You totally failed to grasp my meaning, but whatever.

The fact of the matter is that it doesn't really make that much difference how efficient those power plants are, or how conveniently timed car charging is. You are still continuing to support the coal, natural gas, or nuclear production of electricity. It's like saying you're not poisoning someone because instead of pouring a whole cup of cyanide into their drink, you're only adding a few drops. Electric vehicle users are still contributing to the use of fossil fuels, whether they like to admit it or not, and their holier-than-thou attitude about it is a major reason why many people refuse to join them.

I have also seen some studies that suggest that the production of electric vehicles causes more pollution than the production of traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. I'd like to see more research one way or the other on that before I'll take it as fact, but if it's true, it's kind of damning.

Every electric car owner I know is an elitist, snobbish asshole. I know there are genuinely good people out there who buy electric cars, but I haven't met any. I thought I was making a good choice buying an LEV with excellent fuel economy, but apparently that wasn't good enough because I didn't have the extra scratch to spend on a hybrid.

Personally I think the innovations in electric vehicles are fantastic, but the attitude that comes with it needs to go.

I'm just curious where you think the electricity comes from that you use to charge your scooter. Somewhere down the line, traditional fuel is being used.

I'm alright with admitting that I only grasp about 50% of any Hawking publication I've tried to read. It's fascinating stuff, but the math trips me up every time. Still, between his writing and Feynman's, I understand a hell of a lot more about how the universe works than I would have if I had just accepted my public school education as the be-all end-all of information.

But when Jade Goody died, humanity achieved a net gain.

The untimely demise of the mother of two young sons is not a boon to humanity, however much she may have irritated you or somehow symbolized the intellectual rot of our society to your spiteful little mind.

But hey, who cares about those two little boys? Clearly it's the good of the elitists who take reality television as a personal affront that matters.

You do realize that the Netherlands is roughly the size of two New Jerseys, right? You can't really compare the fuel consumption of a geographically small nation to a geographically large one. My friends who live in Finland are constantly complaining about how far it is from Helsinki to Tampere - about a hundred and ten miles. When I told them I drove from DC to Atlanta last year and it took ten and a half hours, they were boggled. Americans have some of the longest work commutes in the world. From what I can determine, the average Dutch commuter travels about 4-6km to work every day, frequently by bicycle, whereas the national average here is more than 25km. Of course we're going to consume more fuel.

If people were really that concerned about being "green," they would stop drinking coffee, regardless of what kind of container they were putting it in. Even in efficient coffee growing operations, they use a lot of arable land, water, and energy (labor, machinery) to simply grow the stuff. Then at some point it has to be shipped long distances, roasted, packaged, ground, brewed...Coffee is, generally speaking, one of the more energy-consuming caffeinated products on the market. So there's no honest way to justify your greenness based on the cup, when its contents are so very wasteful to produce.

The only difference is that in Richmond there's a higher prevailing wind, so it's not quite as bad. Still pretty miserable - I lived there for 17 years and remember many a childhood summer day when the sky would begin to darken and we would all PRAY for rain because it would cut the heat by a few degrees and make things bearable. I moved up to the northern part of the state for college and you would not believe what a difference five fewer degrees of average temperature makes...

Zotero was developed at my alma mater, and we were the guinea pigs for it. The program has improved quite a bit since its early stages. It still sometimes has trouble recognizing that something is research, but in the instances where Zotero doesn't automatically give you the choice to copy the citation you can make a snapshot of the page. It's a nifty little add-on. The only problem with it is that you can't carry your research history from one machine to another like you can with the Google utility. The solution suggested to us by the Zotero Evangelist (yes, that's his job title, I love it) was that we install Firefox on a flash drive and carry the whole program around with us. They're working on a more viable option.