing themselves to sign that.

But there's a price.

2. 10% carbon tax (to start). Straight up simple, hopefully with natural gas favored somewhat over coal. With the option to go to 15% after the impact is assessed (there will be worriers). And actually, once they have broken that ice, there is no 15% limit.

There's no getting out of it; the tax is assessed at the source; well or mine; included in the wholesale price; and all alternative energy instantly costs that much less. Carbon demand is fairly inelastic, which ironically is what the liberals are actually trying to fix, so of all the things to tax, that is a really good one, and doubly so.

With that, we have more revenue by maybe a half trillion, the temporary injection of big money long held in Ireland, and real progress on kicking carbon. You might think the libs gave up a whole lot in the tax code up there, but in reality, they've tricked the conservatives into not only a big old tax hike, but also into signing on to a real solution for climate change.

A good time to do this is when the price of oil is tanking, btw.

Seems like a slam dunk to me. A leader might get his head on Mt. Rushmore. Or her head. It'd be cool to have a hot chick on Mt. Rushmore. I'm waiting.

You sort of answered your own question.

One has to assume, that if and when we started large scale carbon sequestration, that we would still be using carbon fuels (jet fuel and gas jeeps are going to be with us for a long time). So, instead of burying it, we would sell it to Exxon, who uses it in place of freshly extracted crude. Or maybe Exxon would be the one doing it; it is their core business after all.

But yes, eventually, we'd have to bury it or use it for something besides fuel.

Plastic!!! --/georgecarlin>

Yeah.

There is one thing that could be done. Pull CO2 out of the atmosphere on a large scale. That would take enormous amounts of carbon-free electricity.

It would almost be like paying interest on a loan. Here's to hoping we can afford the payments when they come due.

I had thought of that, and thought I was crazy.

Change the name to Palestine.

Instant peace?

Don't need all that.

Here's a person of interest you know nothing about. Happened to be in the area on surveillance cams when shit went down.

Does he have a vpn? Yes?

Does he have a job that needs a vpn? Bank, Oil company, network admin for 500 users (how many of those in Iran?)...

No?

Then he's up to something.

Who hopefully don't read slashdot.

You're not hearing me. The "location" of that mass is obviously not in the center of the singularity, given the rotation rates. Of course there is no such thing as a center of a singularity, it has no volume at all, so I'm not sure why people would expect gravity, which depends on mass in a 4d manifold, to emanate from it.

(But dang, flamebait, really? It's a science discussion; it can't be flamebait. What are we supposed to talk about here then? We want hundreds of posts that all simply repeat the current theory?)