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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2014
PAGE 4
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TEXT FREE FOR ALL
Text your FFA submissions to (785)289-8351 or at kansan.com
When you find a guy who tells you you're pretty when you haven't showered in 5 days, keep him around.
If you think I'm not being myself, than you don't know who I really am.
Girl on the bus: "Okay so it was a little cooler than I anticipated but it's okay." There's snow on the ground...what did you expect?
I wonder, do you (FFA guy) recognise the the numbers off the frequent FFA submitters?
Editor's Note. Not particularly.
And for the record, I'm a girl.
Can I just take a moment and say how happy I am that there are two trans KU students on the front page! That's me in the brown boots!
The bus schedules aren't an exact time - they're a time before which the bus isn't allowed to leave. If you're there before that time, you won't miss the bus. Most buses don't run right on time, but they never leave early. That Bus Driver
To all the boys who walk two steps outside Ambler and spit on the sidewalk... Ewwwwwww!!!! Stop it.
I think I scrolled through every girl on campus on Tinder in one day.
To the person who claimed that the 1900's look of godzilla is coming back...try more like 1954 lock...own every movie trust me I am more excited than you are.
"It's not a class where you can just look at test files, you actually have to know it" learning in college, what an odd idea...
All I want is a beautiful ginger woman to fall for me. Is that too much to ask for?
Is it acceptable to propose through the free for all?
I'm running on 3 hours of sleep, haven't eaten since yesterday, and I have two tests today. But I made FFA of the day. So there's that.
next year Bill Self will have to start to put the Championship rings on his toes.
nree replies to my "17 hour"
FFA. My response: are you a mother of three kids, too?
Watching you walk to the beat of your music makes me smile.
Found a phone on crosswalk by Pharmacy Tuesday at 1 pm. Turned into Public Safety Office. Luckily, it had not been run over.
Fossil fuels are the future of energy
ECONOMICS
Even the most conservative person will tell you that, someday, fossil fuel dominance may end. How? With the world's most tired buzzwords: technology and innovation. Maybe, someone will one day discover or invent the next energy source. The belabored point is the same—who knows what disruptive force will change the energy mix?
Let me take a stronger position than the "who knows?" perspective. The dominant future energy source is fossil fuel. No question.
The world's dependence on crude oil is too strong. Natural gas, coal and other fossil fuels continue to make strides in electricity generation, industrial processes and heating, but the infrastructure surrounding crude oil is virtually irreplaceable. I know I lack creativity, but I can't imagine a world without jet fuel, gasoline, plastics or other synthetic products.
Only a more economic resource could displace crude oil, just as the more economic kerosene displaced whale oil. Should we stop using kerosene, a dirty nonrenewable fuel, and instead breed thousands of whales for their whale oil? We could have whale farms. The point: it has to be economic.
There's a common misconception by outsiders to the energy business that any innovation or technology breakthrough automatically means renewable energy. The public has this expectation that the resource that kills king crude will be carbon dioxide neutral as well as renewable. That's a nice thought, and I hope it happens. I hope the world runs on clean, renewable energy. But I wouldn't bet on it.
Thanks to powerful
environment and
environment and sustainability movements, consistent improvements in oil and gas processing have made fossil fuel production more economical, though hardly innovative. These improvements go relatively unnoticed, and the ones that are noticed are demonized. Yet because of these advancements, firms can move beyond the lowest hanging fruit, into more complex hydrocarbon resources.
Meanwhile, renewable energy seems to be treading water. Only so many rivers can be dammed to produce electricity. And the trade of rare earth metals like neodymium and tellurium, used in wind turbines and solar panels respectively,easily puts the brakes on investment. Our cars will only take so much ethanol mixed with gasoline. What next?
As much as anyone, including myself, hates to admit it, what's next is more crude oil. More natural gas. More coal. Does this mean renewables don't belong? Not at all. They're part of the energy portfolio. They should continue to be subsidized, to explore the possibilities. But don't buy the idea that they'll replace oil and gas within the next 50 years, or even come close. We're all waiting for something beyond all our imaginations to disrupt the energy industry.
Chris Ouyang is a senior from Overland Park studying petroleum engineering and economics.
Kansas politics have become too extreme
GOVERNMENT
FFA OF THE DAY Just made eye contact with Embiid. Twice. You could say things are getting pretty serious.
@Timmy_Hewitt
@KansanOpinion I want my tax dollars back. They're not using them for anything productive in Topeka, anyway. #brownbackistan
Kansas was not always the bastion of far-right politics that we think of today. In fact, the state has long been renowned for its pragmatic political leaders and progressive worldview. It was the first state to implement such programs as workers compensation for injuries and the regulation of risky securities markets. It also found itself well ahead of the curve on social policies, enacting women's suffrage eight years before the nation as a whole and producing the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Famed moderates like Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bob Dole were emblematic of Kansas's approach to politics - one of moderation. However, in recent years, the state of Kansas has taken a troubling turn to the far-right, an effort led by Governor Sam Brownback.
Over the last four decades, social conservatives have developed a stronghold of traditional values within the state. Wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage struck deep emotional cords within the populace, whipping voters into a frenzy that has contributed to the dangerously one-sided political climate that we find ourselves in today. A firm foundation of social conservatism, combined with the fervor of the Tea Party Movement, subsequently opened the floodgates for extremist
lawmakers to wrestle power away from moderates and enact an anti-government agenda of unprecedented proportions. These well-funded zealots now stand on the brink of wiping out the last traces of Kansas's moderate lawmakers.
With the moderate establishment defeated, Governor Brownback has been able to conduct his political experiments free from opposition.
In his brief three years in power, Brownback has overseen a radical restructuring of the state. Government services have been gutted to make way for tax cuts favoring affluent Kansans. Public education has been slashed, losing 18 percent of its funding according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Additionally, Kansas has become the first state to wholly defund its arts commission, and new waves of strict voting laws have currently suspended the voting privileges of over 12,000 Kansas registrants according to the Wichita Eagle.
Most concerning of all, however, is that the state has recently come close to legalizing religion-based discrimination against gays and lesbians through
House Bill 2453. The bill reads, "No individual or religious entity shall be required [to]... provide any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges... or provide employment or employment benefits, related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement." In effect bringing back the legality of the statement, "We don't serve your kind here." This represents an irrational, unconstitutional exercise of government-sponsored bigotry that is so offensive to human dignity that its very consideration is shameful. The fact that this measure overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives is cause for serious alarm.
How has Kansas sunk so low? How has this great state been allowed to be manipulated into following policies detrimental to the general welfare and lethal to social cohesion? The answer is simple: The voters have allowed it. Soon the voters will have a chance to correct this and restore balance to the system. It's time to end Kansas's march to the fringe of the political spectrum and return to the realm of reason. It's time to restore Kansas' promise of a better, inclusive future. It's time to change Kansas.
@BadBuddhist4
Jesse Burbank is a freshman from Quinter studying history and political science.
@KansanOpinion I feel like it's some sort of prank.
JAKE KAUFFMAN/KANSAN
@KansanOpinion it's as crazy as the last 30 seconds of Season 2 of House of Cards. #CRAZY
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