Slashdot Mirror

We do, huh? Funny, because I don't recall anyone attempting this in the past, so I fail to see why you're so sure.

Governments routinely mess around with markets and other economic systems. Carbon emissions would be yet another form.

I would argue that enforced emission reductions would simply open new economic opportunities for companies providing solutions to lower emissions or increase energy efficiency. It would also reduce costs for existing companies, thanks to reduced energy expenditures.

Any interference causes market distortion and imposes a cost on society. But so do oil subsidies or externalities like global warming from CO2 emission. The point is that we don't know the relative costs. We need to be better informed about what's going on. And it's foolish to say that a good reason for interference is that it'll encourage the private sector to find a way around the damage. My take is that carbon emission reduction is a significant imposed cost while on the other hand, we have a vague cost attributed to global warming.

Oh, and as an aside, the idea that economists are on any more solid ground than climatologists is, frankly, laughable. Both involve analysis of chaotic systems with many many variables. And at least climatologists apply the scientific method to their studies.

Economists in general use the scientific method as well. There are a number of big differences. Economic models can routinely be expressed in very simple form with external interactions filtered out while the current generation of climate models cannot be due to their inherent complexity. Also, economic models often have to deal with intelligent agents, this can result in odd behavior in the system as the agents become more knowledgeable or face restrictions. For example, the Black-Scholes model for pricing stock options and similar derivatives worked pretty well when it was developed in the 70's. But now, it is an obselete model with little value. The intelligent agents now take that information into account when pricing these options. The behavior of Earth's climate doesn't change just because you have a better climate model. Economics has long been subject to political interpretation while climatology is relatively new to this. For example, the claim that lower taxes automatically means more tax down the road has been long discredited (though in practice it is often true when the tax rate starts high), but it still is occasionally advocated in public primarily because it benefits someone. Finally, there are a huge amount of economic data out there. We have thousands of years of history as well. The type of interventions proposed to prevent global warming have happened before in many different circumstances.

Woops, wrong one.
http://heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=13379

While the only permanent solution for human-driven global warming is developing renewable energy

The frantic, hyperbolic, hysterical, barely-scientific side of the argument is that global warming is controllable, and caused, by-and-large, by humans. However, much of the scientific community believes that global warming is:

• 1. Driven by the Sun
  1. Driven by geological events
  1. and, minutely contributed to by human behavior

Otherwise, how do you explain that Mars, that dead, uninhabited planet is warming? (And here, too.

I'm sorry, but there a bigger fish to fry. We are expending an awful lot of goodwill on democratic voter bases by distracting them with this stuff when we should be hitting them with what really matters:

• 1. Poverty
  1. Disease
  1. Injustice

  None of which will be solved by getting my neighbor to give up his 2 trucks, '66 Charger, '66 Mustang, and 3 boats. None of which will be solved by Daryll Hannah driving a grass powered Geo.

  Let's focus on what we CAN fix and not expend energy on fear driven philosophies, adopted by those who don't realize the origins of the argument are from a much more nefarious origin.

Ssssssh! Shut up, the global warming mob might hear you.

Yes, it would be horrible to have all those people who have noticed that global temperature is increasing also notice that you are skeptical that the oceans will run out of sea life just because the living things in the sea are dying off faster than their numbers are being replenished. Those people are so weird, with their fact-based reality and belief that life on this planet matters. I'm glad you're too much of an independent thinker to fall for their soft-headed ruses.

Whatever happened to the vaunted Slashdotter cynicism towards FUD? I know things trend leftward here on /. but don't facts and reality have any weight any more? Check out this website with supporting cites of Crichton's thoughts that the "Panic now" approach to global warming is not the best way to go: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16260#r ight The argument I always stick on is that Mars is warming as well and there is no way that our SUV's could possibly warm Mars. Earth has been warming and cooling periodically since its inception. Let's find out if action is required before taking drastic steps that WILL cause deaths and misery among the poor. For example, in America if gas goes up to $6 a gallon then we can mostly suck it up. . .except for the very poor. This type of thing will raise food prices (how do you think food gets to the stores?) and limit the employment options for the poor to travel to find the good jobs by raising the cost of transportation. And that's just in America, what about in places that are really desperately poor. When you make $200 a year a small increase in the price of gasoline takes a huge bite out of your living standard as every product from food to building materials has to get there with gasoline. Bjorn Lomborg in his book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist" pointed out facts like these and was pilloried as a heretic for it. I don't care about agendas, I only care about facts and results. I refuse to support actions that the facts don't currently support as necessary when the guaranteed results cause misery and needless deaths. Do you guys remember DDT? Environmental extremists caused it to be taken off the market and not used any more. This has resulted and in millions upon millions of deaths for no good reason. Oopsy. http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/000000005591 .htm "Malaria is on the increase in all tropical regions of the planet - especially in Africa. In 2000, the disease killed more than one million people and made 300 million seriously ill." There are many, many, many peer reviewed serious scientists who think that Global Warming cannot conclusively be blamed on human behavior. Further, others point out myriad BENEFITS to global warming, so even if it is caused by humans it may be a blessing and increase quality of life. http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA165.html "If history is any indication, greater precipitation may be only one of many benefits of global warming. For example, between the 10th and 12th Centuries, when the temperature of the planet was roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today, agriculture in North America and Europe flourished and the southern regions of Greenland were free of ice, allowing cultivation by Norse settlers. " Check out he dissenters before you advocate actions that will get people killed.

The planet Mars is undergoing significant global warming, new data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) show, lending support to many climatologists' claims that the Earth's modest warming during the past century is due primarily to a recent upsurge in solar energy.

.....And another Global Warming Denial Myth goes poof......

There is another theory. It applies not only to earth, but to the other planets as well, Mars in particular. Measurements indicate that Mars is definitely getting warmer also. Since Martians don't drive SUVs or burn coal in the power stations, their global warming must be due to some other cause. The one commonality is that we both use the same sun for energy. So that is the source of global warming.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977
also
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&Article_ ID=2736
and
http://www.physorg.com/news6892.html

It is interesting that there are two references to an overheated sun in the ancient writings of the Bible. One is in Isaiah 30:26 and the other in Revelation 16:8, both of which talk about man's corruption and the judgments of God, at the end time on rebellious mankind. Words of punishment and judgment are highly unpleasant, but there IS justice in the Universe and we are given a glimpse of some of what this will entail.

We humans like to think ourselves to be in control of our destiny, but that is the biggest fantasy we collectively entertain. There is one true God, His name is Jesus, who came to earth and who ultimately runs the entire Universe. (Ephesians 2:5-11)

.....I know Bob Carter exists. He's taken enough money from Exxon.....

So you can't find Dr. Dick Morgan, Bob Carter takes bribes, so what about:

Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson,
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology,
Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University,
Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama.

These people are more learned that you or I and do not agree with other learned guys, who tells use we are all going to burn and/or flood BECAUSE of human activity, who have just as many degrees. So now you choose to BELIEVE the burn boys and I actually believe in global warming in a way you and those like you will scoff at derisively.

The ancient book of Isaiah, part of the Jewish and Christian holy writings contains many sections that concern themselves with the Last Days, a time of judgment, when God Himself will once again assume sovereign, complete control of His creation, including mankind. If you would take the time to read what is written there to get the context, you'd come across the following verse:

(Isaiah 30:26 The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.)

I do believe what is written, that there will indeed be some dramatic global warming, but humans will have nothing whatsoever to do with it. There is already evidence that the sun is putting out more energy:

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977
also
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&Article_ ID=2736
and
http://www.physorg.com/news6892.html

There are many similar articles you can google for. We humans were created by and ultimately are subject to God's sovereign purposes.

Cohen believes that fuel made from domestic farm products should be subsidized so that they can reduce the need for foreign oil. "We need to develop economical alternative fuel sources that won't fluctuate (like oil prices)," Cohen said. "This observation seems to be missing from the current president's energy plan."

In 2003, Changing World Technologies, Inc. touted its Carthage, Missouri Renewable Environmental Solutions (RES) plant as a "green" solution to U.S. dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels...It promised to turn turkey feces and carcasses into crude oil at a predicted construction cost of $15 million and production costs of $15 per barrel...Backed by such promises and with the support of environmental activists, the federal government gave RES a $5 million grant to build the plant. Now, just two years later and $25 million over budget, the RES plan to turn fowl waste into crude oil has run afoul of financial and chemical realities...The new facility cost about $40 million to build, more than twice the original estimate. Then the plant went far over its targeted production costs, with the product coming in at $80 per barrel--five times higher than estimated and twice the market price for crude oil...And now the plant is releasing a stench that's bothering nearby residents."

It's a joint venture of Conagra. It got $5 million in funding from the U.S. government. It doesn't work. It was in fact, "Turkey Credits". Besides laying this on Democrats - who don't control Congress nor were they at Cheney's secret meetings to develop the nation's energy policy once Bush got in office - is simply foolish.

But instead of returning the much safer, politically incorrect, Freon-based foam for Discovery's launch, the space agency tinkered with the application process, changing "the way the foam was applied to reduce the size and number of air pockets," according to Newsday.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977

was the easiest example to find of reporting on the nasa report.

I'm not familiar with heartland.org so here is another...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_snow_011206-2.html
From the article:
Global warming on Mars? ...
The odd shapes -- circular pits, ridges and mounds -- were first photographed in 1999. Since then, the features have eroded away by up to 50 percent.

The pits are growing, the ridges between them shrinking...

The newly observed melting, if it is part of a trend, could pump enough carbon dioxide ...

---
Listen- I voted against Bush both times. I think we are in a global warming cycle. I do -not- agree that humans are the main cause of this global warming cycle.

I didn't say his evidence doesn't count. I am saying be skeptical of extravagent claims, especially when they are self-serving and politically motivated.

Here you will find other legitimate points of view.

"I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan

I stand corrected, I should have said that water vapor plays a MUCH larger role than CO2. Water vapor accounts for anywhere between 65% and 95%, but probably not the low 50% that you give. The budget analysis is debatable and prone to error, and at least one of the authors of that paper is known for his scientific activism. Peer review these days leaves a lot to be desired:

"
IPCC proponents place great emphasis on the merit of articles that have been "peer reviewed." However, peer review for climate publications, even by eminent journals such as Nature or Science, is typically a quick, unpaid read by two or three knowledgeable persons, usually close colleagues of the author. It is unheard of for a peer reviewer to actually check the data and calculations.

In 2004, I was asked by a journal (Climatic Change) to peer review an article. I asked to see the source code and supporting calculations. The editor said no one had ever asked for such things in 28 years of his editing the journal. There is nothing at the journal peer review stage in climate publications that is remotely like an audit.

Although the IPCC and similar agencies have many committees and meetings (usually in nice places), they do not carry out any audit or verification activities.

While insiders have long known this, it was recently admitted in written answers by the author of the hockey stick study (Michael Mann) to the U.S. Senate in the fall of 2003. "It is distinctly against the mission of the IPCC to 'carry out independent programs,'" Mann wrote. Thus, if a paper has passed the cursory journal peer review process, there may not be any subsequent hurdles prior to adoption by the IPCC.
"

From "Climate Alarmists Playing Shell Game with Data": http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16812

There is also a new finding that living plants give off methane, a greenhouse gas:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg189253 43.900

The earth may be warming, but are humans to blame? The earth has had several periods of "Global Warming" before humans ever existed, followed by ice ages.

Sorry, misquote. The Dr. didn't say those exact words but they are his sentiments. see http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9490

Yes, statements about the size of current or historic forests must be substantiated beyond doubt. I was not writing specifically about forests but the general implication that human action is causing global environmental catastrophe. We need facts not applications of the self-contradictory precautionary principle. Mercury in lakes is bad but we also need to know how much is actually bad for us and the things in the lake. Setting standards using numbers created by halving the number where effects are seen isn't any better than an educated guess. Guessing doesn't make good science.

Oh and about the forests. "In fact, no such deforestation is taking place in Canada or the U.S., and a prohibition on clearcutting would result in no ecological benefits. - Dr. Patrick Moore"

Don't you dare try and put that on teachers.

I have no respect for any teacher that is a member of any teacher union. I have at least 4 friends who are teachers who quit the unions and still teach, and I have the utmost respect for them. If you are a teacher and a member of the socialist union, you're trash, plain and simple. Read what the teacher unions do every year and you'll agree.

Have you talked to the crazy parents teachers have to put up with? Most will actually tell you they expect the school to teach their kids dicipline.

I agree. This is also the teacher unions fault. They have fought, tooth and nail, the ability to bring independent graders into the system. Let teachers teach, let grades grade. A teacher grading their own students is similar to an employee setting their own salary!

And every kid is a geneous, and most parents do about 20% of their kids work, especially essays. And teachers do a LOT of work for the crap pay they get, more than you know.

Crap pay? This is a myth. Teachers are some of the best paid for the actual time they spend and the quality of their output.

They also usually have very specific lesson requirements handed down from the state level, so any real teaching or discussion gets put to the side.

Thanks, I also agree that the State is to blame. The Federal mandates on education are a big problem as well.

The problem is lazy parents who don't have time to deal with their kids because their (1) divorced or (2) both working.

When we were in the 1960s, a family of 4 paid about 20% of their income to government at every level. 1 parent could afford to stay home. In 2005, a family of 4 pays over 50% of their income to government at every level. This is 250% higher, causing both parents to have to work just to get by. Don't blame the parents for what you voted for.

The environmentalists have sued to shutdown windfarms. Again, there is a fringe movement that is against anything positive to humans .

Start using breeder reactors and we have solved our current nuclear "waste" "problem".

As for the windmills. Currently the problems listed usually deal with birds and bats flying into them or getting hit by them. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,690 3,1130672,00.html
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/17/news-lewis.php
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16383

Ignoring the eminent domain portions, the main problem seems to be that all the best spots for wind power are on bird migration routes. (Makes sense if you think about it). If you mean what effect it could have on the weather? Well, wind comes from air moving from higher to lower pressure areas. That usually means from warmer to colder as well. We are tapping a fraction of that energy to make electricity. (Not sure what fraction, mind you). So we probably are affecting the weather to some extent, but probably not enough to have a noticeable impact. It would all depend on the ammount we are extracting from the wind.

You should parenthetically add that Illinois is in the United States since wee Americans are so bad at geography http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11608.

Global warming is junk science based on junk science, and propagated by sensationalism.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=851

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on _climate_change

I hope I get a cutie-pie to keep me warm when I fall in the water after the world ends :-p

That's a red herring. They charge less in sales because they charge more in other areas. When you rank states by ALL regulations and taxes, Massachusetts ranks in the worst 10 every time.

http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/sab/entrep/2004 /econ_freedom/freedom.html

http://heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=15303

Notice how the liberal states have economic environments that are the most likely to screw poor people out of higer wages and opportunity. So it seems to me the sales tax rankings were selectively chosen to promote an dishonest liberal bias ... well, what else is old?

That's funny, the solutions that you propose are exactly what Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program was written to put in place: Funding based on Standardized Test Results.

The theory is that students are being pushed up the grade levels solely for high school "success" statistics, not because the children are learning. The "child left behind" is the one that learns nothing, but is treated as if they are ready to enter adult society. This solution to force the standardization of tests is what is being fought by the teachers unions, because it would reveal that many teachers are failing to teach, and are instead just "moving them along".

These people were offered on average $1.7 million for (again, on average) .1 acres of land.

and yet they refused to sell for a large sum of money. this is riverfront property we're talking about, so smaller offers would probably not be considered "fair compensation," especially for the person who was born there in their home in 1918 and lived there all their life. (nytimes, but no reg req'd, not sure why) How do you tell that person that any amount is "fair."

We're not talking about taking someone's home and property to build a hospital, firestation, courthouse, etc. (all of which could be located in a more cost effective location, which would impact fewer people) We're talking about a development group who want to build a riverside hotel, office building, and "other commercial activities" to improve the tax base, create jobs, and enhance the quality of life. What happens when/if these businesses fail to "revitalize" the city. They cannot give back what they are taking. Will they then decide they need a few more lots down the river to build a riverside casino to "improve the tax base and create jobs" which will help the floundering hotel, and the dismal office building by housing the "main office" of the casino and all the new patrons it attracts.

I just can't believe that this has happened, and as a generally conservative person I was initially surprised to see how the vote went down with the generally liberal members voting in favor of the ruling. It makes sense after thinking about it - the conservatives did not side with the development group and commercial interests and instead upheld the constitution by voting for private ownership. It's just hard to believe how there are five (5) members of the high court who blindly ignored the consitution by hiding behind a meager "we're not better to determine what is 'beneficial' for the new london community" retort. Who says the NLDC is better than the homeowners to know what's best for the community?

I just can't even find the words to express how fucked-up this ruling is. It made me so mad I actually submitted it as a story to slashdot:
2005-06-23 19:19:33 Your Property is Perfect - for a Riverfront Hotel (Politics,The Courts) (rejected)

Of course, the story that got accepted was more succinct than my writeup, so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying this: I never submit stories - I never get worked up enough to care that much, and I don't even live in Connecticut! In fact I currently reside in Utah where a law was recently passed to specifically prevent eminent domain to be used for private development of any type.

One more article/page from before the ruling that is interesting reading I came across while looking into this.

I need a chill pill....

First, the US will hopefully make some headway on CO2 production with or without Kyoto. The point I'm making is that Kyoto is based on our current highly imperfect understanding of what's going on, and isn't addressing a highly signficant source of potential global warming. To quote:

A large cloud of soot, produced mainly by impoverished Asians burning dung for energy, is blanketing the region, and indeed the globe. Ramanathan's discovery of the "Asian Brown Cloud," as it came to be known, offered scientists an opportunity to study and perhaps eliminate one of Earth's most deadly masses of pollution.

However, study of the cloud indicated it was doing more than filling human respiratory systems with high levels of gritty soot, mercury, and other pollutants ... it was perhaps the single greatest cause of global warming on the planet.

Full article here.

Another flaw with Kyoto is that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't consider nuclear a "clean" power source for purposes of controlling global warming.

I couldn't see a section on bovine flatulence either, come to think of it.

I think methane emissions are addressed, as they should be - methane traps 21 times the heat as the same mass of CO2. According to current thinking, methane accounts for 20% of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. Browsing the Net, I found conflicting reports of how fast methane concentrations are increasing, but according to this article the contribution from farm animals is significant:

Unfortunately, burped methane is more difficult to collect, with the result that about six million metric tons of it float blissfully up into the atmosphere every year. And that's just from herds in the United States. (Worldwide, ruminant livestock -- including cattle, sheep, goats, and buffalo -- produces about 80 million metric tons of methane per year, accounting for 22% of anthropogenic methane emissions.)

That's a lot of methane!

I.e., people who are not on the dole, or who don't wish to be on the dole. Or, as you imply, people with diabolica agendas, possibly involving liberty and other pernicious ideas.

Contrary to your claim, there are people who have issues with the system who are not "people with agendas", but rather people who have died while waiting for treatment.

n 1999, Dr. Richard F. Davies, a cardiologist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, described in remarks for the Canadian Institute for Health Information how delays affected Ontario heart patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass graft surgery. In a single year, for this one operation, the doctor said, "71 Ontario patients died before surgery, 121 were removed from the list permanently because they had become medically unfit for surgery," and 44 left the province to have the surgery, many having gone to the United States for the operation. (According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 33 Canadian hospitals performed approximately 22,500 bypass surgeries in 1998-99.) Cite

Who is going to invade Canada? Who wants to attack Canada? Nobody. The US looks out for us purely out of self-interest.

Again, with feeling: Canada depends on American muscle. Put Canada near, say, North Korea. Then come and talk to me about who wants to attack Canada.

P.S. It's not just self-interest, it's also good neighborliness. Canada is like our kid brother--we pick on y'all, but when it comes down to it, you're our brother, and we'll look out for you, so you get you use your allowance to buy candy and toys instead of paying off the bullies. That is perhaps the best goddamn analogy for the US/Canadian relationship ever.

If a political party openly campaigns on certain policies, is elected based on those policies, and as a government implements those policies, it is not coercion. The electorate chose those policies.

So you would accept a ban on homosexuality, if the majority elected people who enacted that legislation? Reductio ad absurdum, perhaps, but no less true. If you're going to argue with truisms, I'm allowed to be sloppy.

In the USA, we aren't subject to the whims of the majority. At leas in theory--in practice, the masses often get their way. I don't know about Canada--aren't y'all still subject to the Queen?--but it seems to me that our constitutional republic is less, ahh, fluid. You probably wouldn't recognize Canada pre-Trudeau, but from what I've read it was more American than America in that it was quite the home to rugged individualism.

bah! links didnt take

Link 1

Link 2

Wrong wrong wrong!!! Wind turbines are extremely disruptive, not just to the millions of birds being barbarically clubbed to death every year, but to humans as well. Consider this:

Other studies, also issued in January, showed wind turbines may be more dangerous to humans than had previously been thought.

On January 25, the London Daily Telegraph reported numerous studies show low-frequency noise emanating from wind turbines is causing a variety of ailments among area residents.

According to English physician Dr. Amanda Harry, who conducted one of the studies, "People demonstrated a range of symptoms from headaches, migraines, dizziness, palpitations, and tinnitus to sleep disturbance, stress, anxiety, and depression. These symptoms had a knock-on effect in their daily lives, causing poor concentration, irritability, and an inability to cope . It travels further than audible noise, is ground-borne and is felt through vibrations."

Take a look at the article to learn more about the horrors of wind power.

Wrong wrong wrong!!! Wind turbines are extremely disruptive, not just to the millions of birds being barbarically clubbed to death every year, but to humans as well. Consider this:

Other studies, also issued in January, showed wind turbines may be more dangerous to humans than had previously been thought.

On January 25, the London Daily Telegraph reported numerous studies show low-frequency noise emanating from wind turbines is causing a variety of ailments among area residents.

According to English physician Dr. Amanda Harry, who conducted one of the studies, "People demonstrated a range of symptoms from headaches, migraines, dizziness, palpitations, and tinnitus to sleep disturbance, stress, anxiety, and depression. These symptoms had a knock-on effect in their daily lives, causing poor concentration, irritability, and an inability to cope . It travels further than audible noise, is ground-borne and is felt through vibrations."

Take a look at the article to learn more about the horrors of wind power.

In fact, each of those incidents was worth far more of each person's share of taxation than this raid was to the taxes paid by the whole of the music industry. You might say these people got more for their tax dollars than the RIAA did. But in order to say that, you'd have to be more than an anti-corporate clown unable to realize that corporations have the same rights as small businesses

Anti-corporate clown or staunch capitalist?
The chairman of the Economists for Bush, J Edward Carter says that, "As most college freshmen learn in Economics 101, corporations do not pay taxes, people do."

The editors of the Wall Street Journal said: ... corporations don't pay taxes. They merely collect them.

So, according to some of the most pro-corporate people around, the RIAA didn't pay one cent in taxes, so they certainly got vastly more than their money's worth. Since the PEOPLE are the ones paying the taxes, then maybe the government ought to be serving their interests instead.

One of the reasons that cities pay so much to help build stadiums is because the stadium brings so many people to the area it creates a somewhat massive economic boom in the area, which over time can be worth more money than the cost to build the stadium.

78%-80% of schools were already connected to the Internet when ERate was passed.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11894

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.9135/pub_det ail.asp

The NEA is a reactionary organization that typically opposes fixing public education.

""Do you happen to have something that shows...Before$ > After$"

I went and found it. It is in another response to you. I found some Democrat/etc bushbashers daring to slam Bush for education cuts, while their own essays detailed how he increased funding.

""One infamous case is where the NEA fought against teachers in Syracuse who took the iniative themselves to tutor students on the weekends.""

"except this article is pretty good: http://misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df0 5122004.html"

Misleader is not a good source of information, basically being a Democratic Party campaign site. Going there to look for the truth about Bush is like looking for the truth about H.R. Clinton at www.rushlimbaugh.com. However, while it claims that Bush did not deliver as much as promised, it does not claim that he cut anything. It is found here. I wish I had a more objective reference; these were more common back around the time this took place. I myself have a problem using as references in favor of something citations from politically-biased sites in favor of it. These people the most interest in cooking the facts. The best citations for something can be found in sites biased against it.

"No one's forced to contribute to the political side of NEA, the legally distinct, separately budgeted NEA PAC. So stop believing those lies about forced political contributions."

Yes, most of their political contributions are forced. A teacher I am very close to has witnessed the forced contributions first hand. Thanks for the link to the Paycheck Protection page. Paycheck protection is absolutely necessary as long as workers are forced into unions. It would not be necessary if "closed shop" was abolished. (i.e. if teachers had the choice to join the NEA in the first place, forced contributions stolen from these volunteer members would be much less of a problem). It is interesting that the Paycheck Protection opponents quake in their boots at the very idea of only collecting money from people who want to pay it.

The anti-paycheck protection site contains some outright lies. One of them is "In fact, union membership is entirely voluntary. No one in the entire United States can be forced to join NEA or be compelled to support the Association's political activities.". The fact is that most teachers must join the NEA or they get fired. Another lie "no NEA dues money is contributed to candidates or to campaigns for elective office." The fact is that the political money and dues are the same thing and are mixed by the NEA itself.

Also the site mentions "And unions are required, by law, to notify fee-payers of these rights annually.". This is interesting in light of the fact that the union fought against this law. They wanted to rob the members and keep them in the dark about their rights.

It is really kind of telling that the NEA/etc are claiming that their power would vanish if people were not longer forced to give it money against their will, and it is an admission by the NEA that their actual support is small.

What the world is running out of is economical, pre-pressurized deposits that ooze oil just by digging a little below the surface. There will always be oil deposits, the question is at what cost.

But that's ok, we know we're not running out of oil anyways. And if we don't conserve any oil and don't make a single machine more efficient in the next 50 years, when we run out of the stuff in the ground, we can always just recycle ourselves some more.

One good way to minimize gerrymandering is to create compact districts. This is a requirement that districts be roughly uniform in shape (like a hexagon or circle). This doesn't prevent all gerrymandering, but makes it much more difficult. Typically gerrymandered districst are easy to spot, because they come in odd shapes.

A lot of people claim to have seen UFO's and Yetis and bigfoot. Maybe that's what they saw, maybe not. A lot of 'establishment' people rage against these perceptions and don't help any in unnerving suspicions. They flatly deny the possibility that such things exist while the scientific method dictates that something cannot be proven not to exist, since we know very little and our theories might be wrong or unrefined.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=1089 40% believe in astrology, 30% in UFOs (NSF study)

http://images.google.com/images?q=troll Hey google has them so they exist!

:)

>>It's not greedy to want to keep at least 50% of the money I earn.

And you don't? Wait, 90% > 50% in my world. Oh, yeah, fed taxes. Make that 70% > 50%.

So are you running for governor, since it's such an easy job?

It's easy to be an armchair official. Spend a day or two inside a government agency and see how clear-cut this all is.

In case you haven't noticed, employment is down, it's getting lower, and that's happening EVERYWHERE no matter what the tax laws are.

We spend, in inflation-adjusted dollars, far, far less per student than we did in the 70's and even early 80's. I'll get the exact numbers later if I have the time. We can double the amount we spend, and if we have triple the students, our education will still go downhill.

In California, a new study by the Pacific Research Institute found that the state increased education spending by 29 percent over the past 10 years (in inflation-adjusted terms) , yet school children in the state rank near the bottom of performance.

Even if that is true, the 2000 climate scientists out of the 17,000 signatories is much better than the the greenies who had just 10% (260) of their signatories somewhat qualified to make qualified opinions, and only ONE climatologist.

The fact remains that most scientists do not believe in global warming as it is promoted by the greenies.

It is not very credible and it seems to me you are the one only listening to one side of the debate?

Au contraire, my good sir. I've visited sites on both sides of the debate. On balance the greenies lack evidence and really seem to have an agenda that benefits by global warming existing--further research grants, economic and political changes they favor, etc.

On the other hand, the 17,000+ scientists that have signed the forementioned petition have nothing to lose nor nothing to gain. They simply are fed up with what they correctly recognize to be a lot of hot air (pun intended).

I invite you to do some INDEPENDENT investigation. That means reading information from both sides of the issue, consider what each "side" has to gain or lose by their side being right or wrong, and use your own brain to come to a conclusion. Also, when reading BOTH sides, try to separate the facts from the opinions and/or vague statements.

Sorry, the problem *is* the guns. Take away the guns, and nobody would be dead.

This seems so logical, and yet I encourage you to present any real world example proving what you claim. The truth is that only law abiding citizens obey laws in the first place. If someone is willing to commit murder, they are certainly going to be willing to break any gun law.


Some things to consider:

New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as "the most stringent gun law" in the nation in 1966; two years later, the murder rate was up 46 percent and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled.

In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures and its murder rate, then a low 2.4 per 100,000 per year, tripled to 7.2 by 1977.

In 1976, Washington, D.C., enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city's murder rate has risen 134 percent while the national murder rate has dropped 2 percent.


Now these will surprise you:

In Kennesaw, Ga., the city passed a law requiring all households to possess a gun. Within seven months, the burglary rate dropped by 89 percent.

In Orlando, Fla., the police department set up a program teaching 600,000 women how to handle firearms. Subsequently, the rape rate dropped by 88 percent.

Among the six million Swiss, there are an estimated two million guns -- including 600,000 fully automatic assault rifles, and their murder rate is 15 percent of ours.



I challenge you, go ahead and give us an example of what you claim. You won't find too many. It would seem to make sense that if you take away the guns you stop the killing, but take a look sometime at a country like England that has stringent gun laws and look at the rate of murder and rape, in almost every case it increase with gun control. When you outlaw guns all you do is remove the right of law abiding citizens to protect themselves and the criminals have free reign. If, however, a person was going to break into a house in a neighborhood notorious for its gun advocacy, they might think twice as there is a higher risk of them losing their life.

Some sources and good references:
Article by the National Center for Policy Analysis
Article at the Independence Institute
Capitolism Magazine Article
Article on Heartland.org
An Article on Australia's Gun Control mistake, cut with some humor.

Now I wouldn't post a problem without a solution, so here is an article detailing an alternative to making all guns illegal.

I also applaud you for posting this. The pettition you refer to has not received enough attention (see also). But even more important is to look at the data.

-- MarkusQ

No, my point is not at all short-sighted, just realistic...

When the oilfields are gone, so is 'natural' gas.

That will be a very long time: at current forecast growth rates, well after hydrogen itself is no longer desirable. (100+ years - With conservation and more efficient use, such as turbines, the supply could last for centuries. Eliminating Pentiums alone would help tremendously...) In 1978, proven reserves of oil were 648 Billion barrels. By March 2000, the USGS estimated that world reserves were 2.2 TRILLION barrels, this same study also estimated natural gas and similar liquid reserves at another 2.3 TRILLION barrels, for a total supply increase of around 70X. It's also worth noting that this increased supply has resulted in a significant drop in real energy prices (except in the Peoples Republic of California, where Bozoid centralized planning and control prevent deregulation from working there as it has in Pennsylvania), a trend that will likely continue for many decades.

According to Robert L. Bradley, Jr., president of the Institute for Energy Research, "probable resources of oil, gas, and coal are officially forecast to be 114, 200, and 1,884 years of present usage, respectively. Moreover, an array of unconventional fossil-fuel sources promises that, when crude oil, natural gas, and coal become scarcer (hence, more expensive) in the future, fossil-fuel substitutes may still be the best source of fuels to fill the gap before synthetic substitutes come into play." (Source: http://www.heartland.org/perspectives/automobility 5.htm)

Also, keep in mind that Hydrogen is not an especially dense energy storage medium. Really good battery technologies could well exceed the energy density of LH2 without the problems associated with hydrogen.

I think you're also underestimating the rate of change in the next 50 years. 50 years from now tech won't be as different from our tech as our tech is from 1950's tech - it will be as different from our tech as our tech is from 1850's tech.

I think you're obviously so young that your perception has been warped by sci-fi: The rate of change has been *FAR* less than forecast for well over 100 years now. 50 years ago, except for the Internet, and computers sucking up endless man-hours that could be used to produce real value-add rather than the overhead of systems administration, things were pretty much as they are now. Some things have improved, many have gotten worse, and most things are about the same. I see no reason to believe that somehow the next 50 years will be all that much different, especially as Moore's law starts to falter and gate density hits the wall. There will likely be some big advances, but almost by definition, those are impossible to effectively predict. (I also believe the liklihood of another great depression is fairly high in the next 50 years, which will make the last one look like a cake walk, and set back economic progress for many decades - not pessimistic, just a recognition that major depressions have a stubborn tendency to crop up every 50-100 years, so both the timing and debt conditions are building up to the inevitable.)

Picking the long-term solution now seems sensible when you look at the ultimate cost of re-tooling all machinery for a new power source - do you want to do that once, or several times?

I and many others would argue we're more likely to do this again if we foolishly choose hydrogen power now, and tooling up for hydrogen would be REALLY expensive. No thanks.

Solar power and hydrogen power will not run out in the lifespan of the human species.

Solar is neither efficient nor environmentally friendly when deployed on the scale required to replace all fossil fuels, whether or not the additional stupid step of making hydrogen is pursued. (see below)

They will becom cheaper and cheaper and cleaner and cleaner. Picture floating factories refining hydrogen from the oceans using solar power - how ultimately efficient can that become?

The simple fact is this: there is no clean way to produce large quantities of hydrogen. Solar energy is free and "clean", but is not terribly energy-dense, and suffers from the problem of being "low quality" thermodynamically. Even if you could collect *all* the energy falling on a square yard of the Earth's surface at high noon and perpindicular latitude, you still don't get enough to run a microwave oven, and in reality, we can't even afford to get the pitiful 3% that Solar cells catch (sadly, they often wear out before they've paid for themselves.) Racheting that back to account for the terrible efficeincies involved in splitting water by electrolysis results in having such huge areas covered by solar collectors that they themselves begin to be a significant source of environmental damage. (To head off the usual argument at the pass: "But it's out in the middle of the ocean!" isn't a valid response here unless you buy that argument for toxic waste as well...)

My guess is that the future is likely to be far more electrical than hydrogen powered, but we'll have to wait and see. In any case, nothing much will (or should) cause a mass move to hydrogen for at least another 50 years or so. If efficiency and environmental concerns are really important, more effort should be put on the new diesel technologies, which are making impressive progress.

Real hybrids, not the wimpy and ridiculously expensive toys for yuppies we see now, could make a difference, espcially if powered by efficient microturbines.

Socialism means that you care for all people and try to bring equality.

If that's your definition, I doubt that there is a single country in the world which qualifies as socialist. No country has succeeded in caring for "all the people". Countries with heavily socialized medical systems may provide better care for the poorest, but generally result in rationing, shortages, waiting lines for surgeries, etc.

To me, a better way to measure socialism is to measure the size of a country's government. In the US, the various levels of government consume close to 1/3 of the GDP. I will grant you, that is lower than many other countries, but how large does the government have to get before you call it socialist?

I would think a non-socialist country would have a government that makes up far less than a third of the entire economy. In 1900, the government was less than 10% of US GDP. That's a country for which the term "socialist" probably wouldn't fit.

A team of meteorologists in the UK made the discovery. An article about it is here

I agree totally, and here is some real data to back up your claim.
www.heartland.org/environment/jan01/unique.htm

Lies, dammed lies, and statics?
I suggest you read the article mentioned by the above poster, considering both content and tone, if you going to give the previous post any real consideration.

Not to mention that there is still no particularly valid scientific reason to presume that global warming even exists. Or maybe, the idea is simply that the project will generate tons of greenbar printouts that can be used to "conclusively document" the terrible global threat we face.

Seriously, global warming is taken as gospel truth in so many places, but it's really quite likely that it does not exist and isn't happening - remember the same experts warning of global warming now warned of catastrophic mini-ice ages at the first earth day in 1970. They're no more likely right now than they were then, but they're just as ideologically driven as ever.

Take a good look at this primer on global warming (pay particular attention to the "seven things you should know about global warming" and globalwarming.org for more information. Then do your own more detailed research.

This is a complex issue and the evidence is not yet conclusive either way. In general, though, I am more convinced that this is a political ploy for control "to save the earth" than any sort of real phenomenon. The data I've looked at leave it quite unclear that there is any global warming trend at all - in particular, the satellite data, which is generally recognized as the most accurate, shows a slight cooling trend over the past 18 years. Even if a slight warming trend does exist, there is certainly no reason for alarm, as it is almost certainly a natural phenomenon. (As always, the chief human failing of hubris causes us to overestimate our importance and impact on the world around us - the fact is, we don't really make much difference.) The earth is not static, and it is not reasonable to expect it to be.

Just to add to this comment - most of the "poverty-stricken" in the US are vastly better off than the average citizen in many other countries, and even far better off than the average American over the course of the 20th century. I was given the link above last week, and it was enlightening what the government now considers "poverty"...