Dear Australia,

I, an American Citizen and veteran of the Marine Corps where I served an an infantry machine gunner, and filling billets including intelligence analyst and company clerk, sincerely apologize for this.

Although this isn't my fault (for I was not allowed to vote while I was in the service. This is my opinion, I found it too much of a coincidence that my ballot and that of a friend from the same state arrived exactly 1 month to the day after it was supposed to be postmarked for return. Twice.), you can bet I will vote this round, and will not be voting for anyone that is currently in office, for they all allow these things to happen, which is an embarrassment to us all.

I'm E-mailing my senators and congressman now. I have other concerns to raise with them anyway, like why my state charges sales tax on private sales of vehicles (double taxation) and why they want to charge tax on the Real Market Value of said vehicle even though it was sold for 1/3 that price (taxing money not spent).

Sincerely,
Troubled American Citizen

P.S. Are you guys still open for citizenship? At times it's more prudent to abandon a sinking vessel rather than continue trying to fix what is so severely broken.

I will be a chrome user as soon as I can find an add-on that supports Opera-style tabs.

The only reason I turned away from Opera was becaues it's so standards-compliant it breaks a lot of the webpages I need to use. And that isn't a dis on Opera...

Because I can shoot them with a bow. That's pretty much it.

Irrigation canals DO support aquatic life. Where do you think they get the water from? Rivers.

It isn't necessarily vital aquatic life, but then where do you draw the line on vital vs. non-vital life?

The canals in Eastern Washington provide me with some of the best bow-fishing for carp in the region. Even the wasteways (surplus water from agricultural processes) have plentiful fish. And not just carp.

They're basically diverted rivers. That being said, turbines placed in irrigation canals will have less impact than those placed in full rivers. But even the impact of a full hydroelectric facility is manageable. Take the Columbia River, we still have record salmon runs from time to time.

One other hurdle with hydroelectric is that it is not considered renewable, so if there are mandates to require x% of electricity from renewable sources, hydro ain't gonna fit the bill due to lame liberals that deem is non-renewable.

Being a fan of hydroelectric power, I'm well aware of the issues on both sides of the argument, and still favor it. But I think what you pointed out on the latter portion of your post needs to be made more public, as it is an even better solution.

How do you get such a slanted view of things? I have no problem walking up to an officer with a rifle. No one I know would be hesitant to walk up to a police officer bearing a firearm. Rifles aren't dangerous when walking up to a police officer, they have time to react, so they aren't terribly worried. I have a loaded gun in my truck at all times and both times I've been pulled over I told the officer I had a loaded gun in the truck (concealed) and neither of them cared much or asked to see it. The only way your statement could be generally true is if you walked up to law enforcement with a rifle in a threatening manner, which is just plain dumb.

Maybe in a big city your claim that "If you come too close to law enforcement with something resembling a rifle, be prepared to be in a very sticky situation," might have some validity, but people in cities are uptight panicky assholes.

Yes, I know more than half our country's population lives in cities...that explains our political situation as well.

What?

You lost me at "big breasted."

Where do I sign up?

Now now, we know that prior art doesn't matter anymore. Remember our awesomely wonderful patent reform? http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/09/09/0042242/patent-reform-bill-passes-senate. Amazon is the first to file, so obviously they retain all the rights!

Of course I didn't RTFAs

That's where the cracking and polymerization come into play. That's what modern distillation gives us, the ability to do that. It still costs more energy to do so, and would be more efficient to not do so.

Diesel engines weren't originally intended to run on vegetable oil. They were invented using kerosene (mostly). One of Rudolph Diesel's dreams was to have them available to farmers which ran on peanut oil. One of his demonstrations was running the engine on peanut oil to prove that it could use vegetable oil.

Petroleum was cheaper, so the diesel engine was modified for tighter clearances that petroleum diesel fuel allowed, and the engine became too "tight" for vegetable oil.

The engine wasn't DESIGNED or originally intended to run on vegetable oil, but it was one of the desired fuels for the engine after it was created.

Switching to biodiesel is a great step forward. Biodiesel reduces ALL harmful emissions of a diesel engine except possibly NOx. NOx can go up if cylinder temperatures get too high, but if cylinder temperatures are kept in check (which is a good thing to do, because high cylinder temperatures = high exhaust gas temperatures, and high EGT is bad for a turbocharger) then the NOx is about the same as conventional diesel. I'm not sure about the exhaust of straight vegetable oil, however.

I've done research, and it would be better for our economy to use more diesel. Better for the economy, better for oil consumption, better for the environment. The reason is this: in a barrel of oil, x% of it gets easily refined into gasoline, y% into diesel (I don't have the numbers handy on this computer, but a quick Google search can turn them up for the intrigued mind). Our country fuel use is >x% gasoline, y% diesel. We make up the difference in gasoline need by cracking heavier oils and polymerizing lighter oils. This takes more energy. It can easily be seen that if we got out fuel use to more closely match the ratio that gasoline and diesel are easily refined, we would have significant energy savings. Thus more diesel engines, raise the demand for diesel, get closer to that y%, and cost of fuel will probably drop because we are meeting the supply more directly. Then again, prices will probably rise anyway, just because they can and we'll pay.

Tune how much fuel is injected, how many injections per cycle, how long the injections take place. You can get higher-performance injectors, pumps, increase the airflow through the engine...there's all sorts of things to tune in a diesel engine. A properly tuned diesel won't emit black soot, runs cooler than a comparable gas engine thus has higher energy efficiency. An improperly tuned engine (injecting too much fuel, or at the wrong time) can emit tons of black soot.

I noticed that holding the gun sideways did cause it to rotate in the same direction as when it was fired upright, respective to its orientation (in other words, fired upright, it rotates up; fired sideways, it rotates sideways).

In a union you can't be fired for poor performance, the union will go on strike. Unless everyone in the union doesn't like you (which doesn't have anything to do with job performance). Straight from my buddy in the electrical union: if a worker sucks, he gets laid off from his current employer and put back on the list for employment. He never gets fired because the union will strike UNLESS he is an asshole and the union doesn't like him. Obviously this won't be true for all unions, but it is true for every one I've looked at. Unions kill productivity and the companies.

It did the same to Ford. They just brought in a new CEO, Alan Mulally, who was from outside the industry. He noticed how screwed up everything was and mortgaged practically everything Ford had to stay afloat.

Dear [Redacted],

Thank you for contacting me this week about the internet streaming of copyrighted material. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

I would like to give you an update as to where the proposed legislation is in the process. The Protect IP Act was scheduled to go to the Senate floor for a procedural vote on January 23, 2011. Due to the effective grassroots advocacy and public outcry against the bill, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has pulled the proposed legislation from the floor calendar.

I appreciate Senator Reid's decision to postpone a vote on the PROTECT IP Act. America's economy thrives on innovation and freedom of speech. We can't afford to rush an Internet policy that could trample on our innovation economy. This week, the American people clearly spoke and their voices were heard. As we move forward, I'll continue to advocate for a policy that protects both creative content and online freedom of speech.

Now, I encourage Congress to consider the OPEN Act, which addresses illegal piracy and security while keeping the Internet open for free speech and innovation. The OPEN Act would build on the existing legal framework for resolving unfair acts in the importation of articles, including those that infringe a valid and enforceable U.S. patent, copyright, or trademark. Through the International Trade Commission, violations of digital trade can be investigated and websites found to be "willfully" and "primarily" infringing on copyright material can be shut down. The ITC will create a transparent and adversarial process where all parties would receive due process and IP rules can be consistently applied. Neither the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House nor the Protect IP Act in the Senate allow for similar due process.

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. You may also be interested in signing up for periodic updates for Washington State residents. If you are interested in subscribing to this update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov./ Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
Maria Cantwell
United States Senator

For future correspondence with my office, please visit my website at
http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/

Also see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2626382&cid=38739518 and note I never once mentioned "internet streaming of copyrighted material," so they are canned responses, but heartening nonetheless.