Letters to the Editor
curmudgeon2
Published Letters: 414 Editor's Choice: 64
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Pay any price?
[Read the article: If it smells like peak oil, it probably is]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is not sensible to suppose that ordinary people will "pay any price" for their fuel. We have been living on borrowed money from the no-longer increasing prices of housing. Well, some of you might have been, but I've owned my house for 20 years, and have no debt of any sort. But we are the exception. Most of us have balance sheet problems that can only be corrected by a drastic reduction in spending. We will soon see a big drop in spending, including (and especially) gasoline. It's is going to be tough on a lot of us, including the Chinese, when the big spending stops. They won't be able to finance our "lavish" lifestyle anymore by buying our bonds, so the Federals will have to raise interest rates and taxes.
Wonderful legacy the Bushies and Republicans will have left us. They really thought they could capture the Iraqi oil and make great profits selling it to the world.
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When I was 17...
[Read the article: Katie Roiphe's morning after]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was the "office boy" (gofer) in a largely female office with a female boss. Being 17 and athletic, I was in pretty good shape. My 38 YO (or so) female boss used to call me into her office for "discussions" and would grope me. Another attractive 21 YO grabbed me in the hall one day and kissed me. I thought it all good fun. I should have fucked the lot of them, but being 17 and naive I didn't take proper advantage of my possibilities. However, just after turning 18 I met a (beautiful) 25 YO divorce' who took proper advantage of my youth and fucked my brains out for a few months. I went off to MIT that fall and discovered that the local female college population was not as available as my former associates. Tough comedown.
And that was a long time ago before we accepted that women can be sexually aggressive. I'm in my mid-seventies now, and still in good shape, so cute 50 YO's regularly let me know they are interested, but my horny 65 YO wife keeps me well occupied so I enjoy the attention but have no interest in going further.
Women have always been hot and the smart ones have always taken responsibility for their sexuality, and smart enough to avoid situations where they might have to fuck someone inappropriately.
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Women want hot sons...
[Read the article: Women want brawn for now, brains for good?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A hot son son will spread her genes far more widely than a wimpy son or daughters. So in the evolutionary struggle women who have sons by hot men might win. But they have to balance that against the need for support in raising the children, so the trick is to get a hot guy who is also fairly amenable to supporting his offspring. Women who are hooked up with wimpy men should then be more likely to have daughters, who might be likely to have a chance at a hot guy. ???
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Flying-the good and the bad
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My wife is in Minnesota, which is an easy trip from Idaho Falls now, because of the "regional" jets. Two and a half hours from IDA to MSP, no plane changes. It used to require either driving to SLC, or paying an exorbitant sum to Delta to fly there. Then the long time waiting for the plane from SLC to MSP.
My company is making a couple of deals that will require me to take frequent trips to Las Vegas and San Diego. I've almost decided to buy a Dynamic WT-9, a carbon fiber two-seater made in the Slovak Republic. It uses a Rotax 100 HP engine (same engine as in the Predator) to cruise at 165 MPH at 10,000 feet, burning 4 GPH. I will get to Las Vegas about as fast as a jet, because I will not have to put up with the plane changes and the bullshit at the airport. If I go IFR I guess I will add to the congestion.
You noted that the regional jets are not made in the US. Is anything? The light plane business will also move overseas, because the US manufacturers have lost the ability to innovate. There is no market for gas hogs that burn 10-15 GPH to go 130 MPH.
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Thank goodness for tort lawyers
[Read the article: The true cost of doing business in China]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hmmm, it is amazing to see the WSJ looking to the courts to solve the Chinese quality problem. Normally, the Republican mouthpieces hate lawyers, because they sue their business contributors. I agree with them, if we left it up to the Feds to solve the junk problem it would never happen. Bush and his buddies have shown how easy it is to subvert the government agencies that were put in place to protect us.
As for the global warming bullshit. Yes human production of CO2 is raising the global temperature. No, it is not globally catastrophic. It is catastrophic locally. The climate is always changing. We barely got out of the "little ice age" 150 years ago. CO2 levels have been lower for last few million years than they were for hundreds of millions of years prior to that. Blame India, since its crashing into Asia produces all that rock dust that sops up CO2 and delivers it to the ocean floor via those lovely Indian rivers. We are going to run out of fossil fuel long before global catastrophe, whatever that is. We cannot harm Gaia, she is very tough. We can make it hard for ourselves, but we are almost irrelevant in the long term to Gaia. Gaia will enjoy her next ice age just as soon as we finish off the last of the fossil fuel in a couple of hundred years.