Bush, an afront to Natural Selection
 

Let me make this clear: George W. Bush tried to plug an electrical wire into the hydrogen tank of a hybrid car, which would have resulted in the combustion of the vehicle, and, at his range to the vehicle, the possible death of the President.

Oh my god.

This is further evidence that 1) the president is barely intelligent enough to breath and blink at the same time, and 2) people like Alan Mulally are getting in the way of natural selection. Had Bush not been saved by his father, he surely would have died in Vietnam by using an electrical cord to fuel up a helicopter or something. I suppose this is an example of the negative side of being a good Samaritan. I'm not saying I wish the president had died, but it very well could have happened as a result of his lower than average intellect, and that could be attributed to natural selection.

Thoughts?

Meh. I think that it's more along the lines of being unfamiliar with the technology than idiocy. Honestly, if I were asked to plug in a hybrid/hydrogen vehicle (which was somehow apparently appropriate given that he had a plug in his hand), I could easily make the same mistake.

Perhaps this is closer to his father's gaff with the checkout scanner at a grocery store than the Darwin Awards.

And will - you'd prefer Cheney over Bush? Would ANYONE?

i need a link for this...

but um, yeah... OMG :sad:

Do you watch Democracy Now? You can download the video or audio podcast. It's on today's episode.

What does he think the hydrogen is for? You'd think that someone who at least has a basic, basic, understanding of what a hybrid engine is would understand that plugging it in makes no sense.
How many heart attacks has Cheney had now? 12? 46? I'd say that Cheney has cheated death many times. No, I'd not prefer Cheney over anyone (Hitler? Hmm...not sure...).

Do you have the link? I would like to read the full article. If Ford is going to market hybrid hydrogen vehicles that can explode that easily, I going to move to a state like Alaska and live at least a mile from my nearest neighbor.

I don't see any links to the article on the Democracy Now website, but as I said, you can download and watch or listen to the video or audio podcast.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/04/09/a...nt-bushs-life/

looks like VP Cheney was there too!

it's not nearly as bad as willravel states, but it is still quite funny.

hydrogen must be contained, it's not an open tank like a gas tank.

still funny, but not politics.

Judging by the article, it looks like an assassination attempt by the person who put the cord behind the car....

Will, I'm not arguing one way or the other that Bush had a clue about the nature of hydrogen. Neither of us can win that fight. However, my only point is that this story illustrates at worst his inability to follow simple instructions from whoever handed him the plug in the first place (I doubt any POTUS stoops down to pick anything off the floor) or at best confusion on where the outlet was.

Honestly, I'm confused as to why a car referred to as a "hybrid" would have a hydrogen tank in the first place. Generally cars under the definition of "hybrid" as I understand it have a gas tank and batteries and no place or need to plug anything in. A hydrogen car wouldn't need to be plugged in since it would work off the same flywheel concept that makes a hybrid a hybrid. Then again, it's entirely possible that this is something I've never heard of, which makes all of my wonderment a moot point.

MY GOD MAN round up the janitors and ship them off to Guantanamo

i think the new hotness is for hybrid between electric and hydrogen.

Well when one considers this story, qualifying it with our knowledge of Bush and pretzels, it starts to form a pattern.
I believe that hybrid means that it has both an electric and combustion engine, working in tandem. That can be gas/electric, hydrogen/electric, or any other combustible substance with electric. My question would only be why a hybrid needs an outlet, but that could just be to take some of the responsibility from the combustion engine. Damn, irresponsible combustion engine.

hydrogen pumping stations will not be very prevalent to start with, it would be a good idea to let you charge it up just in case.

Color me educated on the new types of hybrids. I guess it makes sense, although I don't really see the point if hydrogen is a Zero Emission vehicle (which I think it is). But whatever.

I'm still not ready to call the Darwin Awards folks over this. Maybe the "out of touch with the realities of the American people" folks, but since I can't view the video at work, I'll have to wait to render judgement on that until later.

There was probably little danger of the President plugging an electrical plug into the hydrogen port. I think Mulally was just telling a funny story.
http://www.mobilemag.com/images/fordegehybrid05.jpg

I don't know about you, but my reality doesn't have much to do with hydrogen cars.

I heard about this on the radio this morning. Not sure what there is to say about it though. It's not like hydrogen cars are really familiar enough to people (I've never even SEEN one that I know of) for thsi to be that stupid. Besides, no matter how much I dislike GWB's policies, I don't want him to set himself on fire.

It's very, very easy to extract hydrogen from water, so maybe the electrical engine could simply turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, making the car powered by the same chemical reaction the space shuttle uses to escape the Earth's gravity (2 H2 + O2). If that's the case, all you should need is tap water and maybe to plug the thing in at night. Not to get off subject, but that would be an easy and efficient process. Shit, the planet is covered in water, so no more war for energy rich resources.

converting water to hydrogen would be a waste of power, the idea is to use a big efficient power plant (nuclear or something) to generate the power, then store it in hydrogen for the road, because hydrogen is more efficient then gas. but making a electric engine make hydrogen locally, it is a waste of power.

By looking at the smirk on all their faces this could of just been some weird publicity stunt. Don't forget they all have master degrees in the art of propaganda. I mean it's possible it happened how they said, but I've been lied to so many times I have to be skeptical.

Yes, but people might be willing to let that be in order to no longer have to go to the gas station (or in this case hydrogen station). Yes, it's not as efficient, but it's cleaner, and much more simple.

Breath and blink at the same time huh? Really now, does comments like this make you feel superior the President? Because I know that you really need to be able to do a wee bit more than that to fly one of these,
http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/fighter/f102/f102-1.jpg

Think you could fly one Will? How about be a Governor? Or maybe get elected to 2 terms as Presidents. You calling Bush stupid is getting rather old, let me know when you have your Yale graduation, you smarties really need to protect the idiots who do not know how to vote.

Given my own confusion on the subject, I'm inclined to agree with you. Until today, I considered myself relatively informed on the subject of alternative fuel cars, but I guess I haven't been hanging around the friends that are deeply involved in the subject as much as I have in the past.

I doubt many people on this board have seen any private hydrogen-fueled vehicles on the road, and only a few of us see the buses and trucks that are. And of those few, I doubt that many have seen the fueling mechanisms.

Finally - will - I think that the point about fueling stations is speaks more to the lack of infrastructure than anything else. While the method of separating hydrogen from water may be relatively simple, it is something altogether different to expect business to adapt the technology overnight to allow for easy fueling of these vehicles. My friends who have E80 cars don't take them out of state unless they're going to Iowa or Indiana because of the lack of stations elsewhere.

Once again...no fan of GWB here. But, C'mon...tell me that this isn't a mistake that the majority of Americans, myself included, couldn't have made. Is this a slow news day? Does the man not do enough to be ridiculed over?

And, as far as choking on a pretzel goes? Again...c'mon. Is there one person amoungst us that hasn't choked on something? Or, swallowed wrong and gone into a coughing fit? I have. Numerous times.

There is plenty of reason to fault George W. Bush. This...I don't think...really qualifies.
It seems very petty to me.

Had I received the same training as George W. Bush, I am very confident that I would have been a much, much better pilot than he could have ever been. It has nothing to do with this thread, but I am certain that I'm several degrees smarter than the President across the board.
Could I be a governor? If I had half the resources Bush needed to be elected in Texas, absolutely. I'm a family man, very liberal, and people like to listen to me talk. I'd probably be able to take California with millions of dollars (I mean if Arnold can do it, anyone can).
If I were ever elected president, I'd have been elected more than George W. Bush. He lost in 2000 and 2004.
I graduated with a 4.0 and paid my own way through college. Not only that, but I'm getting my Masters right now. I never got drunk or too drugs in college. I didn't need my father to pull strings to get me into school, either. Compare that to Bush, if you dare.

If you can prove Bush isn't stupid, go right ahead. Until then, saying 'this is getting old is rather meaningless.

Thanks to flstf for posting the picture of the hydrogen fueling dock. The one where it clearly states in all capitol letters: "HYDROGEN". I kinda think that proved my point.

I don't see what the big deal is. Bush didn't actually almost blow up anything; there's no way anyone who designs cars for a living would design one where you could blow it up that easily.

There ya go...
another good reason why this is a non-issue.

Big deal. :confused:

Y'know...I put my sweatshirt on backwards last Saturday. I felt pretty dumb. Good thing that I'm not the President or anything. It would've made national headlines. :rolleyes:

Whatever.

Can you imagine putting a live extension cord into the gas tank of a car?

this is being blown out of proportion, Alan Mulally was just being careful, bush could have easily noticed his error before placing it in contact. anyone could have made the same mistake, it's was in front of the media and a bit stressful.

The early days of any power source are filled with learning opportunities. *kaboom* Hence safety measures at gasoline filling stations, electrical codes, etc.

Still, GWB sure seems to be a student of that Keaton comedy rule:
"The audience loves a slow thinker."

BOR, may I say you're looking absolutely gorgeous today?

re: the electrolysis thing for H2 storage; way too inefficient. you have to have the energy in the first place to split the water molecule. some people look at doing this with solar energy, but the conversions currently are too low. as to the charging of the battery, as i understand it these engines are programmed to switch back and forth and perhaps even simultaneously operated from the battery and the combustion engine/fuel cell. in the worst case, the battery is your fallback power, so you'd definitely want to start with it charged. its not used solely to collect "waste" energy from the combustion engine/fuel cell. and yeah, i find it really difficult to imagine that a design engineer wouldn't have made it virtually impossible to blow the car up using the battery charger through the hydrogen refilling port. for what its worth gasoline is a *way* better fuel than H2 on either weight or volume bases, its just dirty and in limited supply.

I'm pretty sure it won't fit, at least not in any car that i've ever filled up. Not that anyone would ever have a reason to think that they need to shove a live extension cord into a gas tank.

If only there was a way to harness the energy of small children.

How soon we forget the Bush tractor fiasco:

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...aterpillar.jpg
Like a little boy with a new toy.

So...
He's bored with his "Army men"? :shakehead:

dc, that seems more like a story of the idiocy of the people surrounding Bush than the man himself. From an insurance standpoint, anyone that had been hurt on the ground would have had a very hard time collecting anything other than basic workers compensation benefits. A prudent person would have known that it wasn't a good idea to in front of a tractor being driven by a brand-new, untrained operator.

I'm no Bush apologist, but this strikes me as much more of a "god, the press is full of a bunch of idiots" moment than an example of a Bush-ism. Similar to anytime I'm exposed to paparazzi, which is just a less-evolved version of the White House Press Corps on the road anyway.

Jazz....you're probably right. but I can still picture that classic Bush smirk.

I can imagine the smirk up to the point that someone got hurt, but from what I know about him, I can't imagine that he'd be anything sort of horrified if he personally injured someone. Obviously the war is a separate issue, but I think you know what I mean.

Sorry, but this is just too close to what I've been looking at all day - prime examples of the better idiot. Fat lady + salad bar + grape on the floor = $1M. Or operating wood chipper attached to a moving truck + kicking brush into it = getting completely chipped. Idiots.

36 messages......plus this one.....about what? Isn't this about escaping from politics....rather than a discussion about the political crisis in this country, the crisis of leadership? I'm going to put my next post here, because I am wearing my disappoint "on my sleeve"......that this topic could suck the attention away from the crisis of an illegitimate war, conducted by 'leaders" who have squandered any legitimacy. Reading this, thread makes me think that I'm losing my mind, even more than the details of the crisis, and the US public's "Non Reaction" to it...already make me think so........

Sheesh !!! MSM summed this topic up, days ago.....thusly:
NOW WE STILL HAVE TROOPS DYING IN IRAQ, AND WE'VE ONLY BEEN LIED TO, ABOUT WHY THEY ARE THERE...........

No, what he means is it's a double-negative energy output.

It takes more energy to convert H2O into H2 + H2 + O2 than it could ever grant converting it back. This means that in a 100% efficiency engine (never going to happen), you would still have an energy loss inside the car itself. So you'd have to plug it in, plus put in water to be converted... which is more inefficient than just plugging it in and going off the electricity.

That is why we have outside power plants that separate the two, then we could use the separated hydrogen as a stored energy source (as gasoline is). This makes the engine more efficient, as it is only responsible for the later part of the efficiency equation (which means less refueling). That also means we could never use hydrogen cars until there is a hydrogen fuel station basically on every street corner, as there is currently with gasoline, or only the very rich or very stupid would ever buy one.

Host, he's too stupid to rule anything and should immediately be impeached because his stupidity has, at least in part, led us to a dreadfully failed war of aggression and the loss of our precious freedoms. He sits in his office being a complete and total fool, and as a result, people die. It's not a distraction, it's a reminder.

Seaver (or Dil, or anyone), do you have any information on the energy necessary to create the electricity in order to facilitate electrolysis (or whatever method you wish) vs. the energy released?

But you haven't and probably never will so you or for that matter anyone else know if you "could of" been better.


I saw what the "very liberal" did to California, hence the reason Arnold is in office.

Still harping on '00 and '04 care to explain how he lost, especially in '04

Very impressive, by the time you are Bush's age I am certian his life resume will still dwarf yours.

Your are absoultly correct, it is quite meaningless, when dealing with the Einsteins of the world it isnt hard to prove others stupid. The smarties know how to vote while others just follow along.

reconmike, you are cordially invited over to the "They're Still Lying....Still Dying Thread", because I'm sure that you'll agree that a man as competent and able as the "CIC" must have a very good reason for saying something, over and over....his first justification for invading Iraq, even though it was a questionable justification in 2002, not confirmed in 2003, and disproven for years, since......so let's hear why you think that he's still saying it, and allows his VP and Sec'ty of State, and his Press Secretary, to say it, too.