Baldcoach

I agree with this too...my point for preaching it is that some (eagle) on the boards keep talking about profits and money, not to show any disadvantage or advantage. It was a clarity issue more than anything...

Not to side with young earth, but there is a viable and scientific alternative to the fossil fuel theory. I personally don't think it is right...I agree with the current theory, but it is possible that oil is simply formed along with the crust as planets cool. No legitimate site that I have ever looked at purports that the US oil supply is 12 years from giving out...I think you better check your figures. Oil is a limited resource...the debate is not on whether there is a limited supply...every mineral resource is limited. The question is how limited is oil? I contend that new technologies will continue to extend the supply long past current estimates...history bears me out. Will we eventually run out? Yes, if we aren't using other fuels in the future. When will we run out? No time soon...but now would be a good time to get busy getting ready. Just not in panic mode and not at the expense of the world's economy. R, I am a Christian. I don't think there is any way the world is less than 4 or 5 billion years old. Why? 2 reasons, 1 positive and 1 negative. The negative one is that I just don't think a medievial priest (Bishop Ussher) who is in prison for insane behavior is a good guide to how old the world must be from a theological perspective. His Hebrew was lousy...even the rabbis of the day disagreed with him. The positive one is that when I type this it can be read by you...and the lights come on when I hit the switch, and my car works (most of the time). EVERY branch of science from Physics to Chemistry to Astronomy to Geology etc. point with EVERY test they can come up with to a very old Earth. The same principles which point to an old earth make all modern technology possible. If just one or two areas of science indicated an old earth I might not be convinced...but every bit of it does. Science works...technology works...it all points to a very old earth, thus I will go with all that evidence and agree. Especially since that doesn't conflict with anything that is said in either the OT or the NT. The Bible NEVER speaks about the age of the Earth...except in certain allegorical passages that indicate (drumroll) great and unimaginable age. The earth is just old...at least from our perspective.

Nope. Ok, obvious answer now out of the way Antwan, what is the angle?

BC explains biofuels and why they are a lot of hype Ethanol is a natural byproduct of glucose digestion by bacteria. Other byproducts are CO2 and acetic acid (vinegar) depending on whether the glucose digestion occurs in an aerobic (O2 present) environment or an anaerobic environment. So to produce ethanol we need glucose. Plant cells are surrounded by a cell wall made of cellulose, which is glucose units bonded together. Paper is essentially pure cellulose, thus pure glucose. The problem is that the bond in cellulose is hard to break...so hard that those animals that eat plants have to have much longer digestive tracts and sometimes 2 stomachs to break it down. Thus regular plant matter is not very good at producing glucose or biofuel. Some plants produce sugars or starches. These carbohydrates are much more easily broken down, and make making ethanol easier. The problem is that plants that are high in starch or sugar are almost always food plants BECAUSE they are high in starch and sugar. So using them to make ethanol diverts large amounts of food from the food market. And even these types of plants don't produce much ethanol given the space used to grow them and the energy and cost put into them. Some experts even think that their net energy return is NEGATiVE...they cost more energy to grow, ferment, and get to market than you get from them. If the entire US farm system were used to grow corn (high starch) and 100 percent of that corn was converted to ethanol, the ethanol would be able to provide about 10 percent of our yearly automotive fuel needs. But, of course, we would all starve to death as would all the herd animals in the US because corn is a staple of both of our diets (whether we know it or not). IMHO starving is worse than paying higher pump prices for a max 10 percent fuel savings.

Ok, what ELA says is correct in one sense... If we assume that our current theories about oil formation are correct Then we will eventually run out. Not everyone buys into the plant to oil theory though...a small group of geologists theorize that oil formation is a natural part of planetary formation and that there may be much larger reserves of oil deeper in the crust...the current reserves are like lava in volcanoes...they have just filtered up through porous or fractured rock. But using biofuel is NOT a good or even feasable stop-gap, unless we want to starve the third world. A much more feasable and economical alternative is coal, which can be turned into gasoline for about 3 times the current cost to produce gas from crude oil. Expensive, yes, but it doesn't mean that huge food reserves are going to run our cars. And the US alone has something like 350 years worth of coal reserves...now that is a stopgap. But the only viable alternative currently is nuclear. Someone needs to scrap most of the draconian safety measures that were put into place in the late 70's on nuclear plants and then get the Navy to show us how to build small, safe reactors like the ones they have on subs and carriers. Build those puppies all over the country and switch the grid to nuclear power. 20% oil savings right there. Develop our known fields in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico...look for other fields in Alaska and off the coast of...well...everywhere, including Antarctica. I'm betting that (just as has been the case in the last 50 years) we will continue to find new oil fields as new technologies come online to locate them.

Its a matter of public record. It doesn't matter if you believe it or not lol. You can refuse to believe the world is round or the sun is a star and that doesn't change those facts either. The DI privates are non-profits. If you give money to them it is the same as giving money to a charity...therefore they legally CAN NOT make a profit...period.But then we've had this discussion before...deficit budgets and all. You really ought to get your facts right if you are gonna make posts about small privates.. 3-putt, I am sorry, made a mistake about who posted what. My bad! It's the bald thing...with the cold weather the brain freezes and...nah, I just messed up.

Only 16 here...but i did notice they are wrong about 1 thing. Water can go down a drain in either direction in any hemisphere depending on the shape of the sink.

Just FYI for those who don't know (but should if they are going to post as if they do) the DI privates ARE a business. They are non-profits the same as your local charities. So they aren't teaching their kids to sue (3 putt) and they don't feel like they have to win to make money...because they don't make money. If they did they wouldn't be non-profits anymore. Instead they lose money...which means that they have to raise extra money every year to stay open. And that pretty much shoots most of the silly "you have sooo much money we can't compete" rants down. But, I've said all this before and no one seems to notice...or believe it. Just felt duty bound to post it again so some poster wouldn't continue to make uninformed statements...

Indian, East Ridge beats Grace in every sport except Soccer and possibly basketball. Brainerd kills them in every sport except Baseball. Howard too. So does Tyner. How, again, are they going to do 'well'? Remember, they are one of the better small privates. You continue to choose the poorer publics and compare them to the better small privates. And still the table is stacked with this system. It may be the way the TSSAA goes, but at least have the spine to admit there is not justification based on 'fairness'.

The idea that ethanol will somehow improve is faulty. Ethanol is ethanol, it doesn't matter how it is made. C2H5OH is going to be the same whether it is from corn, wheat, grapejuice, etc. The problem that it is currently generating (besides being a very potent organic solvent...bye bye seals) is that a huge amount of corn is required for a very little ethanol. That means lots of corn is being diverted from the food market. Several articles have been in the latest papers about world wide food prices going up because of the ethanol craze...save at the pump, lose in repair costs and food costs.

This is a highly slanted and completely inaccurate picture. Silverdale, Grace, and DB would be CRUSHED by the area 2a and 3a schools in Football and just about everything else except Basketball and Soccer, and some of them would crush them there. And, frankly, they are not better than the 1a schools in their region. Don't slant your report about Chattanooga like you did about Knoxville by implying it would somehow be fair for Knox Grace to face Fulton. Most rediculous things I have ever seen you post. It isn't fair to chose the sports that the small schools are the very best at and the sports that the worst public programs are the very worst at and say "See, they are about equal because they could compete here"...sure they could, but they are gonna get killed everywhere else. The truth is you can't possibly justify pitting small privates with 200 kids and new programs against big publics. Anyone who says differently is simply dishonest. Grace vs. Fulton indeed...

I hate Stone for the same reasons you do. Platoon was a hatchet job on the whole US military. Not a single decent person in the movie except the one sarge who gets killed and Charlie Sheen's character. Born on the Fourth of July was Platoon in Politics. JFK was a transparent attempt to make crap up and point at the US as the cause of Kennedy's death. UGH. An average movie maker using his hatred of the country that made his lifestyle possible and the people who protect his freedoms to make money for himself...repulsive.

Rap, If we are going to legislate private consensual sexual behavior then which ones are ok? Why? We would never get any laws passed if they had to agree with everyone's personal moral codes. Should we legislate whether people can drink in private? Smoke in private? Run around their houses naked in private? And if we do, how are we going to enforce those laws? The only way to enforce them is to take away privacy... I understand that you believe that homosexuality is sinful. But sinful doesn't equal illegal. Otherwise we are all in big trouble for dishonesty, or gossip, or any other number of sins. Only in fundamentalist Islamic countries do the laws directly reflect accepted religious morality detail for detail. In other countries they are based on morality, but do not 'micromanage' everyone's moral lives.

Grunt, Your argument ASSUMES that privates "Pick" athletes. That isn't the case. If we gave TC a wider zone but the same amount of slots for students, and they had to take kids RANDOMLY from the wider zone, then they would have no greater chance of getting good athletes than they do now. Less of a chance probably as TC has a great tradition. Do you not see that your assumption is that the small privates cheat?

Prejudice is prejudice...it doesn't have to be racial, just irrational.

Not 50 miles but close Estimated Distance: 48.20 miles (mapquest) Who are they and where do they attend?

I thought we were talking about before the other small privates came on the scene?

I've tried to explain this before. It is true that "there are none so blind as those who won't see". 1 more time then... 1) It just doesn't matter how wide an area you get your kids from IF you aren't choosing them just because they are good athletes. You still get a normal distribution of good and bad athletes (and academics). It only matters if you are using the wider area to sift for good athletes. 2) But to do that you would have to have some way to make the school affordable for the good athletes you found, as a large number of people just can't afford to attend a tuition charging school. That is financial aid and the DI privates are NOT allowed to have any athletes on it. So (3) The only schools that can potentially gain an advantage in athletes from having a wide enrollment area are those that have a) Selective admissions with athletics as a criterion and /cool.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="B)" border="0" alt="cool.gif" /> Enough money that they can assist students in their tuition or (as is the case with magnets and open zones) have no tuition at all. Those schools are all in DII or are publics, they are NOT the DI privates.

I still think China will melt down and demand will fall. Interesting article on the increase in basic foodstuffs costs on the world markets. It seems there is already some rioting in some Asian countries over the cost of rice. The solution for the US is to drill the fields in the Gulf of Mexico and Prudhoe Bay in the short term...therby reducing our imports of crude...and to embark on an ambitious nuclear plant building program for the long term, so that by 2040 our entire electric grid is nuclear. Then electric cars make sense since you are charging them off of non-fossil power plants.

Transportation accounts for 49% of oil use worldwide. That include cars as well as trains, buses, trucks, and planes. The average hybrid car is about 10% more efficient (some are much less, a few are more) than the regular model the hybrid replaces. Trains gain no efficiency from hybridization as they don't do a lot of starting and stopping. It is a bad idea to suddenly stop a plane in flight, so they aren't really candidates either. From that data (available on several websites...you can google or yahoo them) I made a guess that cars and buses and trucks account for 60% or so...that would be 30% of total world oil usage. Instantly turning ALL of them into hybrids cuts world oil consumption by about 3%. Of course, that assumes that you don't use more oil to make the hybrids than you do a normal car (which you do...some good articles on the size of the environmental footprint of hybrids). It only takes into account the reduction in usage you get once both are on the road. The actual reduction is less since the hybrids require more oil to produce. While many on the public/private boards don't like my numbers or conclusions, I try to not just trow them out randomly there or here :>).

If someone can make this happen in the next 5 or 6 years it fits the bill alrighty. I'm thinking that plugging in for 20 minutes and getting 500 miles is a violation of the laws of the universe though. I'll have to do the calculations tomorrow, but I'm thinking that even with 100% energy to work conversion you can't get there. Could be wrong though. And any capacitor that increases current capabilities by 4 or 5 times is a good thing. The only problem is that the energy still has to come from somewhere. If we all go to electric cars, where is the electricicty coming from? The answer is most of it comes from oil burning power plants...more electric demand = more oil for plants. In fact, charging an electric car is actually LESS efficient (ie...requires more oil) than running a car on gasoline. With the new capacitors we might break even...I dont know. Have to ask some people who are smarter than me.

Grunt, I was just over the line on the Centrist side...I'm guessing you and I missed answering the same by one 'maybe' vs a yes or no

Basketball was the weakest sport for most of the publics that were in our district back then. Look up our Football or Baseball record vs South Pitt or Lookout Valley or Whitwell or Greenback during that period. We were no powerhouse even without the other small privates getting kids. We WERE good at Basketball...it was probably our best sport along with Soccer. Amazingly, just like a public school our sports success goes up and down. Hmmm...almost like we don't have an advantage because we don't screen our kids for athletes. The coaches are not involved in the admissions process at ALL.

Eagle, it has never happened at Boyd and I would guess it hasn't at any other DI privates. Once again you are confusting the smaller DI privates with the big preps.We have never had an athletic run like your basketball run at Cosby. Are you guys recruiting kids from out of county or are you coaching them right and working with what you have? Well, how did we do BEFORE they all came on the scene...oh, not so good. Ain't speculation special?

Indian, I think the idea of rural/urban split has more merit than public private, but you can't just classify obviously urban schools like LV as rural because they are small, or not powerhouses in Football. LV is plainly urban. Of course, I don't think ANY split has merit. But I did predict this...once you open the door to victim mentality and split a group for their successes you get into 'witch hunt' mode. I predicted that it would move to the small privates, then to the magnets, then to rural/urban. LOL! Here we are. So who can we split next...open zoned?