Gretch

So every aircraft has an "official" nickname given to it by the company who designed it and the Pentagon. An example of a really dorky name is the F-15 "Eagle". One of the steps in breaking a new jet in is to give it a cooler nickname. Once the uber nickname sinks in, you will rarely hear a crewmember or pilot refer to his or her ride by the original nickname. So here's the game: I will list the un-official nicknames of several military aircraft and you guys respond with the designation (i.e. F16) and the "official nickname". The first answerer with the most correct answers wins. All of these are current aircraft and all but one are Air Force. For some reason the Navy isn't cool enough to rename it's jets. Two are acronyms, give the full name if you know it:

Viper

FRED

Hog

Bone

Stinkbug

Mudhen

BUFF

Rhino

Bonus: This one is just a fun acronym that cremembers of some aircraft throw out to compensate for something

NKAWTG

This is a non-partisan question and I would appreciate non-partisan answers. I am a veteran from a military family and currently have a sister in Iraq. For military reasons I have been opposed to the war from the beginning, but I believe that we owe it to our military dead and to the Iraqi people to set things as right as we can. For some that means bringing all of the troops home now. If we follow that course of action, what do you predict will happen in Iraq after the last American soldier leaves?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/06/greenla...

This technology proposes to use feedstock such as switchgrass and cornstalks that are now "wasted" by leaving them in the fields. However, it seems to me that leaving this material in the field replenishes the soil as it decomposes. This is a component of the no-till farming technique that has been gaining ground among American farmers. My question has two parts:

If we take that material off the ground, what will we use as fertilizer?

If the answer to part 1 is that we will use more nitrogen fertilizer, then how does this qualify as a renewable energy source since nitrogen fertilizer is usually a petroleum-based product?

Material flow is a huge issue. And by huge I mean over 1 million pounds of "stuff" annually for every man, woman and child in the US.

I mean, come on! Who in their right minds wants to spend less money on gas and doctors? Who wants to be healthy and fit? Fat is so much more fun! It feels good to never have any energy and to spend so much time in the car that our kids get raised by the XBox. Gotta love that new car smell! Let's make gas cheaper so we can live 10 more miles away from work and spend half an hour longer in the car because all our neighbors followed us out to the burbs. I don't know about you but I hate all these skinny people on bikes and walking. Let's get rid of bike lanes and sidewalks and build our McMansions right up to the road so we don't even have to bust out the smog-belching mower. Then we can vote for the government to build more roads so we can move even further out. Hey, when are they going to open that new mall? Hope they pave enough parking lots...

Does anyone out there actually enjoy spending less time with your families because you commute 40 minutes each way in traffic? Do you like the negative health effects of never exercising? Take a look in the mirror, America. Not the funhouse mirror that makes you look skinny, the normal mirror. You are one big fat slob. You could use a good walk or bike ride every now and then!!

Consider this:

If we turn every bushel of grain in this nation into ethanol, it would only displace 16% of gasoline use. The amount of grain it takes to fill your tank with ethanol would feed an adult human for one year. It takes 1000 tons of water, likely subsidized by taxpayers, to produce a ton of ethanol. In addition, rural energy coops have begun a push for more coal plants to provide additional power to ethanol producers. This push is being made under the auspices of the USDA's Rural Electrification Program, which dates back to 1936 and FDR's New Deal. We can't fight global warming with our right hand while we build dirty coal plants with our left, or we just might punch ourselves in the face. In other words, in order to fight global warming we need 21st century solutions. The irony of a dirty coal plant providing electricity to ethanol distilleries who then sell E-85 to American consumers who think they are using a clean, renewable fuel is enormous and not very amusing

Before you answer, google Chernobyl.

One of the favorite things for opponents of alternative energy sources to do is to point out that alternative energy can't compete with conventional energy without government subsidies. Yet, numerous direct and indirect subsidies are given to fossil fuel sources like oil and coal, such as cheap loans from the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service. Indirect subsidies include items such as free public use of roads, tax credits for oil drilling, subsidized health care for respiratory illness and military actions needed to maintain a steady oil supply. Should we continue to subsidize dirty energy sources? If all subsidies, direct and indirect, were removed from fossil fuels, would they still be cheaper then alternative energy?

The Anti Global Warming movement has started to resemble a cult. They claim that humans can have no effect on the environment, that environmentalists are trying to take over the world and that Al Gore is evil because he made a movie. Their scientific "evidence" is nonexistent, yet they emphatically claim that the massive body of scientific evidence (done by actual scientists) supporting global warming is "unscientific". Their opinions have started to sound like the rantings at an insane assylum. Do you agree, or disagree?