The F-16 went against the grain of modern American fighter planes. The Pentagon prefers huge, two-engined fighters, but fighter pilots choose manuverablilty. During the Cold War, Congress insisted on a low-cost fighter since there was not enough money to make only F-15s. The result: a highly manuverable and fuel-efficient single-engined fighter. The F-35 will succeed it, also a single-engined fighter.

Size is not everything.

 

Send me an email if you'd like some pics of our newest bird, the F/A-22 Raptor, being delivered to Langley AFB, Virginia.

bar10dah@gmail.com

 

Larry,

I think your last post is honest, and to the point. I can understand your opinion, but I cannot agree with it.

I don't want to be the dictator of record. Especially when a rational alternative energy policy would make the entire question moot, improve western economies, and protect the environment.

Moving away from a military dependent fossil-fuel world is a no-brainer -- exxon/enron and associated lackeys respectfully excluded.

 

Eric,

Which part do you not agree with? I hope not the part where I said "we dont want to live in a world where someone like a Middle East dictator can control large portions of the oil." Because disagreeing with that would be non-sensical.

And of course, we all ( like you said, BigOil execs excluded) WANT to move away from the fossil-fuel-dependent world. But for now, for circumstances that you or I cannot control, we cannot do so, and we should make the most of it.

Defending the oil at this point is virtually the same as defending our way of life, is it not? Until the oil dependence is remedied?

 

-Interestingly enough, lars-ss (if I'm correct in my assumption) is arguing a point I presented to some fellows last week. Not in the forum.

-It could be summed up by saying, who here thinks that oil is not a reason to go to war. I'm always very amused when I hear the saying "No blood for oil!" I pleasently think to myself. Are you kidding? Rabble-rousers are always very amusing.

 

...

 

(Just because I know this will get deleted if I post it here, I'll just create a link...)

http://www.speedextreme.com/keith/sm...bulldozer3.gif

 

-Civic Duty. Nice and witty. Does this mean however, that arguements or discussions can never sway from the original topic. Things evolve over time. I just hope that discussing something outside the boundry of the exact title of the thread doesn't offend anyone.

 

I am certainly not offended by threads drifting off-topic. I have a hard time finding a single thread on GreenHybrid that doesn't do that. I enjoy evolving discussions, and some of the best things that have come out of our message boards are borne of such discussion.

I do get annoyed by the political dalliances, though. I do have very strong political views about these topics, and I have several other forums and discussion groups where I vent these things. One of the things that I love about GreenHybrid, though, is that I can come here to get away from that sort of thing, and read/discuss my favorite apolitical topic - hybrid cars. Sure, discussions about things like the availability of energy will invariably skew political at some point, but I feel like opinions about things like the war have no place here. Feelings get provoked, and the friendly attitude that typically dominates our website dies very fast. For example, in another forum, I may have prepared a blistering rebuttal to bar10dah's little contribution, but this isn't the place for my to get my political dander riled up. bar10dah, by the way, is an awesome contributor to the forum and someone whose opinions and posts about hybrid cars I respect very much.

Actually, I don't mind at all when the topic of conversation in here drifts to random topics. Just as long as it isn't something potentially incendiary that could divide the participants here. I'm not going to bring my religion into a GH thread anytime soon; it has no place.

I know I don't contribute to GH that much, but I do visit the site every single day, and I doubt more than a handful of posts has escaped me since I joined the site. It's been a while since the peaceful atmosphere has been disturbed (cough ElectricTroy cough). I'm not mad at anybody, just exasperated by this thread.

 

If the moderators at a hybrid forum I frequented were here, they would salivate at locking virturally every thread here.


I don't have a problem hearing someone's politics, unless it gets personal or protracted. I've seen people at other forums that harp on their point of view past that point of "agree to disagree". That's when flame wars erupt.

I've made plenty anti-monster truck/Hummer, etc. threads....maybe my nickname should have been: "The Little Hybrid of HATE" (Dallas sports fans will know where I got this )