German Government Agrees To Ban Fracking Indefinitely (reuters.com) 180
An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, the German coalition government agreed to ban fracking for shale gas indefinitely. Reuters reports: "Test drilling will be allowed but only with the permission of the respective state government, officials said. German industry is keen to keep the door open to fracking -- which involves blasting chemicals and water into rocks to release trapped gas -- arguing it could help lower energy costs, but opposition is strong in the country, where a powerful green lobby has warned about possible risks to drinking water. If the law is approved by parliament, Germany will follow France, which has banned fracking, whereas Britain allows it subject to strict environmental and safety guidelines. The two parties agreed on Tuesday to an indefinite ban, but the compromise legislation calls for the German parliament to reassess whether the decision is still valid in 2021, said Thomas Oppermann, who heads the SPD's parliamentary group. CDU officials confirmed that a compromise had been reached. Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) criticized the proposal and said that by setting a date for a fresh look, the coalition had essentially agreed to allow fracking in five years." Last year, Bloomberg published an article making the case that the U.S. must consider the earthquake situation in Oklahoma a national security threat.
Battlestar Gallactica (Score:4, Funny)
Who'd of thought that frak would turn out to be a dirtier word that fuck.
Frak the fraking frakkers!
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get fraked you mother frakker.
Think of the poor overworked unicorns! (Score:5, Insightful)
No nukes, no fracking. What are German Greens going to say when Ruhrkohle, or whatever it's being called now, starts digging the giant lignite pits it has long planned to fill in for the now totally hollowed-out national baseload?
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No, again, of course. No to anything but Russian natural gas imports.
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And imported French power.
Re:Think of the poor overworked unicorns! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Think of the poor overworked unicorns! (Score:5, Informative)
At least that's what the government publishes [www.bmwi.de].
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Germany's imports of gas are going down: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
Part of their plan for transition is to reduce energy consumption, e.g. by insulating homes so they need less heating and cooling. Every year they are getting less dependent on gas.
At the moment Germany imports about 35% of its gas from Russia because it is cheap. However, they have made sure they are not dependent on any one supplier, as any sensible government would. They get the rest from other European suppliers like Norway.
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At the moment Germany imports about 35% of its gas from Russia because it is cheap
Nope.
We import gas from russia, because we get it more or less for free. In the 1970s we made a 50 years contract with russia, Germany delivered pipes to connect Russia to Europe, in return we got gas as payment. Or in other words a super cheap gas contract as payment.
Probably some German who knows more about it can put in the details?
However, they have made sure they are not dependent on any one supplier, as any sensible g
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At the moment Germany imports about 35% of its gas from Russia because it is cheap
Nope.
We import gas from russia, because we get it more or less for free. In the 1970s we made a 50 years contract with russia, Germany delivered pipes to connect Russia to Europe, in return we got gas as payment. Or in other words a super cheap gas contract as payment.
That's exactly what I said. You even put it in bold. Germany has a deal that gets it cheap gas from Russia, it's not that it absolutely has to import it from there and nowhere else for some reason.
Germany takes a pragmatic approach. No point shutting down that link and further alienating Russia, that won't help anyone. But also be prepared in case they turn it off at the other end.
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They don't really need to. The Saudi money is enough.
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yes, lets just completely ignore the massive solar infrastructure already in place in Germany and set to continue expanding. Germany, a country further north than the US yet with a much larger installed solar area and larger portion of energy delivered from it.
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You are pretty dumb.
What are German Greens going to say when Ruhrkohle, or whatever it's being called now, starts digging They need a permit for that, too. So likely: njiet.
the giant lignite pits it has long planned to fill Exhausted pits are refilled, or converted to lakes or simply reforrested.
in for the now totally hollowed-out national baseload?
What has base load to do with that?
Probably you should look up what base load means. Germany has a base load demand of about 40% of peak. How should that ever
As a BSG fan.... (Score:2)
All I can do is read that headline and giggle...
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XD
Putin rejoices (Score:4, Interesting)
The alternative to fracking is buying more gas from Russia's Gazprom.
Maybe. But buying stuff from an aggressor is certainly increasing a national security threat. Does Germany believe, Putin will be satisfied with Ukraine and the Baltic states?
The way the rest of the world believed, throwing Czechoslovakia to Germany will bring "peace for our time [wikipedia.org]"?
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The alternative to fracking is buying more gas from Russia's Gazprom.
Or they could do what we will all to do eventually, which is to 1) cut back on our energy wastage and 2) develop renewable energy asap. When America uses - how much? - 15 times or even more energy per person than the average person in a developing country, then there clearly is some scope for saving energy. Even in Europe we don't waste as much as Americans do - and our living standard is certainly comparable; and some would say better in many respects.
As for whether renewable energy is ever going to be fea
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2) develop renewable energy asap
Germany was the world leader in renewable energy, until our government decided to shoot the whole thing in the knee. I'm quite certain bribes and promises of well-paid board positions were involved.
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But buying stuff from an aggressor
So we should stop buying stuff from Saudi Arabia (currently invading Jemen) immediately? I'm for it. From the USA of course, don't even have enough space here to list all the countries they have bombed and invaded in the past 50 years.
Russia? An aggressor? Sorry, which parallel universe do you live in?
Does Germany believe, Putin will be satisfied with Ukraine and the Baltic states?
How would the USA react if, say, Mexiko would join an economic and military alliance lead by Russia? Wait, we don't have to speculate, we know what would happen, because there is Cuba.
Actually, we should specu
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Ukraine was part of the Soviet union, never part of Russia. Russians are confused about the difference.
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The difference is that Texas actually is part of America, same as Alaska.
Stop trying to be smart. You're just embarrassing yourself.
The reason that Russia has to accept NATO on its borders is that it LOST THE COLD WAR. Get over it already and accept your role as 3rd world resource extraction center. Like most of Africa.
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It never was Russian.
Way to go off on a tangent.
If you switch on your brain you will see that the difference between Russia and the USSR is not the core of the argument I'm making.
The USA is, as we are writing this, moving armed forces into countries bordering Russia. I ask you again: What would happen if Russia did the same? You think US media and politics would shrug and say "well, Canada and Mexiko are souvereign nations, if they think this is in their best interest, we're ok with that?"
Of course not. There would be a media
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But buying stuff from an aggressor is certainly increasing a national security threat.
If I lived in an area that was experiencing fracking-induced earthquakes, I would probably be overwhelmed by the devil's bargain I would have to strike: keep living there, and probably lose everything to an earthquake (which isn't an insurable loss anymore just about anywhere). Or support the movement to stop fracking, and support an evil empire (which may or may not ever affect me, but would weigh heavily on my moral conscience).
Fracking is going to depress property values in the affected areas, so moving
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yes. its a totally binary decision.
because we're just gonna completely ignore the massive solar infrastructure already in place in Germany and set to continue expanding.
Germany, a country further north than the US yet with a much larger installed solar area and larger portion of energy delivered from it.
because that's just how Mi rolls.
Re:Putin rejoices (Score:4, Informative)
The alternative to fracking is buying more gas from Russia's Gazprom.
Germany is reducing its gas usage year by year, so how should we need to "buy more gas"?
On the other hand Germany is world wide leader in techniques that are similar to fracking, we do that since the 1950s.
The ban is about "shale gases", which is a different kind of fracking. So if there are engineers who know about the problems regarding "frackings" it is the german ones.
If we would do shale gas fracking we would do it for export, likely. Not to use it. Actually the german gas market is rather small.
Does Germany believe, Putin will be satisfied with Ukraine and the Baltic states?
No we don't believe that. But political problems have to be solved with political solutions. Not by stepping back from a 50 year old contract about gas deliveries that is to our favour!
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1950s is very late to the fracking game.
It's been done for 100+ years. The environmentalists found a new boogie man about 10 years ago and act like fracking is something new.
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except that chamberlain gets a bad rap from people (like you) who only learned the surface of history, and not the rest of it.
like the fact that chamberlain didn't actually believe it was a lasting peace and immediately began ramping up the british industry for the coming conflict.
he knew it would be only temporary at best. but he also knew that his country, still reeling from the depression and with a cratered industrial base like most European nations, was in no condition to engage in conflict with German
Kremlin-bots on alert (Score:2)
And here come Russians deluded by Putin-TV into believing, it was the US, who invaded Ukraine. So sad...
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And here come the American Exceptionalists, ignoring the fact that their assistant Secretary of State is on video bragging about spending billions to subvert a democracy - in front of banners for American oil companies - and then caught on the phone picking leaders after the coup.
American Exceptionalists are as full of shit on Russia, as all the Bush chickenhawks when they were running around accusing wou
That word doesn't mean what you think it does (Score:2)
"American Exceptionalism" doesn't mean what you seem to think it does. It's not "American Betterism". Look it up some time if you're interested in knowing what the words you use mean.
In brief summary, it's the idea that the US has a special responsibility to act in accordance with the principles of freedom and democracy because it was founded not as an ethnic group, but based on those principles.
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"American Exceptionalism" doesn't mean what you seem to think it does. It's not "American Betterism.
that's pretty much exactly how most americans who believe in it interpret it.
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You mean the principles of selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabia - the beheading capital of the world, exe
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Then stop toking, Exceptionalist, so you stop looking like a dumbass by disputing indisputable facts. [youtube.com]
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No problem. [youtube.com]
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You mean projection, from another American Exceptionalist. With the bit that anyone who answers western propaganda with facts is a Putinbot.
They're not. You're comparing an anthill to Mt. Everest. Parked on top of Mauna Kea. [wikipedia.org] On top Mt. McKinley, on Fuji, on Rainier...It takes a positively Biblical level of willful blindness for a westerner to poin
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So, you are denying having changed the subject? Fine, let's recount: I started this thread [slashdot.org] pointing out Russia being a dangerous aggressor and it is therefor dangerous to be buying gas from her. You and boredwithpolitics [slashdot.org] "counter" that by saying, US is more of an aggressor... Sorry, but USA was not even in the picture — buying gas from the US is not an option for Germany.
The only reason to bring US into the convers
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and here's mi reading into statements things that weren't actually stated.
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If you don't want nations bordering you to join NATO, maybe you should stop invading them. It's nobody's fault but your own that you keep electing one corrupt asshole after another who then loots the coffers without even trying to improve the country and starts wars of conquest to serve as dist
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Nobody asked Russia about anything in the 80s and 90s. Even the Russians realized how fucked their nation was. Now delusions have returned.
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Fracking should definitely be contained to unpopulated zones only and should be required to recover and store for reuse all fracking fluids.
That is literally impossible, and also the opposite of the oil industry's goals, because fracking fluids are refinery wastes that they've finally found a place to dump. That's why they resisted so long giving out any information about it. By the time we realized this, the average schmoe was already on to worrying about statistically irrelevant shootings in gun-free zones.
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Russia will not honor any of its agreements, and is a dangerous aggressor.
One of the promises made to the USSR when the whole wall came down and Soviet Union dissolved and all that was that the NATO would not expand to the borders of Russia. Oh look, how we keep our promises.
If Russia would expand - peacefully, through alliances - to include Canada and Mexiko, how do you think the USA would react? Peacefully? Really, it's possible to be so stupid?
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Citation needed.
Re: Russian scum defending Putin (Score:2)
For fuck's sake, i even have provided the name of the treaty, are you too stupid to use a bloody search engine? http://m.state.gov/md108185.ht... [state.gov]
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You make a claim, you present evidence. That's how things work in a debate.
Good. Now, please, cite the actual violations. Oh, heck, I'll do your job for you [wikipedia.org] — this once... So, Russia and others have violated the treaty in 1998, according to Wikipedia and its sources, whereas NATO violated it in 2006...
Seriously, claiming that these "violations" are equivalent to and justify an actual armed
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The Soviet Union was socialist. I've seen no particular signs of socialism in modern Russia, and nobody will who doesn't define socialism as "government I don't like". There are many ways to screw up a country and a government, and Russia has wound up with one that the Soviets didn't.
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Erm... Hitler loved the 'ragheads' as you call them. He considered them practically honorary Aryans - the second most noble race on earth according to him. Seriously - if your'e going to be a racist troll, at least don't be an ignorant one as well.
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Citation needed.
Hitler supported any group that hated the jews. Ragheads qualified.
Re: Trump 2016 (Score:2)
NAZI mythology held that Aryans were the descendants of Atlantis. The mythology stated that there were two offshoot races that shared this heritage to a lesser degree making them cousins to Aryans and superior to other races. These number 2 races were Arabs and Asians (especially Tibettans and Japanese who were believed to be the purest Asian races). Hitler sent several scientists to Tibet to look for proof of this idea, brought Japan into the axis and gave Arab immigrants immunity from slavery. These are n
Why Hydraulic Fracking (Score:2)
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not giving more money and power to the oil cartels to pollute and control the media/government.
Most fracking is done by small independent operators. The oil cartel would love to see fracking shut down.
Moratorium (Score:3)
It's only a moratorium, not a ban.
There is a big difference.
Fracking isn't the problem (Score:2)
Re:Fracking isn't the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't another difference in modern hydraulic fracturing that they drill the last portion of the well horizontally before pumping the fluid into it?
My understanding is that this particular innovation made modern fracking more economically viable. I assume it's because it allows you to access more of the gas trapped in the strata without having to drill as many holes. It is also my understanding that this is the reason the gas can potentially vent out of random, unpredictable places in the ground, not just out of the well hole itself.
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It is also my understanding that this is the reason the gas can potentially vent out of random, unpredictable places in the ground, not just out of the well hole itself.
I've never heard of that happening. The videos of flaming faucets/garden hoses in the "documentary" about gas drilling were proven fake.
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Pro Frackers (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I have a very time to understand the pro-fracking movement in the US.
It seems that public in general in America is very, very short sighted.
There is actually a lot of evidence to support the premise that fracking not only pollutes the ground water, but also causes mild earth quakes.
Perhaps, in time, they will find out that it is safe. Who knows. But, right now there is a very reasonable doubt.
Here's the thing.
Oil is important. We all know that. We depend on it for our modern world. Sure, there are substitutions for nearly every application of oil, but they are expensive. Thus would of course cause harm to the economy should we run out or stop using it all together.
Water, on the other hand. Is not important. It is literally life and death. We cannot live without the stuff. No ifs ands or buts about it. If we pollute all of our drinking water, we will all die.
So, why the fuck would people take that chance? To save 15 or 20 bucks filling their gas tanks? It makes no sense.
I sometime wonder; maybe the whole plan IS to pollute the water. The oil companies are buying a lot of water rights and have been for a long time.
So, if they pollute all the water except for the areas in which they control, they would have a monopoly on fresh drinking water. Then we would have a water cartel in place of an oil cartel. Forever raising the price of water and literally holding the life of the population in their hands.
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There is actually a lot of evidence to support the premise
Not evidence. Just speculation and FUD by people opposed to the use of fossil fuel.
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There is actually a lot of evidence to support the premise that fracking not only pollutes the ground water, but also causes mild earth quakes.
Cite? Because the mechanism of the first is very non-obvious and the second seems like a good thing.
On ground water pollution, unless we're having a lot of trouble with surface-level spills of fracking fluid (which argues for higher standards and tighter regulation, not banning), it's very difficult to see how injecting fracking fluid thousands of feet below the groundwater can have any effect on it.
On the quake issue, it seems clear that fracking cannot cause earthquakes, it can only accelerate and red
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Ok.. ... it's very difficult to see how injecting fracking fluid thousands of feet below the groundwater can have any effect on it.
Here is only one recent study.
http://www.pnas.org/content/11... [pnas.org]
There are loads out there.
Are you joking? You fail to see how injecting a crap ton of chemicals below the water table can impact the water table? Really?
You know that just because you put it in the ground, does not mean they stay down there, right?
BTW; the USGS website does say there are, though few, direct links bet
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Are you joking? You fail to see how injecting a crap ton of chemicals below the water table can impact the water table? Really? You know that just because you put it in the ground, does not mean they stay down there, right?
Given that the fracking fluids are, by design, very heavy, yes it's very difficult to see how they're going to migrate upward thousands of feet in anything less than geologic time scales. The arguments in the study you cite actually support my argument. They are theorizing shallow fractures and surface pit leakage as the mechanism for the contamination, not fracking fluid working its way up large distances.
BTW; the USGS website does say there are, though few, direct links between fracking and quakes.
Which in no way refutes my point. I granted that it makes perfect sense that fracking could cause eart
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Yeah, I see that too. (I'm a professional in the oilfield.)
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It can be explained by billions of dollars spent convincing people that fracking is great.
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Perhaps with time?
Fracking is more than 100 years old. It was just recently noticed and made into a boogie man by the fucking hippies but is nothing new.
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Most fracking is done several km undeground. Most groundwater aquifers are less than a km underground, usually less than 100 meters. The premise behind the fracking fluid polluting groundwater requires you to believe that the fluid can permeate several km up through the rock, while simultaneously water is incapable of draining down several km. If pollution from f
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You're forgetting the point (which is also forgotten by almost all the people who know nothing and talk a lot) that the particular rocks that you're trying to fracture are below a sequence of rocks of low enough permeability that hydrocarbons (oil and/ or gas) have been trapped in them, despite cons
completely wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Funny how the story changes completely across the Atlantic.
Here in local news (I live in Germany), the decision is largely painted as allowing fracking and the coalition partners are slammed for not having enough guts to outlaw it, which apparently was the original proposal before it was watered down.
The "if the states allow it" is the federal government cop-out if they can't find a solution. Because we have two houses as well, one elected by the people directly and one with representatives from all states, and because people sometimes vote differently in local vs. federal elections and because of different coalitions, holding a majority in one doesn't automatically mean holding one in the other, much like it is in the USA.
So when the coalition could push something through the Bundestag, but not through the Bundesrat, their solution is "leave it up to the states". Spineless cowards, all of them. Always change your opinion so you find a majority.
The important thing is that a lot of NGOs and opposition parties wanted a ban on fracking, and they didn't have the spine to do it. This is not a ban, it's basically a permission with the added bureaucracy that you need a local permission.
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The first well fractured in Britain that we can find records of was in the early 1950s (a lot of records from the early onshore production were lost in world war 2 however). Given the amount of exploration work done along the edge of the Zechstein basin, trying to find analogues of the Groni [wikipedia.org]
No, it did NOT! (Score:2)
This must have been submitted by someone who does not know how law and politics work in Germany. The federal government has forwarded a proposal to regulate fracking. Not to ban it. And it ultimately leaves the decision to the individual states, most of which are in dire need of more funding. Some of the state governments have already expressed support for fracking – this is the enabling piece of legislation they have been waiting for.
And in contrast to the praise some AC showered over our social demo
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Bernie Sanders is about to bow out.
All Sanders supporters should shift their support to Jill Stein [jill2016.com], not the felon Hillary Clinton.
Of course Bernie will support Hillary Clinton because he thinks preventing Trump (or any Republican) from becoming President is the most important thing.
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If I were Trump, I would call up Bernie and ask him if he wants to be my Vice President.
You know, just to fuck over the establishment, and anyway I'm Trump, I don't really give two shits about any of this politics, I'm in it for the laughs and giggles.
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While that sort of thing never surprises me at all, I still get frustrated by it: the reason I voted for Bernie in the Democratic primary was because preventing Hillary Clinton from becoming president was the most important thing. The reason I voted in the Democratic primary at all was to try to keep her off the ballot in the general election.
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I listened to Bernie Sanders for an hour nearly every Friday for years on the Thom Hartmann show so I think I know him pretty well. Of course Bernie is an idealist but he's also a pragmatic politician willing to take a partial victory to advance his cause. Doing anything that gives Trump a better chance of winning will not do that. He has got enough support to name several people to the Democratic Platform Committee and dragged Hillary to the left some. If he's inspired some of his followers to follow i
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Face it, Bernie won't be president - I wish he would be but he won't. But he just may have opened the door for a president Warren in 2020 or 2024.
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> non-felon used-car salesmen
Why not just ask for honest lawyers or smart generals ? I mean if you're trying to limit the lottery to the shortest list possible...
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>Voting for a better person when no possibility to win gives better results.
Sadly - it does not. In fact, most often, it has led to the worst possible candidate winning. Gore may not have been a good president (I have my doubts about the guy behind the PMRC crap being a good leader) - but Bush II was terrible, and he got the job in 2000 mostly because so many people who would otherwise have voted for Gore voted for Ralph Nader instead.
I think Nader would have been a better president than Gore but he was
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Of course Gore won the popular vote in 2000. He just lost in the Electoral College.
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Not sure if it's that direct. But the fix truely is in.
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What felonies has Clinton been convicted of? I believe the answer is "none", which means she's not a felon. You may be assuming on the basis of biased announcements and a shaky understanding of the law that she will be convicted, but that's speculative at best.
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I won't vote for Crooked Hillary. I haven't ruled out voting for Trump, but he's not doing a whole lot to impress me at the moment.
The right wing in this country has spent nearly 25 years trying to vilify the Clintons. They've spent probably well over $100 million in Federal money between the GWB administration and the R's in Congress investigating them. And what do they have to show for it? Nada, just a lot of innuendo.
I'm not saying Hillary is a perfect person and she wasn't my first choice for President but she's not the evil person so many are trying to make her out to be either.
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Plus everyone is calling her a felon when she has yet to be convicted, put on trial, or even indicted for anything.
Of course if you listen to people who oppose her, the FBI have been "about to indict her" for the last 6 months.
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Because nobody should be concerned that the justice department is refusing to indict when the evidence is so clear. No politics there at all.
Step back for a second and consider what you would do if the roles were reversed.
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The evidence isn't clear. I've seen a lot of malicious speculation on what she might have done, and simplistic and incomplete at best explanations of the law by people who are self-evidently not lawyers.
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It doesn't matter. She is not a felon. That's a fact. If she's a felon in the future, so be it, but she isn't right now.
Step back for a second and consider what you would do if the roles were reversed.
I'm confused, which roles should be reversed? Do I become Hillary Clinton, does Hillary Clinton become the FBI, or do I become the FBI?
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Bernie Sanders is about to bow out.
All Sanders supporters should shift their support to Jill Stein [jill2016.com], not the felon Hillary Clinton.
Beware! You have awaken the Trumpians! (grabs popcorn...)
He's talking about Jill Stein, not Trump. Plenty of people on the Left are no fan of Hillary.
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This is a parody of leftist greek apologists. Please tell me you don't believe this nonsense.
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Meh, at least some people are happy [wordpress.com]...
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And now they can screw up Ukraine's, Georgia's, and Moldova's environments too.
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I rather have the government "screw up" the economy, than the economy screw up the environment.
You say that now, because you're likely employed in the first world. With a high paying job, in either a downtown area or suburb where the loss of thousands of blue collar workers jobs will have minimal impact. Right up until the downtown starts shutting down, and your company moves out. [lmgtfy.com]
Re:good guys (Score:5, Insightful)
>You say that now, because you're likely employed in the first world. With a high paying job, in either a downtown area or suburb where the loss of thousands of blue collar workers jobs will have minimal impact. Right up until the downtown starts shutting down, and your company moves out. [lmgtfy.com]
The problem with your reasoning is this: you can't eat money, you can't drink it, you can't breath it. Without a healthy, viable environment - the economy is absolutely useless.
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...because their last final solution wasn't so final after all.
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We, as a civilization, should be discouraging any technology that lowers the cost of energy fuels producing IR filtering gases that linger in the atmosphere. Especially techniques with other harmful side-effects as environmental groups pointed out in Germany.
Instead, offering incentives in research and development of lower cost energy alternatives or techniques that prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.
We are offering an incentive:
"YOU produce lower cost energy alternatives or techniques that prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, or WE will continue to produce greenhouse gasses; YOU want alternatives? YOU pay for them."
Greenhouse gasses themselves encourage such solutions.
Just like peeing and defecating in public in a particular alley encourages adjacent businesses to install public toilets.
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Just like peeing and defecating in public in a particular alley encourages adjacent businesses to install public toilets.
Interesting.
In my country, people who get caught doing that get fined.
No one is installing public toilets. The few we have are installed by the city and not local business, why would they?
The next thing you risk is a serious beating.
On the other hand most restaurants and pubs allow you to use the toilet for free, if you ask politely.
And if you are really in server need, at late night, whe
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One of the things that surprised me about Germany is the near universal toilet charge. In America any highway side gas station/store that charged to use the toilet would have the back of the building covered in urine.
Germans are a bunch of law abiders. They stand and wait for a walk signal when the roads a completely empty; rules crazy.
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Nothing to do with waiting for a walk signal to turn green when you can see for half km both ways on a 35 km/h road. After a night drinking. In Berlin. A city that's not internationally known for rules followers.
And the looks they gave us American cousins just waltzing across. Face it, you're just like the Swiss with the 'stink eye'...
That wasn't meant as a compliment. I realize there is some confusion. BTW we take 'cowboy' as a complement, same a Ruskys take 'cossack'. Know it's meant as an insult, we
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Just like peeing and defecating in public in a particular alley encourages adjacent businesses to install public toilets.
Interesting.
In my country, people who get caught doing that get fined.
Same in the U.S.; the strategy is to avoid being caught.
No one is installing public toilets. The few we have are installed by the city and not local business, why would they?
So that it doesn't smell like human waste when you sit at a table in front of your patisserie.
And if you are really in server need, at late night, when pubs are closed: there is always a tree, even in big cities.
Like the tree in the inset in the sidewalk in front of your business?