The Hall of Fire

tinwë, lol! I have no idea what the currency in zimbabwe is called. I could have guess 'lira' I suppose, since about 50 countries call their currency that.

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To answer the question asked above, we suspended the convertibility of dollars to gold in 1968, and then left the gold standard in 1971. What River is recalling is the 1946 transition to the Bretton Woods system, where other countries in the system could issue their money supply against US dollar re...

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Swiz hit it on the nose. The easiest way to get a handle on the impact of inflation is to ask how fast prices are doubling. But the economy demonetizes long before you reach either of those points because money ceases to be a reliable medium of exchange. People revert to barter, and I would guess th...

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Senate could not not pass extention of the tax credit for alternate energy sources. Doubts they'll do it this year. Utility companies begged for it, seems; offered guaranteed contracts and contribution to financing for wind and solar if the Senate would guarantee the tax credit . Senator Warner of V...

I really envy you, Ellie! And I'll be envying AJ if he is able to go solar too. I did a formal analysis of this for myself about 6 years ago, because I thought at that time I'd be moving into a single-family home in the immediate future. Then, the fact that I would have to get an out-of-state instal...

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Maria, I'm so sorry. Oh man, that hurts.

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sol wrote:2) the petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide.

I caught that episode on youtube a few weeks ago. That was hilarious.

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Sol, the links that Holby posted claims that the utilities had to divest of their generating plants under deregulation. To tell you the truth, I was surprised to read that presented as universal. I am pretty sure that some of the power plants which serve Phila are still owned by PECO, one being Peac...

I like that explanation, Voronwë. I have always been reluctant to give up the idea of elvish/human origins for the orcs because I've always felt that Tolkien's original intention was to show them as a corruption of something otherwise good. I also think that his first inclination in that direction w...

Go for it, Imp! I've been thinking that context is everything where Pollyanna is concerned. She tries to find the good side of bad things that happen to her , but she does not make light of other people's troubles. Au contraire, she dives right in and tries to fix them. There are certainly some peop...

If solar really is cheaper, wouldn't the plants get replace with solar just for the simple sake of moneymaking? We're talking about a couple different loci of decision-making, yov. For the utility company, the best way to preserve revenues is to leave the distribution system exactly as it is now (b...