@2: Or be allowed to drive a car.

Link to the Herman Cain story? (I know, it's early.)

I second the request for a link to the Cain story.

That sounds like a lot of bees, but apparently the average hive contains 30,000-60,000 bees, so it is just one or two hive's worth. I understand why you wouldn't want to be in their hives, but still, I don't get why this makes news.

The story about the veteran is disturbing. Yes, we only have his account, but I'm inclined to believe him.

New rule: if you are going to assert that something is "necessary economic development", you have to show how, not just depend on us being impressed by your use of 90's buzzwords.

Who in the US will benefit from Keystone, other than a handful of gulf refineries? Yes, there'll be jobs building the thing, and probably lots of jobs in environmental cleanup, but it's not like the oil will be used in the US. It will be shipped overseas.

It would make much more sense to refine it in Canada and ship it from BC, but the Canadians are smart - they want to minimize the risk of spills on their land. They also know that there are enough stupid people in the US that will be impressed because it's something they might watch a show about on Basic Cable.

So many great Joni Mitchell songs and you chose Amelia?

I wanted more to that story about the bees. What kind of person does it make me that, as I read it, I thought about how the bees are disappearing! We should just let them have the house! Save the bees!

Bonus points: the comments on that story are some far-out WTF.

11: "Amelia" is the greatest of the great.

Again, Ken, why can't that be accomplished by having the Canadians refine it themselves, and ship it out from their ports?

What's in it for us to have a pipeline full of toxic, corrosive, sludge (that apparently has to be constantly heated - good luck with that) running the length of our country?

So stop with the mealy-mouthed corporate happyspeak, and just answer my question: what's in it for us, if the same dubious goal can be accomplished there in Canada? Why do we have to risk our farmland and aquifers for the benefit of Trans-Canada?

When the Governor of Nebraska - a state not known for its Socialist tendencie, and governed by a committed Republican - is convening a special session of the unicameral to discuss how to protect their ranch land and keep this thing out of the state, shouldn't that tell you something?

1) The tarsands product shipping down from Canada isn't any different from California heavy oil, and isn't destroying their pipeline. As TC has repeatedy said, they aren't investing billions into a pipe just to have it be eaten by the product it ships
2) The pipeline isn't heated and doesn't have to be.
3) Canada is an oil exporter. The US is an oil importer. It imports more oil from Canada than any other country in the world already.
4)The oil won't be shipped overseas from Houston. The oil is being shipped there because they have a lot of heavy oil refineries that are losing volumes of Mexican and Venezuelan heavy oil supply (that are refined and sold in the US).
5)TransCanada won't just be providing a bunch of jobs directly and indirectly, it also paying a crapload of taxes to local government (as it should) for the life of its pipeline.
6)TransCanada already owns and operates a ton of pipelines and powerplants in the US. It's not some shadowy foreign company; it has over a thousand US employees already and it's been listed on the NYSE for decades. It pays taxes on profits like any other company, and likely a lot more than say GE or Google, as it operates almost entirely in the US and Canada.

It's not a perfect project. Not all the numbers TC puts up are realistic. But it's not the end of the world, and it shouldn't be treated as a moral test of tarsands oil. Want to start taxing oil based on life cycle costs? Do it evenly.

As for 'what's in it for us', the answer is 'a huge, steady supply of oil from a friendly neighbour with similar/identical treatment of their environment, people, money, and other countries as opposed to paying for oil from other overseas locations'.

Plus, the oil is already coming and being refined on current pipelines. Blocking this pipeline will just screw TransCanada over and perpetuate a bottleneck for oil entering the US which causes large price disparities.

@2 actually, if you ever invested for a few decades in energy (including oil since I was 16), you'd know the purpose of the pipeline to the gulf is to export Canadian Oil overseas.

Have fun being taken to the cleaners by the oil multinationals. They want to sell "American" oil overseas and will tell you whatever gets you to do their bidding.

CNN reports that the pipeline would decrease the U.S. oil imports by 6%.

Woo-hoo! 6%.

Well. Now that we've heard from the Trans-Canada unpaid lobbyist, and Ken has chimed in with his krypto-fascist and hopelessly naive response, let's see what a real scientist has to say:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/2…

I guess it demonstrates how large a tent the Democratic party truly is, but it's funny seeing some liberals going bananas over the loss of a few hundred marginally well-paying WSLCB jobs if I-1183 passes, and seeing other liberals going bananas over the creation of extremely well-paying oil jobs. But whatever.

@22,

I admit to skimming that article, because yawn, but where does he address an environmental threat from the specific pipeline (and not the overall threat of global warming)? Refining the oil in Vancouver isn't going to solve that problem.

@22

I'm a pipeline engineer. As for Dr. Hansen, I don't think he's incorrect; the question is, is shooting down a pipeline the answer? Killing this project may slow down the develop of oil production from the tarsands, but it won't end it by any means, and it will target one source of carbon intensive oil rather than even handedly targeting all sources of carbon intensive oil/energy.

I would love, just love to have carbon taxes be placed on oil and other energy sources. It would put value on the right things, push energy companies to produce oil more efficiently, and push everyone to use less carbon intensive fuels.

The first state or province in North America with a carbon tax? Alberta. No US states and only three of the Canadian provinces tax carbon at present.

fuck oil spills, this further accelerates global warming, a much bigger problem.

@1: They ARE 100% foolproof and safe...
...at preventing pregnancy, which is what Dan had said. Mah boi, you should remember that Dan has been consistently in favor of people using protection when they fuck.