Re: [asa] $4 gas is here to stay

From: Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
Date: Sun Jun 08 2008 - 06:11:29 EDT

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 4:05 AM, Glenn Morton <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
> Jack wrote:
>
>> So what is your solution Glenn? I respect your opinion. I dont like
>> your short fuse.
>
>
> Sigh, I didn't even get mad. I wasn't mad then, I am not mad now. People
> always think I am mad when I am not mad. When I write things like, If one
> can't dissect an argument on this list then what is the point? To sing
> kumbayah and have group hugs?, it isn't a statement of anger. It is merely a
> way of saying goodness gracious, why do people get upset when I criticize
> their logic? Starting when I was a child of 4 years old and continuing, I
> remember telling my mother things and she would often say, "don't be angry".
> I wasn't angry. I was surprised she thought I was. Maybe that same thing
> comes across in my writing as many feel that same way about me.

Well, Glenn, it certainly does come across in your style of writing,
and maybe you should listen to people - maybe you should have listened
to your mother. The assumption that you're angry is a charitable one;
the only other explanation for the kind of invective that we've had to
suffer from you, is that you are a thoroughly nasty individual, or
that you suffer from some kind of personality disorder. Now I don't
want to believe that, so I'll go along with the rest of them including
your mother, and assume you're angry. If you're not angry, then you
need help in expressing what you say in a more reasonable manner.

There is nothing at all wrong in dissecting peoples' arguments. I
started on this thread with an innocent question about Dittmar's
analysis of Fusion - based on what you yourself had quoted in support
of your position. You dismissed me contemptuously by simply asking if
I could show you a working commercial fusion reactor. You made no
attempt to deal with my question, so I looked into it further; found
Dittmar's paper on the web, and found the argument he presented was
absolute nonsense, and that someone of Dittmar's qualifications ought
to know better. You now want to blow that aside and say it's
irrelevant to the main issue of Uranium running out. But I also made
the point that the stockpile of Plutonium can be used in conventional
reactors. Plutonium is actually made faster in conventional reactors
than in fast reactors, so your point about us needing multiple fast
reactors by 2015 doesn't seem to stand up to me. When I was at UKAEA,
I was told that if fast reactors were built, that initially the
breeding ratio of Plutonium would be set to burn Plutonium rather than
to breed it. This piece of evidence was also missing from Dittmar's
analysis. The reason I'm not impressed with his ideas has nothing to
do with what his political views might be - it's because I think the
science is wrong.

The above is a dissection of your argument. Your problem is that
while you think it's perfectly OK to dissect other peoples arguments,
( frequently in language that has the appearance of anger to all the
rest of the world, from your mother onwards), that when someone else
challenges you, then you get all personal and make insulting comments
like asking if they are suffering from PMS, as you did to me off-list
yesterday, or, as you still do today, completely misrepresent me and
say I am discounting Dittmar's opinion because of his political views.

That is just wrong; I am discounting Dittmar's opinion on scientific
grounds - I think his analysis is flawed and I did my best to explain
the reasons why. You seem to be very annoyed that I made the slip of
mentioning that I found an article praising Dittmar from the
anti-nuclear lobby. It was a mistake to put that in, and I sincerely
regret doing it, because it resulted in you picking it up, twisting
what I said, and milking it for all it's worth, rather than dealing
with the scientific issues that I raised.

Iain

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Received on Sun Jun 8 06:11:59 2008

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