They're Not Political?

Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival has announced the line up of films for this year and we learn from festival director Geoffrey Gilmore, they aren't so political. Really?

Fest director Geoffrey Gilmore noted that the films on view this year are surprisingly "not as political or social issue-oriented as last year.

Let's see:

"Frozen River," directed and written by Courtney Hunt, stars Melissa Leo as a woman on New York's Mohawk Reservation who takes up illegal-immigrant smuggling to survive."

"Ballast," directed and written by Lance Hammer, offers a lyrical look at the effect of a tragedy on an impoverished family in the Mississippi Delta.

"American Son," directed by Neil Abramson ("Without Air") and written by Eric Schmid, concerns a Marine's four-day leave and his attempt at a romance before being sent into active duty. With Nick Cannon, Tom Sizemore and Chi McBride.

"The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," directed and written by Rawson Marshall Thurber ("Dodgeball"), is an adaptation of Michael Chabon's first novel concerning sexual exploration and a tense father-son relationship. Jon Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sienna Miller, Mena Suvari and Nick Nolte star.

"Sugar," directed and written by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, features Algenis Perez Soto as a Dominican baseball star recruited to play in the U.S. minor leagues.

A few of the documentaries. Nah, not political at all.

"Fields of Fuel," directed and written by Josh Tickell, follows Tickell as he takes on "big oil, big government and big soy" while proselytizing for energy alternatives.

"Flow: For Love of Water," directed by Irena Salina, confronts the possibility that Earth's supply of this essential liquid is dwindling.

"An American Soldier," directed and written by Edet Belzberg, looks at one of the U.S. Army's top recruiters.

Comments

[IslamoLlama]

Nooooo! Stop talking about issues I don't want to hear about! Liberal Bias! Hidden Agenda! Please don't disagree with me!

*yawn*

[memomachine]

Hmmmmm.

Earth's supply of water is dwindling?

Ummmmm. Th Earth is a closed system, with the singular exception of the space program. Water arrives from space usually and doesn't generally go anywhere else.

What an odd thing.

[seekeronos]

Last time I checked, most of the planet's surface was underwater.

[Worst_President_Ever]

Misleading? Confused? Because the actual quote is:

"not as political or social issue-oriented AS LAST YEAR."

[Sue]

Geez!!! I just got over laughing at the idiot in the cave and now you want me to take the idiot in Sundance seriously? not political or social? Is Redford dumb and blind? He must also be deaf. Read my lips, fool: there is nothing you can do that would have me spend my dough on your trash. You live in an alternate reality (filthy rich) and cannot possibly understand the average American citizen!!

[seekeronos]

"--- not as political or social issue-oriented AS LAST YEAR. ---"

Maybe so, but why can't Sundance ever turn out something apolitical at the very least? Ya know, something about relationships or maybe something good for the family like "Milo and Otis" (that talking cat & dog movie from several years ago)?

Why do we really need to harp on politicizing and polemics in cinema?

Entertain me, don't brainwash me... because you won't be terribly likely to get my hard-earned cash otherwise.

[Worst_President_Ever]

Don't like Redford or Sundance. Fine. But don't make stuff up, attribute it to Sundance, then attack them for it.

If you don't like the movies, don't go to them. Ya got problems with the Free Market?

[JayC]

"... who takes up illegal-immigrant smuggling to survive."

What does that mean? Is that a way of making money? Wouldn't a computer programming class at DeVry tend to pay more?

[rwilymz]

"Th Earth is a closed system"

Not only that, but [apparently] all the polar ice is melting for the first time ever [since the 800AD-1250AD warm period that kept the North Sea ice-free long enough for the Vikings to roam about, pillaging, plundering and raping], and there's more and more water every day.

Most of the alternative energies we would be getting are either novelty or marginal-use [wind, solar] or they are simply an exercise in transferred final-form that allows the consumer the false security of being "green" -- most specifically, hydrogen-cell and battery-powered cars.

Wind is only collectable in areas with moderate sustained winds over most of the year [coasts predominately]; solar in lower, drier latitudes [desert southwest predominately]. You can collect wind-generated electricty in most places ... as long as you only expect decent returns for part of the year. Long periods you won't get anything at all. Same with solar.

Ethanol, unfortunately in our country, is too closely tied to corn. Which means that the more corn you throw into distilleries, the less you have for seed and feed and industry, which makes corn chips more expensive, chicken, pork, beef more expensive, anything which comes from cows or chickens more expensive [eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt]...

Technically, any plant matter can create alcohol. You could use grass clippings from your yard to do it. But we only want to use corn. So expect your food bill to go through the roof.

Similar problems await a massive use of soybeans for bio-deisel.

But the one that makes me chuckle is hydrogen cells.

We generate electricity in this country -- about 75% of it -- by burning hydrocarbon fuel. Fuel oil, coal, natural gas. It is from burning hydrocarbons that we generate electricity which we pass through water to break the H2O molecule [2] into 2-H2 and 1-O2, upon which we collect the H2s, mix them with jellied hydrocarbon stabilizers so we can actually handle them without 'sploding them, pour them into [experimental] cars which uses them in the place of gasoline, and burns it -- jellied hydrocarbon stabilizers and all -- and we think it's progress.

It's the same goddammed chemical reaction, just three steps added into it, and BOY! don't we feel better about ourselves!

Okay, well, then, batteries.

...that you plug into your household outlet, which draws juice produced by burning hydrocarbons fuels.

Hybrids? Ah. well, now THAT one uses the excess power created during the normal operation of the piston engine to juice up the batteries. That's actually a benefit, there.

The only way we'd be able to make any of this work is to convert our power plants to nukes [Greenpeace would have a massive stroke, so let's do it!], and use non-feed vegetation for ethanol.

[Worst_President_Ever]

Fresh water, not seawater, is the problem.

[seekeronos]

"---

Don't like Redford or Sundance. Fine. But don't make stuff up, attribute it to Sundance, then attack them for it.

If you don't like the movies, don't go to them. Ya got problems with the Free Market?

---"

Indeed, I won't go see any of them. But that's not my point: if Robert "Red" Redford *really* wanted my money... he'd make and/or market movies that entertain me, and not try to politicize me or indoctrinate me to his political views.

Free Market? I love it... because it's all about choice. What part of your cannabis-soaked mind made you leap to that particularly illogical conclusion (or rather, a supposition) that I somehow have chosen to reject a free market economy based upon a few crummy movies I'd rather not see?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"--- The only way we'd be able to make any of this work is to convert our power plants to nukes [Greenpeace would have a massive stroke, so let's do it!], and use non-feed vegetation for ethanol. ---"

Quite true.

Turning swampy lands in the Deep South into sugar beet/sugar cane plantations and putting huge windmill farms near the Great Lakes coastal regions that catch those Alberta Clippers, and turn huge swaths of Maricopa County into Solar Concentrator Towers or Heliothermal Turbine Towers... yeah man! That would go a long way toward supplying our energy needs.

And we could also capitalize on the one smart idea Hitler DID have - turning our massive coal supplies into oil/gas as and harvesting our oil shale in the Rocky Mountain Nat'l forest as an interim measure until the Nuke/Solar/Wind solutions can be brought to bear fruit.

[Worst_President_Ever]

They aren't Redford's movies. It's a Movie Festival. Like Cannes, Toronto, etc.

[templar knight]

Come on, WPE, admit it, the Sundance Film Festival is nothing more than a political party for the liberal Hollywood crowd. And really, who cares? I wouldn't waste any of my money on the drivil, and if the Hollywood crowd doesn't wake up soon, the movie industry will go the way of many other institutions without broad appeal.

In all seriousness, I haven't been to a movie in years(the last movie I saw at a theatre was Saving Private Ryan), and most of the people I know don't go to the movies often, either. There has been a rash of stupid horror and torture movies, Leftist political junk such as Redacted and Lions for Lambs, and nothing really worthwhile or meaningful to the common person. I would like to see a movie made about our soldiers in Iraq told from their perspective, perhaps a movie about the guy from New York who was recently awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. It's not that I mind movies like Lions for Lambs, it's just that all the movies made in Hollywood have only one perspective, and that's bad for Hollywood in the long run. Which is bad for America. I hope Hollywood wakes up before it's too late.

[Worst_President_Ever]

I just thought if Dan's going to trash the festival, he could at least do it honestly, and not take a quote that compared this year's festival to last year's and bastardize it into a bogus generalization that was never made.

Sundance caters to independent files most of which make little if any money. The corporations that make blockbuster films don't much go in for that kindof thing.

Here's your Hollywood types - other wise known as some of American's largest corporations:
20th Century Fox - owned by News Corp which also owns Fox News
Paramount - Viacom
Sony - Sony
NBC Universal - GE
Time Warner - Time Warner
Buena Vista - Walt Disney

[rwilymz]

"Fresh water, not seawater, is the problem"

Can't freeze saltwater. Know what happens when you do? The salt precipitates out. 8th grade chemistry, bubela.

Doesn't matter whether you're talking land-based glaciers or sea ice -- it's all fresh water.

But that, of course, leads to the latest future catastrophe predicted by the scientific millenialists chasing their boogie men and loch ness monsters: "thermohaline circulation". Global warming is going to melt all that polar ice, throwing the salt-saturation of the North Atlantic all a-kimbo, and cause a new Ice Age.

...or, alternately, it's going to cause an Antarctic ice shelf to collapse, thus displacing huge volumes of seawater causing widespread tsunami around the edges of [mainly] southern oceans, and inundating us that way. Then again, according to Zecharia Sitchin, this has already happened and which has come down to us in lore as The Biblical Flood.

Oh, if only Al Gore hadn't waited so long before prophecying his manbearpig, the poor, poor neolithic yutzes wouldn't have drowned and none of us would know what a cubit was. Curse you Al Gore! for not saving the Mesopotamian masses!

But regardless, melting glaciers are, by definition, fresh water. If melting glaciers is the result of global warming, then lack of fresh water therefrom is a fuction of not taking advantage of it. I see entrepreneurship in the offing...

"They aren't Redford's movies. It's a Movie Festival."

Uh huh. And that explains ... what?

If the argument against mainstream Hollywood is that it's formulaic, predictable and cliche, and you set yourself up to celebrate the "anti-Hollywood", mold-breaking films, it only becomes a matter of time before you, yourself, become formulaic, predictable and cliche. You become the rigidly conformist non-conformist.

There are web sites devoted to predicting Sundance award winners; they're uncannily accurate. Frankly, it doesn't take much imagination.

See DeconstructingSundance.com

[Worst_President_Ever]

Freshwater problems as in declining aquifers, wells going dry,

Your statement that "Most of the alternative energies we would be getting are either novelty or marginal-use [wind, solar]" is wrong. A number of countries get around 10% of their total energy from wind already. Denmark is close to 20%. And as Oil passes $100 a barrel, those technologies become more attractive.

Your contention that "Wind is only collectable in areas with moderate sustained winds over most of the year [coasts predominately]" will come as news to wind farmers in Iowa, Minnesota and other land-locked states.

Here's the US Windmap: http://tinyurl.com/2srsam

[rwilymz]

"Your statement that "Most of the alternative energies we would be getting are either novelty or marginal-use [wind, solar]" is wrong."

Except for the part where it's right, you're correct.

"A number of countries get around 10% of their total energy from wind already."

Name any one of those "number" which are the US, or have the US energy needs.

Simply being "modern" and "industrialzed" doesn't mean they use as much electricity as we do. And they don't. As many of your fellow America-loathers will remind you, the US uses 25% of the world's energy despite having only 5% of the world's population.

"Denmark is close to 20%."

Denmark is on the coast, last time I checked a map. Maybe you ought to check a map as well.

And check the math, while you're at it. Denmark doesn't use 5x more percapita energy than the rest of the world.

"And as Oil passes $100 a barrel, those technologies become more attractive."

I didn't say otherwise, peabrain. This is "one" disingenuity in your response. I don't tolerate that well -- as you should know by now -- and I do not feel the need to be polite when I have people throwing their academic dishonesty at me.

"Your contention that "Wind is only collectable in areas with moderate sustained winds over most of the year [coasts predominately]" will come as news to wind farmers in Iowa, Minnesota and other land-locked states."

No, it won't actually.

By the way, your windmap, like the USGS version of ditto, records "average" winds. Not minimum winds. Let's go back to basic arithmetic, since you insist on showing the analytical skills of a 6 year old.

If you have taken 5 tests in your Intro Meteorology class, and you get -0-, 20, 50, 80 and 100, what is your *average* grade at the end of the quarter?

Now, if you need a minimum value of 25 to qualify for a Test Taker's ribbon, how many of the tests would count for you?

And what relationship does the "average" have to the minimum requirement?

Answers:
50
2-of-5
none

If you'll investigate the requirements needed for wind power, you'll find that all turbines require a minimum windspeed in order to generate electricity. Granted, because of advances in technology, that minimum speed is getting slower and slower, but there is still a minimum; inertia and inate mechanical inefficiency being what it is .... And frankly, that minimum will always exist. You can't generate wind electricity when there's no wind. You'd need a nation full of Gilligan to huff and puff and blow into the Professor's latest contraption to do it.

No amount of Maryanne's coconut cream pie would be able to bring that about. Sorry.

Now, as for the wind farmers currently in midwestern states -- such as mine -- they have the problem that I'm describing [which somehow never seems to make the Gee Whiz press releases -- for some reason]. For much of the year they generate electricity that goes straight into the grid. But for other parts of the year, they generate bupkus. Roughly, during the summer and fall -- storms notwithstanding. Winter and spring is very windy on our plains, "boy howdy".

And you can forget about going "off-grid" in the midwest unless you are independently wealthy. You'd need a full-scale wind system for winter and spring [and breezy portions of the warm months], and a full-scale solar system for the summer and fall,

Apparently, also, you are doing your level best to advertise that you **still** cannot read for comprehension. For nowhere did I say that "landlocked" areas do not get wind, nor that *only* coasts get gusty; nor did I imply anything remotely similar.

I said, and I shall quote, that the coasts are **PREDOMINANTLY** where wind power would have its better payoff; other areas, it'd be "You can collect wind-generated electricty in most places ... as long as you only expect decent returns for part of the year."

Seriously, dipshit, I don't know why you bother. You don't know what you're talking about, that much is obvious. You have an exceptionally hard time figuring out what other people are talking about. And you inist on engaging them when you are clearly outmatched in every facet of rational discourse.

Give it up.

[Worst_President_Ever]

Hmm:
When you write of intellectual dishonesty, you're pretty damn good at it yourself.

What you wrote was:

"Wind is only collectable in areas with moderate sustained winds over most of the year [coasts predominately];"

Which is demonstrably false. Take Iowa - one of your Midwestern states far from any coast. It's the third largest producer of wind energy in the US. Minnesota is next on the list. But I guess in your world, that's not possible.

So first you say wind energy is a novelty, then when called on that you say Denmark is on the coast, as if that somehow explains why wind generation isn't a "novelty" there.

"dipshit". So erudite of you.

[Worst_President_Ever]

Looks like ya flunked your own test.

If you have taken 5 tests in your Intro Meteorology class, and you get -0-, 20, 50, 80 and 100, what is your *average* grade at the end of the quarter?

Now, if you need a minimum value of 25 to qualify for a Test Taker's ribbon, how many of the tests would count for you?

And what relationship does the "average" have to the minimum requirement?

Answers:
50
2-of-5 **Wrong
none

******************
My reading comprehension is fine. I just have problems reading stuff like this:

"Can't freeze saltwater. Know what happens when you do? The salt precipitates out."

[rwilymz]

"Which is demonstrably false. Take Iowa"

You're trying to prove me false by ...?

Parsing out as many words of mine as you need in order to get a complete sentence that says what you wish to disprove?

Izzat it? Cuz we can add "academically dishonest and intellectually disingenuous" to your CV, if you'd like.

"one of your Midwestern states far from any coast. It's the third largest producer of wind energy in the US."

Right.

Know why? Because the folks controlling the wheels of power arn't trying to protect their pristine coastlines with their pristine property values. [ref the Kennedy clan]. You stick the same number of turbines off Nantucket as you have in Iowa cornfields, you'll get 3x the electricity.

Know why? Because there's more wind more consistently ON THE COASTS than on most of the plains.

Which is what I said.

But far be it from you to actually read for comprehension.

"Minnesota is next on the list. But I guess in your world, that's not possible."

Sure. Compare states that have many wind turbines with those which have few/none, guess what you'll find.

But I guess in your world it's better to do something inefficiently, right?

If you can't bother yourself to read and comprehend, then you'd better drop out of anything that resembles "discussion". You're a dismal failure.

"first you say wind energy is a novelty"

It is. More specifically, it is a marginal, "niche", energy source. Vegetable oil-driven autos ... that's a novelty.

Wind has zero, zip, zilch, nada, bupkus chance of generating more than a small fraction of the world's energy. Solar ditto. ...unless the world goes back to an electrical-use pattern resembling the US in the 1940s...

Stop reading what you want to read and read, instead, what people write. You'll find yourself less confused than you are now.

"then when called on that you say Denmark is on the coast, as if that somehow explains why wind generation isn't a "novelty" there."

Do you live in Denmark? Cuz I don't. You gonna use foreign social realities to explain American society? We're horribly sexist because tribal Africans infibulate, and Indian hindus still torch widows and unmarried daughters of dead guys.

Yeah, boy, you sure are showing your stuff, aincha?

""dipshit". So erudite of you."

So accurate, as well.

By the way, thanks for finding my typo. Don't hang your hat on it.

"I just have problems reading stuff like this:
"Can't freeze saltwater. Know what happens when you do? The salt precipitates out.""

Of course you do. Because you don't know what you're talking about.

Now, if you wish to continue this discussion and **actually** prove me wrong rather than to simply wet your panties in my general direction, you're advised to research the subject.

Start here:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/chp2.html#seasonal

It explains what I've tried to nutshell for you: the difference between "average" wind, and seasonal, and why it affects the expected output you can gain -- and therefore why wind power is a marginal energy source.

It links to several detailed national wind maps, one "average" and four "seasonal".

Be advised: Class I and II wind is unacceptable for current technology to harness; class III is considered "marginal", where you can eventually get small-application payoff -- such as augmenting a home's electricity and selling back to the utility; class IV and above is prime for energy generation. [Although too much wind will cause the auto-shutoffs to kick in on most turbines. Class VII, if I recall correctly.]

Check the maps on Class IV "certainty". [aka: vind variability; the more vairable the wind, the less "certain" a resource it is.]

What do you see? Where is the industrial application "certain"? Upper midwest, TX/OK panhandles, high plains, mountains, coasts. COASTS.

Why is this important?

You can generate all the wind electricity you want in NDakota. That's great for NDakotans. But there ain't many of them, are there, and their electrical needs are few? So they have all this excess electricity coursing through their high tension wires going to ...?

Oh, hey, to Massachusetts, let's say. Know what happens to electricity that travels from NK to MA? It leaks out of the wire in OH and PA. You only get a fraction of what you started with. So you now need to buy 3 kWH in order to be certain to get 1. This is a large part of the CA problem of several years ago. Too "environmentally conscious" to make their own, so they had to buy extra electricity from other places [generated largely by the same hydrocarbons CA-ians were too proud to use themselves] in order to have what they needed, since mechanical inefficiency and imperfect insulation are what they are.

In short, you don't want to generate electricity for the state of NJ in ND or in IA or in MN. You want to generate it in NJ. Far more efficient in terms of both mechanical application and physical resources, and in terms of loss of energy through transportation. Ditto MA. Only you're going to have to convince the enviro-conscious Kennedy clan that it's more important for MA to have efficient wind electricity than it is for them to have an unobstructed view of the North Atlantic from their summer beach houses.

Good luck with that.

For the record, I live in a "2" "average" locale. Wind-generated electricity is not an industrial option. But seasonally, specifically, winter and spring, we are a "3". Which means I could run the meter backwards for probably 4 months of the year -- if I wanted to spend $15K - $20K to save $400 in electric bills and get back possibly another $200.

Calculate the payoff on that while you're busy searching for the words to admit you're an idiot.

[rwilymz]

Try google.

The Wind Power Industry itself estimates that if every last square inch of industrial-strength wind was harnessed for electricity, tapped, maxed-out, the US could generate 30% of it current electrical needs by wind turbine [20% just from ND alone -- but then you get into transmission leakage problems which make that 20% more like 10/15%].

Standing in the way of that are the environmentalist Democrats who refuse to allow arguably the best spot in the nation -- Nantucket -- to have its sightlines and shorelines "polluted" with turbine towers. Also standing in the way is the fact that many places that would otherwise be ideal for erecting towers are on top of roads, buildings or other dedicated or protected land areas. Not to mention land owners who simply "Don't wanna".

Compounding it is the reality that each turbine tower has to have 5-6ac of land area to itself in order to generate electricity at 'marginal' wind speeds. The blades on the turbine are not built to be aerodynamic, but aeroresistant -- you want them to block the wind and thereupon *turn*, not have the wind pass over them as if they weren't there. Even aerodynamic objects "chop" wind; aeroresistant objects are worse. It takes several hundred feet for chopped wind at slow speeds to figure out which direction it wants to go; only a few dozen feet at higher speeds.

You pile up the turbines you can get less electricity than if you have just one or two towers. Or, as I tell people when this specific subject comes up, I *can* fit all my furniture into my dining room ... but I wouldn't be able to use any of it, being disassembled and stacked. Same thing with wind towers. They need room to breathe.

The US could [estimated] *practically* get 5-7% of its current electrical needs from wind. If the US needs more electricity in the future ... that %age goes down.

That's marginal.

Now, dipshit, I'm sorry that I'm right again and that you're not. If they were to give out prizes for being the most sincerest buffoon spouting idealistic nonsense at right angles to reality, why, why, you'd be the local champeen!