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This is a very naive viewpoint. Utilities need right of way to run their lines to each residence throughout the city. You can't have everyone digging everywhere or putting up poles wherever they feel like it. Likewise, you cannot have one homeowner blocking internet access to half the city.

In the UK BT owns the phone lines. However it is forced to sell DSL wholesale packages at a capped price. Those are resold by ISPs. So there's one set of wires for telephone but there is still competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If you've only got one DSL provider in each area in the US, the regulations are written wrong. Basically some company has manipulated them via regulatory capture. That's a problem.

Though actually the FCC claims 97% of Americans do have a choice

https://cei.org/blog/net-neutr...

The real alternative to the light regulatory touch the Internet enjoyed during its first twenty years-one that admittedly left executives at Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T to figure out what consumers wanted-is an Internet experience controlled by unelected government bureaucrats and elderly politicians (the average age of a Representative is 57 and the average of a Senator is 61).

Does that sort of big government control strike anyone as a recipe for unfettered free speech and torrents of innovation? It shouldn't.

Certainly, markets don't deliver everything to everyone perfectly at all times. But as flawed as your broadband provider's customer service or variable connectivity speed can be, it's still better than dealing with the post office or the IRS.

That's largely because, if it gets maddening enough, you can quit your broadband provider and switch to another one. Or at least most of us can: FCC data shows that 97 percent of census blocks had more than one provider offering at minimum 10 Mbps as of 2016. You don't get the option to take your business elsewhere at the DMV.

It's that consumer power in a relatively unfettered marketplace that's driven the striking growth and improvement in broadband speeds and availability. Current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai noted in his 2015 dissent to the Open Internet Order that the United State's light regulatory approach resulted in much faster speeds for consumers and more industry investment in wireline deployment than the utility-style regulation in Europe has produced.

Laying net neutrality regulations and restrictions on this dynamic industry will reduce the rate of returns for these broadband providers and, all else being equal, will lower investment, as Duke University Professor Michelle Connolly recently explained at an economist's roundtable.

tl;dr - if there's not enough competition, then fix that. Net Neutrality won't do that. It doesn't need multiple sets of wires, merely regulation that forces whoever owns the wires to allow multiple companies to operate on them and still be profitable. If you do that you'll get multiple competing services. And if some of those don't fulfill the holy principles of Net Neutrality, you're free to use a different one.

The free market does solve this. The best known solution to the tragedy of an open-access commons is to create property rights, then get out of the way and allow the free market to work.

As that's a solution which has already been successfully implemented several times to solve this exact fishing problem with trade-able Individual Vessal Quotas (IVQ). It's also been used to solve similar wildlife/game animals issues by selling the animals to private owners.

Notice that nobody thinks we're going to run out of cows or chickens anytime soon in the world, yet they are slaughtered for more and more food every year!

So how about we continue to try more of the solutions which have actually worked to avert these types of fishing conflicts?

It shouldn't shock anyone that this article, written by the Coast Guard, happens to emphasize that by-the-way the Coast Guard should be given lots more ships and money to enforce regulations as the solution to the outlined problem. Next up, we'll read about how the Air Force believes we're going to need lots more air planes and pilots and support staff for the next big global conflict.

Knowledge of the law is not possible. Laws are being written faster than anyone can read them, now that the edicts of regulatory agencies have the force of law.

This year’s daily publication of the federal government’s rules, proposed rules and notices amounted to 81,611 pages. http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/264456-2015-was-record-year-for-federal-regulation-group-says

Read that carefully, that's over 80,000 pages per day.

Actually, you need to read it more carefully, or be more informed. The daily refers to the publication itself, which is published every day, not the actual amount published in a day.

If you go back to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and see their actual claim, which is that the yearly total amounts to some 82,000 new pages, you'll realize that you misread it.

Unofficially, Mr. Obama’s Administration has once again broken its own record by issuing a staggering 82,036 pages of new and proposed rules and instructions in the Federal Register in 2015. We say unofficially because Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who tracks these regulations, warns that the final number will likely come down by a few hundred pages when the official National Archives tally is released, without the blank pages that sometimes appear in daily publication.

I suppose you could have inadvertently misread the first article, but if you had checked it out, you might have recognized that your own interpretation was severely in error.

However, due to your own biased inclinations, you failed to do so, and being uninformed, you just went with a false reading instead. It does seem a bit ironic since you asked others to read carefully, but did poorly on your own.

You would expect that most records would be broken in the early years of registration.

And, maybe, they were — but no one would profit from emphasizing the fact, so we do not know about it.

Over the last 20-25 years, we've seen a disproportionate amounts of records being broken

We have also seen a large number of people profiting from the idea of AGW during the same period.

average temperature of 1 or 2 degrees is massive on a global scale

We don't even know, if that's true — for example, satellite observations disagree (until "adjusted") on this with ground-based thermometers. And no wonder:

we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source

The AGW-proponents acknowledge the problems, but claim, they are properly addressed by "adjustments":

when processing their data, the organizations which collect the readings take into account any local heating or cooling effects, such as might be caused by a weather station being located near buildings or large areas of tarmac. This is done, for instance, by weighting (adjusting) readings after comparing them against those from more rural weather stations nearby.

Who is doing the weighting (adjusting) and how? What #define-s do they use in their code? Would they not stop "adjusting" before the results show the trend, which they sincerely believe must be there? See, what is "sold" to the public as objective recordings of scientific instruments are, in fact, results of "adjustments" by unknown programs using unspecified parameters...

And the raw — unadjusted — data sometimes go to sleep with Hillary Clinton's emails... But not to worry, the "scientists" tell us — it was processed correctly, trust us... So much for reproducibility being a requirement for scientific method — these guys are frauds, not "scientists"...

But even if it really is true, that temperatures rose 1 degree since 1850 — so what? 10 thousands years ago Tasmania was attached to mainland Australia. It was also possible for bears to cross from mainland Alaska to the islands of Kodiak archipelago (either over land or ice-fields). Then something substantial enough happened to isolate these lands. Whatever it was, it was not the humans discovering fire, was it?

No one claims that the US federal government is a perfect system for "promoting social progress and cultural evolution". Everything in life is a compromise.

And I mean that literally. The CAGW folks are saying we must take drastic steps to prevent disaster: shut down coal plants even if it means blackouts on the Eastern Seaboard, capture all the emissions from smokestacks and pump the CO2 underground, spend and/or lose trillions of dollars on the projects. The problem with this is that people don't think the alleged threat of CAGW is worth that level of pain.

People will buy a Prius, and feel good about it. But that is a rational decision, since a Prius costs less to feed than other cars. People will not, in general, sell their cars and start bicycling to work to Save The Planet, because that's a pain and they don't take the threat seriously.

I personally am a Climate Change Denier (oh no!). I don't think the CAGW guys have proven their case to the level required for me to take it seriously.

The "hockey stick" turns out to be much less robust than originally claimed. And the "hockey stick" model can make an alarming hockey stick graph out of random input data.

There are serious questions that the CAGW folks have not adequately answered, such as "CO2 levels are higher than ever so why is the warming flat?" "CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but we have had enough for decades and additional CO2 does little, so why should additional CO2 matter?" "Where is the hot spot?"

And the ClimateGate emails showed collusion to tamper with or suppress evidence the CAGW guys didn't like, collusion to keep skeptical papers out of the peer-reviewed journals and then point at those papers and say "Hah, those were never published in the peer-reviewed journals", "Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline".

Worst of all, some of the top CAGW guys massaged and massaged the data, and destroyed the original data making it impossible to fact-check.

Extraordinary propositions require extraordinary proof. I don't think the CAGW idea has been proven to the level that I am comfortable with the extreme measures that have been proposed to fight it.

Dr. Mann complains about two statements: 1) that as "the man behind the fraudulent climate-change 'hockey-stick' graph," he is "the very ringmaster of the three ring circus" on climate change; and 2) that he "could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet." Neither of these statements is actionable. Moreover, if Dr. Mann decides to pursue this matter, he and his research would be subjected to a very extensive discovery of materials that he has fought so hard to protect in other proceedings. Such materials would be required for National Review to defend itself.

Ah yes, recycling... Didn't Penn and Teller do an episode on that?

And what does having fewer kids have to do with anything? Are you trying to breed "ecological concern" out of the species in favor of "religious fundamentalism that doesn't believe in birth control and doesn't give a crap about the planet?" Because that's what happening when you have less kids.

Repaid it with other borrowed/bailout money.

You really have to go beyond the headlines and look at the picky details

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/general-motors-commercial-complaint-bailout-ad-filed-ftc/story?id=10554206

http://cei.org/articles/2010/05/09/gm-deliberately-tried-deceive-americans-letter-editor

bah... I used to work for GM, and was in the UAW, and I *quit*. It was disgusting. Management sucks, those clueless investors suck (can't control their management) and the union sucks, buncha arrogant rednecks. For every one good employee with a clue, they have 50 who couldn't find their ass with a GPS and a map. They are the posterboy corporation that got so big they started believing their own BS. They should have been allowed to crash and burn same as those ripoff derivatives spewing casino banks.

By now, it has become evident that we are facing an energy problem -- while our primary sources of energy are running out, the demand for energy is greatly increasing.

Evident to you and me, maybe. But there are lots of folks who insist that all these issues can be explained away. A lot of them follow Slashdot, and I'm a little surprised they haven't already chimed in.

(Forgive the double post. Should have previewed.)

I may not "know more that people who've spent their life working on the problem", but it appears I share my skepticism with many such people:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072E-802A-23AD-45F0-274616DB87E6
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/29/an-inconvenient-voice-dr-alan-carlin/
http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf

From http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2006/20061108124934.aspx
The call for global warming spending has been heard before. In 1997, the U.S. Senate spoke out 95-0 against the Kyoto treaty, which was designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions of the world's nations. If the United States had joined that agreement, it was estimated to cost up to $440 billion per year.
And an interesting report about GW from here:
http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf

Here's a link to the nearly 100 page draft of the study. The Preface alone should turn your stomach: http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf

This is where I found it, it also has some more background: http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m6d26-The-politics-if-not-the-science-is-settled-at-the-EPA-Alan-Carlin-global-warming-and-trouble

There are several motives for the media and politicians to lie to you about global warming, aside from money and control.

• The media sells more papers, magazines, and television ratings soar when their audience is scared of some imminent catastrophe that your respective service is reporting on. Although, they can't decide whether we're going to burn to death, freeze to death, or drown. http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
• Environmental organizations and some scientists will lie to you because their funding depends on it. If theres no crisis to work through, then they start losing funding. This is well documented. http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/von_Storch/staged_angst/a_climate_of_staged_angst.html
• Foreign countries are lying to us (by means of the IPCC) because they wish to throw a monkey wrench into the inner workings of western economies, which are the strongest in the world. If our economy slows down, the economic standing of other countries improves because we will no longer dominate the markets.
• Development and industrialization of third world countries will be stamped out, along with hundreds of millions of lives, all under the guise of "saving the planet from climate change". It's absolutely sickening. So, who's really on the "immoral" side? Us or the alarmists?
• Wanna talk about new taxes and restricted freedoms? Try carbon taxes on everything and strict regulations for everyone....all coming soon by convincing you that CO2 & greenhouse gases are somehow evil and you must pay to emit them. Too bad they can't tax the oceans since they are the cause of 96.5% of all greenhouse emissions, naturally, eh! Also too bad they can't go back in time and tax the dinosaurs since CO2 levels were MUCH higher back then and it must have been their fault.

The motives for deception are there. Do your part to fight alarmism!

CO2 is NOT a pollutant!

Educate yourself!

Antarctica is getting colder and thicker: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/12/05/sea-level-rise-not-from-antarctic-melting/), and we know that any fluctuating warming/cooling is due to natural occurrences, and not human activity.

MUST READ LINKS:
http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777
"http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/2008/03/
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061121_gore.pdf
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
http://www.junkscience.com/challenge.htm
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFiZDAyMWFhMGIxNTgwNGIyMjVkZjQ4OGFiZjFlNjc
http://www.cei.org/pdf/5331.pdf
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/images/sunclimate_3b.gif
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030321075236.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.stm

I cannot believe that the parent post got repeatedly modded troll. Clearly, it was by someone who's never heard of crop rotation or any of the history of agriculture.

If you are only using one crop, or even similar crops, to create your biofuel, and if you want to do it in large scale, it will involve the massive use of fertilizer, which can cause local eco-system problems as well as water table pollution. On top of that, there's the scale problem, which hopefully this cellulite extraction method will help with. The estimates of the land required to produce enough fuel for the States alone is quite daunting. This paper[PDF] estimates that upwards of 50 million acres of forests would have to be cleared, and "the only large reservoir of underused cropland in America is about 30 million acres of land--too dry for corn--enrolled in the Conservation Reserve." Other publications, such as "Energy and American Society - Thirteen Myths" have entire chapters devoted to this problem. So a 13 fold increase in efficiency is certainly welcome. and may help to mitigate these problems

Please note that I am typing this from a terminal with access to a number of subscription based academic services, so if the PDF link doesn't work, sorry!

These sorts of things always come up : that somehow, because the US gov't isn't funding some sort of research the US is "falling behind". There was a huge amount of fear about this in the early 1980's ... the Japanese were pouring tons of money into AI research.

Well, here's a thought -- the US is the economic juggernaut of the world. If US companies aren't spending boatloads of money on physics research, it might be because nothing it could produce is economically viable or useful.

As it turned out, the huge Japanese AI research push produced little of value, but cost a ton of money.

Here's a good quote about the value of government research.

The experience of the 1970s and 1980s taught us that if a technology is commercially viable, then government support is not needed and if a technology is not commercially viable, no amount of government support will make it so.

Don't take it from the commies and the hippies; just read the official documents, or any lobby group manifest for that matter:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/economicimp acts/execsummary.html

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7850

http://www.cei.org/gencon/003,05907.cfm

Maybe they'll impose sanctions on themselves when they miss their Kyoto targets by an embarrassing margin despite their costly Enron-style cap and trade scheme, the same policy the US is rejecting in TFA.

What's this with captureing CO2!? Our friends at the "Competitive Institute" very well explain that CO2 is our friend. We should not capture our friends!

Play Energy

And this from someone who feels it necessary to call me a "Knucklehead"? He didn't HAVE a counter-argument, unless you consider "You're wrong because I say so!" a counter argument.

Very well. Since neither you nor Waffle Iron can even be bothered to come up with a cogent counter-argument other than a "Neener neener, you're a big meanie" and "Watch me alter your argument in a nonsensical way to mock you with." I'll just pound you both into the ground with evidence. Apparently all you understand is Appeals to Authority, so here they are:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1496781/p osts
The source page for that post - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&Article_ ID=2319http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&A rticle_ID=2319

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.ht m

http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,05568.cfm

http://acuf.org/issues/issue71/061104cul.asp

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V10/N3/C1.jsp

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.st m

I can pull these links ALL DAY, but I've got work to do and a life to live.

The point is, the more evidence we gather, the more we realize that IF the world is warming (and it's a BIG if) then it's part of a natural cycle that has been taking place on our planet for Millenia, and there isn't a damn thing we can do to cause or stop it. All we would be doing by adopting the inane Kyoto accord agreements (or anything like it) would be to weaken our economy and society in such a way that should natural global warming actually happen, we wouldn't have the economic or social strength left to survive it! All it takes is an open mind and a little critical thinking and the "Global Warming" hysteria becomes just that. Hysteria not worth wasting our energy on.

If you can't see the evidence right in front of you, then you're a damn fool and I've got no more time to deal with you.

Good day sir.

- Ok, but, you do realise that the Competitve Enterprise Institute is a group, they call themselves a "think tank" that champions the cause of big business and desires open markets, right? They are exactly the ones that stand to lose from accepting global warming as a real threat - or rather, if we start doing something about it. If you cared to check the history of the organization, you will see that their triumphs all involve sueing to remove, or sueing to stop the introduction of regulations which harm the bottom line of big businesses: including.. tobacco, alcohol, motor companies,GM food companies, and what do you know... the oil/gas companies. What would you expect from a "group" that in their history state: "In March 2001, CEI helps convince the Bush Administration not to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant." - Yeah, no bias what so ever.

Furthermore, they also have a long standing beef with Al Gore... from 1992... In CEI's "Competitive Enterprise Index," an annual ranking of congressional votes on economic issues, Al Gore ranks lowest in the Senate for the second time in three years. CEI zings Gore for "increased spending, higher taxes, greater regulation, and more political interference in the marketplace." His score of seven points out of 100 puts him dangerously close to the "0-zone." That quote is from 1992 of their history, found here: http://www.cei.org/pages/history.cfm/

Examples of their quests to stop regualtion of businessa re numerous, are few as follows: From 1992, stopping regulation of car size which was attempting to reduce fuel consumption, by arguing smaller cars lead to more road deaths: "independent researchers found that CAFE, by forcing car manufacturers to make vehicles smaller and lighter to comply with higher fuel economy standards, led to an increase in the number of highway deaths per year."p/>

Another, 1996, for alcohol companies: "CEI enters the alcohol beverage business with Vino Veritas Freedom of Speech Wine, Stout Heart Beer, and Be an Old Grand-Dad Whiskey, setting the stage for its First Amendment suit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms over telling the truth about moderate alcohol consumption--namely, that it can be good for you." Yes, emphasis on CAN, one glass of red wine can be good for you, bottles of whiskey and kegs of beer - not so.

Again, from 2001, "CEI's Ben Lieberman testifies before Congress on the increase in gasoline prices. He points out that the Clean Air Act's 1990 amendments' gasoline composition mandates--which vary throughout the country--and the Act's New Source Review and New Source Performance Standards programs--which impose stringent requirements on the building of new refineries and the expansion of older facilities--bear much of responsibility for the spike at the pumps." Arguing that clean air policies increases petrol prices so as to promote anti clean air policy among voters and politicians... pretty obvious what stance this group will have on global warming given that what some of the solutions are.

From 2003, "Also in September, CEI President Fred L. Smith, Jr. and CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray brief Andrei Illarionov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's top economic adviser, shortly before the United Nations World Climate Change Conference in Moscow. At the conference, Putin declines to set a date by which Russia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Then in December, Illarionov announced that Russia would not ratify Kyoto "in its present form." Congratulations, this group convinced a nation NOT to sign Kyoto, again pretty clear what their agenda is.

Im pretty sure i dont need to go on.... their agenda is clear.

Guzz.

From the Competitive Enterprise Institute: http://www.cei.org/pages/ait_response.cfm

Yes, yes, I uderstand they can't be trusted, as they deny the current conventional wisdom and should be burned at the stake like the heretics they are. Nonetheless...

Read this: http://www.cei.org/pdf/5478.pdf

This is a 120 page criticizm of "An Inconvienant Truth". I didn't write it do if you guys have issues then please take it up with Marlo Lewis.

M. Lewis is a Senior Fellow in Envirnomental Policy ast the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

http://www.cei.org/

You can contact CWI through their website. Lewis's research is pretty through and I'll advise anyone who really wants to know the truth to actually read what he has to say and think about it rather than just posting a knee jerk reaction. Lewis makes some pretty good points.

If course I expect my post will get modded down. If so - its just another knee jerk reaction by those who wish to suppress the truth rather than actually look at the data.

Read this: http://www.cei.org/pdf/5478.pdf

This is a 120 page criticizm of "An Inconvienant Truth". I didn't write it do if you guys have issues then please take it up with Marlo Lewis.

M. Lewis is a Senior Fellow in Envirnomental Policy ast the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

http://www.cei.org/

You can contact CWI through their website. Lewis's research is pretty through and I'll advise anyone who really wants to know the truth to actually read what he has to say and think about it rather than just posting a knee jerk reaction. Lewis makes some pretty good points.

If course I expect my post will get modded down. If so - its just another knee jerk reaction by those who wish to suppress the truth rather than actually look at the data.

you're talking to us about rational debate when you have people like the CEI backing you up - way to go.

Funnily enough, as someone who believes in global warming I happen to also find the easiest way to prove it exists is using rational debate. However I also feel that there is another level to this debate, a moral level. There is a very simple reason why people don't want to discuss anything on this level, as I said above it dirties their conscience.

Global warming is here, now, affecting millions. Just because it predominantly isn't westerners we somehow manage to not give a fuck - is that right? No, it's cowardly.

Assuming global warming is true (a point I will neither defend nor oppose), the money spent on preventing global warming is a waste. The full implementation of the Kyoto treaty will result in a decrease in global warming by 0.07C. That's right, less than a tenth of a degree Celcius, with all the economic and humanitarian harm that Kyoto would impose. And that harm is real: the EU nations are already trying to figure out how to not do Kyoto while still claiming some kind of adherence to the treaty because the economic consequences are disastrous. That, and they're not meeting the requirements.

Our money is far, far better spent learning to cope with a warmer planet, assuming again that things are getting warmer and staying warmer. Frankly, the technological advances on our planet are going to decrease greenhouse gas emissions without any kind of treaty or government mandate. The rising cost of energy (of all kinds) will lead, quite naturally, to processes that consume less energy, thereby reducing the side-effects like CO2 production. And we mustn't forget that it is industrial processes that create products that consume less energy, like the newly popular compact fluorescent bulbs.

CEI's got some great anti-global warming stuff. I've seen claims that they're funded by Exxon. On the flip-side, Penn and Teller's have a CEI 'expert' on, in an episode of their show, "Penn and Teller's Bullshit!" -- one would hope that P&T would avoid using oil industry shills to support the points they make on their show.

So what's the deal with CEI? Are they reputable?
http://www.cei.org/

I'm a historian, and I can tell you for a fact that the earth has been much warmer in the past than it is now,

Be aware that the website hosting the article is a far-right broadsheet, the Canadian equivalent of Free Republic. Their agenda is strongly anti-global-warming, which doesn't necessarily discredit the article, but does suggest that one should view it with the same scepticism as one views the recent 'ads' by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

I agree. I do lean towards a true "no regrets" approach:

"
A true "no regrets" approach to climate change is not greater government controls on economic activity, but fewer. Economic growth, market institutions, and technological advance are often the most effective forms of insurance that a civilization can have. Policy efforts aimed at freeing up the energy sector, and those segments of the economy that are most energy intensive, will produce both economic and environmental gains. The economic gains will come from greater productivity and efficiency; the environmental gains from increased production per unit of energy expended or emissions released. Such an approach will reduce whatever threat of human-induced climate change might exist while spurring technological innovation and economic development. This strategy is the only approach to climate change that can be pursued with "no regrets."
"
From: http://www.cei.org/gencon/025,01783.cfm

I worry that many of the other approaches will actually do more harm than good.

Thank you for your enlightenment regarding the subject. It is refreshing to actually have an honest discussion about such topics.

The US needs to learn to use energy more efficiently.>

What the US needs to do is to find a cheaper, less CO2 producing, source of energy.

That's according to SEPP, a body funded by Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. The article was written by the editor of a newsletter by CEI, an "organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government".

That might go some way towards explaining why the figure given for North America's carbon emissions is less than a third of the figure given on wikipedia.

Secondly, why should I care what a right-wing website reports about the views of a sociologist, a lawyer and an MBA about global warming, none of whom has any relevent scientific expertise?

find it funny that foreiners liked clinton and he didn't sign any of those treaties either. Actually, what most foreigners are ignorant of is that the president cannot sign it unless congress gives him the authority to (for each indevidual treaty).

Incorrect, he signed a number of treaties, they were just either not ratified, or rejected by GWB. He (Clinton) didn't have support of the senate which was and still is Republican controlled.

"The United States ratified the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child on February 16, 1995. However, in 2000 when the U.N. attempted to pass the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflicts, the United States raised strong objections and still refuses to ratify it. President Clinton signed the Protocol in May 2000, but the Republican-dominated Senate did not ratify it, raising the objections that the treaty undermines the rights of parents and is unfair to the U.S., since the U.S. currently recruits and deploys 17 year-olds for service. The Bush Administration is taking no action on ratification."

http://www.clw.org/control/bushunilateral.html

"On Dec. 31, 2000, Bill Clinton signed the Rome agreement creating an International Criminal Court. He waited until almost the last permissible moment to affix the United States to the agreement even though he did not, he said, agree with its contents."

"President George W. Bush, recognizing the consequences of treating the U.S. signature so frivolously, has instructed the State Department to make clear the United States has no intention of being bound by the signature by informing the United Nations of the decision."

http://www.cei.org/utils/printer.cfm?AID=3312

"The current treaty at issue is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, first opened for signatures in 1996. This multilateral agreement bans all nuclear tests above and below the Earth's surface. The treaty also established a worldwide monitoring system to check air, water and soil for signals that someone set off a nuclear explosion. While President Clinton signed the treaty, in 1999, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify it."

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/nucleartreaties.ht ml

"Although President Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol, mandating a reduction in carbon emissions to below 1990 levels by 2012, a 2001 State Department memo rejected the protocol on the basis that it would harm the US economy and exempt developing countries from reduction requirements. Of industrialized states, only the US, Australia and Israel haven't ratified the protocol. The US did ratify the UNFCCC, but has not complied"

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/un/2003/treatyt able.htm

Likely there is more (thats enough for today, but I see a recurring theme). It seems pretty much like his hands were tied.

They don't even know what the Clear Skies act is.

I know what Clear Skies is, and I know it will actually achieve what the old laws couldn't: real reductions in pollution. Now, it may not be as much as some people prefer, but at least it is a start.

Environmentalists complain that the administration should just enforce the old laws. The problem with the current laws is they don't apply to old power plants, unless they've had a significant upgrade (the "new source" factor). This has encouraged power companies not to upgrade, so they won't have to pay more to comply.

Another complaint is that Clear Skies does nothing to combat global warming. Neither do the current laws.

But for some people, any positive change just isn't good enough... even if it makes a step towards an end goal. Everyone wants the ideal situation right away, which sometimes just can't happen.

Here's a nice Op/Ed piece that was originally published in the NY Times -- http://www.ntec.org/air/air/bushcsi.html

Here's a study that shows that both the current laws and Clear Skies concentrate too much on something that really may not be a problem in the first place: fine particulate pollution -- http://www.cei.org/gencon/025,03622.cfm

There was an interesting exchange between the Competitive Enterprise Institute which claims Linux is unsuitable for government, business use and Julian Sanchez from the Cato Institute, who thinks government should consider OSS if it fits their needs.

Who am I supposed to trust?

Don't make this decision based solely on credentials. Try to keep an open mind and read both sides. In particular, consider this:

The authors used a theory from 1859 that the absolute area of animal habitat controls the number of possible species, despite ample proof in recent years that that simply isn't true. Without that connection, any predictions about actual extinction rates are hogwash.

To control digital communication world wide.

To remove all competitors and hardware platform competition.

They are completely within their rights in doing these things.

Wrong. Being a monopoly, Microsoft is not permitted to do either of the first two items on your list, as it would run coumter to anti-trust regulations.

These laws were written in the late nineteenth century to counter the increasing control over comerce that the railroad industry was having over trade and the damaging effects of that control on interstate trade and on private citizens.

It was costing farmers more to transport thier goods to market than could be gained from the sale of those goods, RR company investments in banking and mortgage companies were enabling them to evict farmers from thier land and to replace them with company owned tennants, and the price of foodstuffs was becoming exhorbitantly expensive for consumers as the RRs were beginning to control the markets over the goods they were transporting as well as the market for transporting those goods.

Essentially, the Railroad companies enjoyed majority monopolies in the markets that they served and were using thier monopoly control to regulate those markets. This was unacceptable to the private citizens who were increasingly finding themselves subject to rules and regulations that were unevenly applied (Goods from the RR company owned farms were shipped "free" while the rates were being increased to push the family farms closer to forclosure) and were implimented by persons who they did not elect and who were in no way representing them.

The possibility of a single company controlling digital communication and the tools necessary for business in a world dependant on computers in order to conduct the affairs of government and business is exactly the reason that antitrust laws were authored.

It is the consumer and communication industry that needs to fight this monolyth

As most of the communication industry enjoys near monopolies on last-mile technologies, it is unlikely that they will embrace any alternative to the possibility of restrively licensed technology. They are too afraid that open technologies will be able to lower the cost of entry into the last-mile market and alow smaller competitors to threaten thier currently strong positions.

the sooner the consumer realises this the better.

Agreed, but it is difficult when media associations and communication giants enjoy the power that they currently have. It is against the interest of the media to suggest that monopoly is harmful when the media companies are attempting to deregulate (through lobbying the FCC) in attempts to gain monopolies over individual markets. Likewise, it is against the interests of the communications giants to support (or permit) alternatives to Microsoft software when they themselves are attempting to regulate how consumers are using the connetions that they are selling. The cross investment between big media and the communications giants ensures that the news will foster an belief among consumers that there are not any monopolies in the software, media, and communications industries, and that if there were it would not be a bad thing.

IMHO, it is perfectly fine to use the courts in an attempt to apply currently existing law in order to pry open the markets, including going to court as well as applying the laws that these companies use to maintain thier monopoly positions in new ways (ala GPL).

Sure thing! You can actually find quotes like this all over:

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/artic les/fee/average.html

http://www.cei.org/gencon/029,03332.cfm

http://www.off-road.com/green/ecoquote.html

http://www.bloomington.in.us/~lgthscac/biblicalchr istianity'sdefinition.htm

If you copy one of those quotes into Google, you'll come up with a whole slew of good results.

Offtopic Stuff:
Always good to compliment the fellow slashdotter - the sliderule thing mentioned in your sig is awesome. I got a couple sliderules and read the Log-Log Duplex Decitrig Slide Rule Manual to learn how to use them. My plan was to use a sliderule in the classes where calculators were not allowed :)

Hopefully the sliderule will not go the way of the Abacus.. the symbols in the books that teach abacus algorithms are all forgotten; nobody knows how to use an abacus like we did at the beginning of the century. It took only 50 years of western influence (pencil and paper math) on Japan at the beginning of the 20th century for them to completely forget how to use it. Pretty amazing. Although we can at least read our former sliderule books, hardly anybody knows how to use them. And for a legitimate reason too: we have calculators.

And you actually believe an interview from Fox, where their only expert is somebody from something called the "Competitive Enterprise Institute"?
Evidently I have to be the one to break this to you, but This man is not a scientist!
These are industry flacks. People who are PAID by big corporations to put out stuff like "The costs of Kyoto" or to go on television representing the auto industry about why we should be buying more SUVs.
Just because somebody says it doesn't make it true.
Oh, and by the way, as somebody who *has* talked extensively with actual scientists (with PhDs and field experience and everything, woohoo), that whole "just clearing this timber for the good of society" stuff is utter bullshit.
There are any number of good ways to reduce fire damage. Allowing companies like Weyerhauser to go in and lumber the place is not one of them. Not only do they consistently get caught taking out more trees then they claimed they would (thereby creating the sorts of empty spots and monocultures that seriously damage the forest and in fact INCREASE the risk of fire) but they do it in ways that damage the soil's ability to retain moisture. I could give you a dozen other reasons why but you're big boys and girls, you know perfectly well how to use Google should you so choose.

I'm gonna keep hittin' it 'til folks get a clue.
Facts, people. From sources that you have checked out. Not "I read it somewhere". Facts.
Grrrrrrr
-Rustin

This is an interesting article about why some forest fires are more destructive than they could be.

It has actually gotten more expensive

Go back and check the price of the original DOS, the original Windows... Windows 95 and so on. The price of the OS has remained almost constant as long as I can remember.

Ok. I went to this report and inflation-adjusted figures show that Windows cost 10% more in 1999 than it did in 1990.

Then if you go and compare the price of Microsoft's offerings to other comparable products in the industry you'll see software has gotten drastically cheaper because of Microsoft.

Correlation is not cause. Microsoft is not responsible for prices going down any more than IBM is responsible or Apple is responsible.

Duplication is not waste. What you lose in duplication, you gain in lower prices through competition. If you don't believe me, ask any economist.

Competition is good.

The Postal Service, however, has helped drive this business away. The organization is run like, well, the post office. Despite huge investments in automation, productivity growth has been pathetic - about 11 percent over the past three decades. The inefficiencies of the system, including inflexible labor agreements, skyrocketing retirement costs, and redundant layers of management, have been documented many times.

"I believe that most of the problems that people associate with globalism," writes Soros, "including the penetration of market values into areas where they do not traditionally belong, can be attributed to these phenomena."

Just to let those who aren't aware of it, Soros is not an actual capitalist. Don't take his views as those of a repentant capitalist and free marketeer.

Too bad that, in most cases, companies don't clean themselves up; they convince local government to establish c o r p o r a t e 'wealthfare' programs that force the public's tax money to foot the bill for whatever maintenance and equipment is needed to reach standards set by environmental regulations.

I'm sure you can make reference to other products/trademarks in your documentation/advertising, so long as they are not slanderous or make false claims. So, yes, KIllustrator, as renamed to Foobar, could have somewhere in its docs "This feature is very similar to Adobe Illustrator's feature X". Obviously, you'd have to include the trademark notice like the one in your comment. I think the scope of trademarks are only for names and slogans, because they are the 'root' handles of the product. As a consumer, you probably arn't going to refer to the product in your head as 'similar to Adobe Illustrator' or whatever. The name of a product will probably be repeated in speech and in your head thousands of times over your relationship with said company/product/application.

So there is, im my opinion, more importance that the name doesn't make reference to another trademark, since I think it's the subcouncious brand recognition that companies are worried about having subverted.

So I think we're in agreement here; it's not that you shouldn't be allowed to use the name or refer to another trademark /period/ - just that the name by which people refer to your product should not subvert brand recognition or consumer associations to competitors' and/or their products.

There is an interesting article here about Mastercard's attempts to sue Ralph Nader for using their 'Priceless' trademark in his campaign commercials. It's always a tough call, because, you essentially have to ask "Where do you draw the line between infringement (benifitting off of someone else's intellectual property or hard work), and things like parody and imitation-as-flattery?"

It's a tough call, and, unfortunately, in this winner-take-all capitalist-driven society, the money-makers are usually going to have their answer accepted as the truth. Anything that gets in the way of making a bigger profit is quickly labeled as anti-capitalist. Which is seen as a bad thing, since capitalism is the very social/economic foundation upon which western culture is built. I think, eventually, people will have to wake up and accept that socialist programs and mentalities provide the only real formal 'checks and balances' in grey-area issues like these; where the system would feel comfortable potentially err-ing on the side of less profitability. Mostly. To get back to the original issue, that's why it's nice that Adobe seems to have reacted to the court of public opinion proactively - something that happens all too rarely.

As a libertarian, I find nothing inconsistent with caring about the poor, promoting social welfare, being generous in spirit as well as materially and in supporting libertarian policies. Most libertarians believe what they do on the basis of sound economic theories supported by empirical studies, sound logic, and critical examination. More importantly, most libertarians support those ideas based upon responsible moral convictions. If I didn't firmly believe that the best way to support the poor was to eliminate welfare, I would never in good conscience advocate such a policy. If you want to know why libertarians support the ideas that they do - look at the arguments, don't just presume that we're all just a bunch of selfish, greedy, heartless (insert your favorite insult here). If you insist on pronouncing judgements, at least do it in an intellectually responsible manner and not simply dismiss the ideas without at least hearing them out.
www.cato.org
www.fee.org
www.perc.org
www.cei.org
www.lp.org
www.free-market.net
www.reason.org