Slashdot Mirror

Or, from Mitnik:

"The person who's carrying out the act doesn't think about the consequences.... I really can't see people researching what the penalties are before they do something."

In fact, the evidence is overwhelming that sentence length does provide a deterrent effect for crime. There is an easily demonstrable inverse relationship between increased penalties and crime rate.

However, it also seems to be the case that certainty of punishment provides a greater deterrent than severity of punishment. E.g., 20-years-to-life for jaywalking will have little effect on jaywalking rates if the chances of getting caught are near zero. Conversely, raise the chances of getting caught to 50% and even a more modest punishment will have a greater impact.

In short, both statements are wrong. Raising penalties does deter crime and, contrary to Mitnik's assertion, most criminals do consider consequences. This was recently argued, for example, by Morgan Reynolds before the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, a transcript of which can be found here.

I see that you're saying in theory, other forms of economic distribution other that capitalism might produce the same or better results. But you fail to give concrete examples of this, or any quantitative measures for your claims.

Well, the Index of Economic Freedom claims that a nation's level of "economic freedom" (factors generally regarded as defining capitalism) correlates positively and strongly with a nation's wealth. I'm sure you'll find reasons to take issue with this, but please provide some facts and figures of your own to rebut those presented by the index.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

ps More data can be found here.

Any statistics to back this up because I for one don't believe it.

Fifteen thousand French died in the heat wave. Why was that? "The heat wave brought suffocating temperatures of up to 104 in the first two weeks of August in a country where air conditioning is rare." And, "The high death toll has triggered an angry debate in France over shortcomings of the health system." From Fox (this was just the most recent article grabbed via Google News)

Doesn't seem to me as though the French are so well off. Where are the air conditioners? Where was the great health care that they enjoy? Where is this fabulous standard of living? On the bright side, the families of the 15,000 dead reportedly enjoyed a nice, long vacation.

I do not have the source of my impression ready to hand, but I found something similar. I don't doubt these guys have an axe to grind, but that doesn't mean they're wrong when they say,

America's poor do not live lavishly, but few households are destitute. The average "poor" American lives in a larger house or apartment, is more likely to own a car and is more likely to have basic amenities such as an indoor toilet than the general population of Western Europe. In addition: 14

* 53 percent of poor households have air conditioning;
* 91 percent own a color TV and 29 percent own two or more color TVs;
* 64 percent own a car and 14 percent own two or more cars;
* 56 percent own a microwave oven; and
* 40 percent own their home, with 71,000 owning homes worth more than $300,000.

[me again]
Granted, also, that I may have confused the poor with people on welfare, so I may need to revise my statement to "the poor are pretty well off", rather than "people on welfare are pretty well off".

Just because the suit was filed in March (or around there, right?) doesn't mean the case will go in front of a judge right away. This is a complicated legal fight and quite often it can be several months, even more than a year, before things get rolling.

Whenever I see quotes like "the US Government and the court system are too much under the influence of business interests to step in," I just have to laugh. Is there a single, monolithic view that defines "business interests" here? Hardly! You have giant corporations on both sides of the issue (IBM/Microsoft), and the (Bush) "Administration" has next to zero role in this whole endeavor. It's a civil suit, for crying out loud.

And I also love "Until they start to uphold the rights of the people instead of the rights of stockholders, this fiasco will continue." Guess what, bub - the people ARE the shareholders!

How does crap like that get modded Insightful? Anyways, thanks for a good chuckle to start my day...

The scientific consensus is strong. Perfect, no, but outside of right-wing talk show hosts and oil company shills, there is no real doubt that human activity is altering the climate.

Well, actually, while there is no debate that human activity alters the climate, there is a lot of debate on how much. (after all, Chaos Theory would say that butterfly activity has a huge effect on global climate too). This image shows a good graph on world temperatures based on boreholes. We also have learned in the last few years (after Global Warming because a huge issue) that one of the big assumptions made by many global warming people is that the sun is a constant brightness and it's not.

No, I believe that we should do our best to reduce green house gasses. I'm a very strong environmentalist. But, I think we should be scientifically honest in doing so.

Fat chance. The EU is a huge bureaucracy. European don't even know the names of the EU commissars, and the Commission cultivates the virtue of secret and opacity with a success that would have made Beria jealous.

So public opinion has really no impact whatsoever on the bureaucrats. What matters is the lobbyists. According to the Wall Street Journal, there are about 10,000 lobbyists in Brussels. (I believe this doesn't include employees of the larger lobby cabinets).

Large companies are therefore overrepresented in Brussels. Contrary to what naive Americans can think, established companies love the thick layers of bureaucracy and the entanglements of redtape. Why? Because it allows them to:
1. Keep startup competitors out of their business by making it too difficult to enter the field,
2. Pass their pet legislations through coatroom deals.

Europeans wanted a super-state, they've got it. Oh wait... Cancel that. Nobody told the poor schmucks that they would eventually end up in a remake of the Ottoman Empire.

-- SysKoll

Er, according to a law signed by Clinton himself, yes it was.

If the MPAA can keep on pursuing Jon, regardless of his acquittal, on the grounds that his product enables "movie piracy", then surely there's a lot of other folks that should be seriously worried right now.

1) Smith&Wesson, Colt, Heckler&Koch all have products that enable, for example, car-jacking, armed robbery and murder.

(Then again, on the earlier example -- while it's true that guns don't kill people, trigger fingers don't fire bullets...)

Average economic growth during the Reagan years was 3.2%, compared to 1.3% by Bush Sr. and 2.6% by Clinton (through his 1st term, when this report was issued, we know now that any growth in his second term was completely artificial, as evicenced by the dot-com burst that occured in his last year, and the amount of accounting scandals that date back into the Clinton years).

The poorest 20% experienced a 6% increase in income during the Reagan years, compared to a 3% loss in the post-Reagan years.

Minorities experience a 11% increase in household income during the Reagan years, compared to a 2% increase in the post-Reagan years. (Whites were +11% during Reagan, -3.8% after Reagan)

Everybody across all income ranges experienced a growth in income. It was not the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer", it was "the rich and the poor got richer".

Federal Revenue grew 24% during the 8 year Reagan period. Defense spending only grew .6% as a percentage of the federal deficit.

What moral right do you have to punish a woman for choosing an abortion?

What moral right do we have to punish anybody for anything? It makes no sense to punish a murderer, protest a war on the grounds of humanity, and then turn around and agree that women should have the right to murder thier children without any recourse.

Actually, I've always throught that US cops should had the gun attached to their belt by a cable, just like they do in many European and Asian countries.

Drop your gun? Well, at least somebody can't pick it back up and shoot you. According to these guys, "10 percent of police who are shot are shot with their own guns".

Oh yeah, and the US softwood lumber tarriffs just rock.

We've lost over 30,000 jobs in BC because of this, and you say we're whiney, look at the bush administration. At least our Prime Minister can spell, and knows the names of other country leaders.

Oh, and Bush IS a moron.

Maybe you should actually pay attention to what happens outside your country, the United States aren't exactly the world ya know?

Or more specifically:http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa109.ht ml

Or something short like: http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-13-00.html

Or this has both sides of the issue laid out a bit http://www.ncpa.org:80/bothside/crime.html

Ah, what the hell. Here's a reference...

Check it...

53 percent of poor households have air conditioning;
91 percent own a color TV and 29 percent own two or more color TVs;
64 percent own a car and 14 percent own two or more cars;
56 percent own a microwave oven; and
40 percent own their home, with 71,000 owning homes worth more than $300,000.

Yes, China and Iraq are excellent examples of what happens to a country when the right to bear arms is violated. Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and Iceland (all countries with strict gun control laws) are all ruled by tyrants that oppress their people. Good grief. I'm pro-gun, but your argument holds zero water. Why dont you comment on how gun control laws simply don't reduce gun related crime instead?

There are LOTS of studies that show that we are destroying our environment one piece at a time.

Correction- there are lots of studies that theorize that we may be destroying our environment. There are also lots of studies that disagree with those theories. In fact, the NOAA link that you posted says that all of the climate change that has been observed could just be caused by variations in the sun's intensity or the earth's orbit. Some people theorize that the build-up of "greenhouse gases" like CO2 is not causing a climate change, but rather a symptom of it (like this article for example).

Either way, none of those links that you gave make the jump that you made that our entire eco system is going to irreversibly collapse.

Your claims that the earth is overpopulated are also crap. Right now, you could fit everybody on the earth into Texas with about the same population density as Paris, France (look here). And the global population growth rate has been decreasing for the past 30 years.

Nobody is calling for the blatant misuse of our environment, but I think the earth is a lot more robust that you give it credit for, and I think that humans are not as influential to the environment as you seem to think.

Political spectrum is irrelavant. I simple posted a link to a summery of the study. There have been numerous such studies by colleges and firms that have all reached the same results. Perhaps I should have linked to this study directly, which was conducted by William Landes of the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale University.

Basing your beliefs on a party line with no thought to how the world really works is a whole nother point that I would hazzard a guess is against what the left consistently tries to point out is their belief of tolerance and understanding of other peoples views. Which is to say that if you have an opposing study please point it out.

You don't have to value their opinion but I do believe that laws should be enacted that are based on solid facts and not on feelings and opinions (which is what I pointed out). Please see my other post for more studies that are not related to NCPA such as the DOJ, The FBI, and The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law: Here.

Any measures that could potentially cut annual shooting deaths in say half should be seriously considered.

And the only measure that has repeatibly shown these results is the passing of concealed carry laws. See The NCPA.

I seriously doubt that the framers would have supported this extreme view of the right to privacy.

Read the federalist papers. This exactly the type of privacy they had in mind. Do you know why the first battle of the revolution happened? The british came to confiscate arms and ball ammo.

For me, fingerprinting a firearm is a lot different that fingerprinting a person

For me its not any different. It gives the government a list of who has what guns and makes it that much easier to confiscate them. The idea of the second amendment is to protect me from just such an occurance.

The point is to ask whether the situation would be better if a lot of people in the DC suburbs carried firearms. Unless they are all well trained and not hot-heads...


Yes that is the question and every study thats been done proves that crime rates fall when concealed carry laws are enacted. Yes training is important and I encourage anyone who carries to seek training and to maintain that training. But it is not a requirement. Using a weapon is not difficult. Identify you target assest the danger and engage or flee.

I think everyone is safer with the police chasing the criminals.

The police do not have to duty to protect you! Period!!!
This has been addressed numerous times in court. See this study.

What would/could you do if you saw this guy fire his gun?

How about performing a citizens arrest. With out a gun you are (pardon the pun) out gunned. But with a weapon you could confront and control the suspect.

I know I'd have a lot better odds stopping him with my '88 Crown Vic than a handgun

This is the same view most of the gun control advocates have. Just because you don't trust yourself with a firearm does not mean you can not trust me. And if you can not trust me you should have a gun of your own so that you can control me should I overreact to a situation in which you are involved.

"The best overall measure of the potential cost to a criminal of committing crimes is 'expected punishment.' Roughly speaking, expected punishment is the number of days in prison a typical criminal can expect to serve per crime, as determined by the probabilities of being apprehended, prosecuted, convicted and going to prison, and the median months served for each crime.

As for the unweighted numbers? Here's some data from a US DoJ report, which combines first- and second-degree rape:

The average sentence for criminals convicted of rape in the United States (and released in 1992) is 117 months. The average time served is 65 months, which equates to 56 percent of the actual sentence served.

Not knowing one way or the other, can you cite any examples of this?

This is a long story. It started more or less with the worldbank. Countries could get funding, but there was always a 'but'. One thing lead to the other, resulting in huge debts. This again often leaves with a worse situation than before. Argentina is a nice result of this politics. I would say a country is a crisis like that hardly has a way nor the means to recover from a crisis without external help. That is why they can't refuse to cut their forests. Knowing this i'd say it's quite unethical to ask that from them (without for example replanting trees).

I know of the standard trade wars--and I can see "accept this or we will levy 50% importation on your $PRODUCT". But completely stopping trade with a country based on a trade dispute?

trade / financial support. It's not like the tradewars (steel?) the US and the EU have.

That said, I've already mentioned that I'm 100% in favor of 0% tarrifs on everything between every country, period. So whether or not the above is true, I'd be opposed to it and the practice would be moot if there were no tarrifs anywhere.

... You missed my point [SNIP]

I think we agree ;) But it's important or wome countries to wait for the right moment.
Equal competition. Sounds good. Together with the 0% tarrifs the government should stop to subsidize goods. This could result in lower taxes too.
IN THE END this should apply for the poorer countries too, but I can wait 20 - 30 years (You wrote 10 - 20 years, I think, looking at Taiwan, it takes a little longer.) Probably not all the countries will develop as quick as Taiwan, but eventually they will and THEN the tarrifs should go to 0% for them too. I think. I don't know that much about the long term effects of 0% tarrifs. I guess you want to have SOME protection and regulation of your own economy.

I disagree with that completely and stand by my original comment. Being poor does not absolve one of responsibility or give them the right to "pass the buck." I will concede that perhaps responsibility is harder for those with fewer options, but that doesn't make them any less responsible.

Well, knowing the consequences, I'd say it's rather unethical to 'ask' them for their resources.

I'd rather see them say to the rich company, "Hey, you want to exploit our labor? Fine. Here are the minimum labor standards and pay."

Sorry, for some countries being able to say 'no' or demand standards is just as realistis as the ideal economy without employment.

But what if a certain technology reduces the pollution but to implement it would bankrupt the company or make the product no longer viable? How much CO2 is permissible to avoid X number of people being thrown out of work?

To start with the last: research in making better filters, solar panels and stuff and producing the things is work too, so there is also an increase in employment here. And is the implementation is certain measures would bankrupt a company I seriously have doubts about the viability of that company.

No-one has a responsibility to listen to a babbling idiot. I'm not suggesting that you are one, but I am suggesting that if the United States, in its own informed opinion, thinks that what everyone else is saying is hogwash we have absolutely NO responsibility to listen to them just because they outnumber us. In fact, our government has a responsibility to its citizens to protect us from such nonsense by not going along with the crowd.

I see it as a bigger picture. Economy, environment, politics, peace, 'everything' has ist's effects on a global scale. Cooperation plays a very important role in this. The more countries play by the same rules the stronger the effect is.

No. Ignorant is when you frame your argument around the possibility of having to find two additional planets to support the population in 2050. As someone else said in this thread, they framed two options 1) Reduce our consumption now. 2) Find two more planets. Since the second one is impossible, the conclusion is that we must reduce consumption now.

Indeed. I don't think the point of the argument was to find those two planets, but to make insightful that our consumption is rising very rapidly and that we should at least realise THAT. But that is something different than saying the story is ****.

That's an inaccurate conclusion, certainly not scientific. It doesn't contemplate the possible--dare I say PROBABLE--improvements in technology in the next 50 years that will reduce pollution without reducing consumption. THAT'S the third choice and it's not one they significantly addressed.
The reason they didn't talk to the third option is because they aren't making a real effort to present the possible options to the public. They are trying to scare the public into accepting their politics. That's why their story was written off by most as bullshit...

I have to agree that the story doesn't address all the solutions. The goal of the story is not to find a solution, I think, but mainly to make a point about the upcoming problem. Either address the need for more and moreresources or accept that we'll eventually (50, 100, 200 jears. whatever) run out of wood, fuel, food etcetera.

The fact is, in most cases 3rd world countries end up developing because richer nations invest in them. If RICH nations are investing in them anyway they should be required to use the latest in pollution-controlling technology, should they not?

I'd love to see that, yes. That would be responsible behaviour to me.

You seem to have a lot of faith in companies' "responsible behavior." History shows that your faith is misplaced. If you set up the scenario described by Kyoto (expensive labor and environmental restrictions in 1st world, cheap labor and no environmental restrictions in 3rd world) then I can assure you that the companies WILL move there, they WILL pollute there, and they WILL take their jobs there.

A public awareness of the problemshould help. Is it turns out a company uses childlabour it's quite bad for public relations. It's is very likely that companies will have to deal with such a public opinion. You see the same thing with oilcompanies making cleaner fuels or like eco-products which are more expensive, but people are willing to pay for it.
Ofcourse the effect would be stronger if a government would demand "responsible behavior". (see previous comment on global economy: governments working together can demand such a thing)

[...] And that's why the U.S. didn't sign on to Kyoto. I invite you review the U.S. stand. Unfortunately, the U.S. didn't even dispute the goals and reductions required by Kyoto--the U.S. disputed it being implemented in some countries and not in others.

I read Time to Rethink Kyoto and I agree they make a point, but that is still no reason to do nothing. It should be a stilumus to get on one line. Somebody told me there are limits for the 3rd world countries, but they'll are not applied until their economy has grown to a certain vciable level.

Me: Second, it doesn't take a climate science degree to understand that since the above is true you really haven't reduced pollution on a global scale--you've just moved the pollution to developing countries where we can't see it.

[SNIP] As you said before. Companies will have to build factories in those countries and they'll use newer less polluting techniques, so it will decrease pollution for the production, which is a certain step in the right direction.

You: 1) redistribute wealth to developing countries by moving jobs there at the expense of developed countries. 2) redistribute pollution so that we can feel squeaky clean in the developed world while the developing world becomes even dirtier.
Me: Well, the 1) isn't bad. It will pay off. The 2) is a problem that requires a lot of attention.
You: And therein lies the real problem. You've agreed that Kyoto will do little more than redistribute pollution and requires "a lot of attention" but also agree that "it isn't bad, it will pay off" that we redistribute wealth from the 1st world to the 3rd world.

I don't want to enter the whole socialism debate, but this is my exact point: If you want to redistribute world wealth then propose it. See if the world accepts it. DON'T camaflouge it as environmental regulations that don't help the environment but do achieve worldwide socialism/wealth distribution.

Well, I disagree that CO2 is harmful pollution. But even if it is, let me re-ask the question you didn't answer: Why does anyone think that Kyoto will actually help the environment? As you essentially conceded above, pollution will be redistributed to exempt countries, not eliminated. So why does anyone think Kyoto will help the environment? Unless you refer to the environment of developed countries at the expense of the environment of developing countries?

Let me turn the question around. What will happen is nothing is done? Don't forget that eventually Kyoto also will apply to the developing countries. Applying Kyoto to them now will have very negative effects on their weak economies. we'll have to 'live' with that.
Kyoto isn't the alpha and omega for the environment. It's a step in the right direction. Take that step and work on the imperfections (enforcements etcetera). All the steps together will help.

I believe the above [0% tarifs] would in the short-term help the developing countries and hurt the developed countries, but in the long-term (10+ years) it would help everybody.

In the end, when the developing economy has developed to a strong economy maybe, but since we're more efficient and our products are cheaper, it will push local less efficiently made products out off their local markets, and thereby increase unemployment, and import in those countries and destroy their economy. It takes years of carefull development to mature an economy (and society!) so it function on the global market. Look at the former USSR. The worldbank tried / telped them to reform their economy it to a marketsystem. The results are known.

But, unlike Kyoto, it has to be UNIVERSAL. No exceptions. Not for me, not for you, not for Bill Gates, and not for poor Ethiopians.

Only when the situations are the same, you can apply the same rules and regulations.

Let me summarize:
1. Most development in the 3rd world happens because the 1st world invests in it. Since the 1st world has the money, it should invest in doing it cleanly.
2. If it doesn't apply to everyone, including developing countries, pollution will just be relocated, not eliminated.
3. The end-result of Kyoto is not pollution reduction but wealth and pollution redistribution. Kyoto should be debated as a wealth redistribution treaty, not an environmental one.

Nice, but:
1. Kyoto will reduce pollution in the first world.
2. Some companies will go to the 3rd world countries with less strict regulations. They will build factories there which are mose likely more efficient and cleaner than the ones there at the moment.
3. This will stimulate the local economy there so they have more possibilities to invest in cleaner technologies too.

Probably the truth lies somewhere in the middle.


I'm sorry, if the futileness of the Kyoto treaty--except for wealth redistribution--isn't clear to you by now I'm not sure that re-explaining it to you again will help.

You've made your point. I admitted it is a problem that requires a lot of attention. I'm not saying the answer is easy, but doing nothing is just like ignoring the problem. Search for solutions against against pollution redistribution. Subsidize cleaner technologies in our own countries to avoid companies to move to other countries, build new clean factories in other countries. And again, in Europe there are stronger pollution reductions standards, but I haven't seen a massive exodus of the industry.

Kyoto redistributes some pollution to other countries, which in the longer run also will have to comply with Kyoto, as side effect, but it will also reduce pollution in our countries. It's not only wealth redistribution. Kyoto is a step in the direction of pollution reduction.

Yes, that's probably true. Our companies would overrun them to take advantage of cheap labor. That would happen at the cost of laborers in the rich countries. But, within 10-20 years, the poor countries would increase in wealth and those incentives would disappear. Eventually, there'd be no reason for the U.S. to be any richer than Afghanistan. But, in the long run, the U.S. wouldn't LOSE--we'd gain because there'd now be 6 BILLION potential consumers with disposable income rather than, what, about 1.5 billion or so now?

1.5 billion? That much?
I'd say it will probably take longer. There are some 'religious', ideological and political barriers that have to be overcome, but I think in the end there can be a healthy global marketsystem with a better wealth distribution than the one there is now.

Since our conversation has gone all over the board, from environment to socialism to health care to corporate responsibility, let me try to summarize my viewpoint:
1. Kyoto is about worldwide wealth redistribution, not the environment. As written and with the exemptions that it has, Kyoto will not reduce worldwide pollution. What it WILL do is redistribute jobs and wealth. It should be debated as a jobs and wealth redistribution treaty, not an environmental one.
2. The original article doesn't contemplate technological advances that will allow us to reduce pollution without reducing consumption. They gave us the choice of finding two more planets or reducing consumption. Those aren't the only two options and that's why the article was dismissed as alarmist bullshit.
3. The buck stops locally which means that blaming the developed world for all of the problems in the developing world is just about as reasonable as blaming the nuclear arms race on the first multi-cell organism that inhabited the earth.
4. Responsibility doesn't decrease with wealth. As poor as I may be and as tempting as it may be to kill someone for a million bucks, I can't ignore my responsibility to reject that offer. The same goes for Brasil cutting down its trees or whatever. I'm sure the situation for Brasil is as desperate as the poor man considering killing someone to make a buck...

I don't mind the broad discussion. I like new points of view.
Basicly my point of view are these:

1. I do see your point on the short term imperfections in the Kyoto treaty. I just don't agree it's a reason to completely ignore the treaty. Developing countries eventually also have to comply with Kyoto. There are ways of making Kyoto work. Doing nothing in the mean time, using any excuse, as I see it is only a way to make the American companies happy and preventing them to do investments which reduces profit. Nothing is black and white. Wealth redistribution probably will happen, but pollution will reduce too.
2. The original article makes a point, but in a very extreme way. Judging the dismissing reactions it was the wring way. That doesn't take away the fact that our consumption is rising very fast and we might run into trouble. It's very easy to make fun about the story and completely put the point of the story aside.
3. I think the discussion never came to that point. I don't get it.
4. True, but on the other hand, offering a bad deal, knowing a person / country can't refuse is highly objectionable and compairable to exploitation. I'd say the 1st world has grown past the point and 'need' for exploitation and slavery.
5. We came to a point where our standard of life is that high that we're in a position to think about the consequenses of our way of living and let morale, ethics and responsability play a bigger role in our lifes.

I know that you are trying to offer a bit of insight, but please create original work or give writing creit where due. A simple search returns an interesting link. I believe this was originally done by John Stossel and his orignal title can be found here.

From the site""Pandering to Fear: The Media's Crisis Mentality" Every day newspapers and television warns us of new, unsuspected dangers in our complex modern world--from Alar and asbestos to cyclamates to the Audi 5000 and the Suzuki Samurai. With the world apparently getting more dangerous all the time, we have to wonder how life expectancy keeps on growing. ABC's John Stossel will discuss what the real risks in modern life are, why the media seem to hype unrealistic fears, and why readers and viewers fall for it. "

Thank you for your time. I appreciate the effort, but I appreciate and value the efforts of the original authors even more. Lest we forget Doris Kearns Goodwin and her misdeeds.

Go back and re-read the original document. Now tell me where it proves that "engineers are taught that the origins of petroleum aren't known?".

"Caution: specific models of the origin of fossil fuels should not be taken as absolutely established."

i.e. We're not 100% sure. I think that does it pretty well.

Oh one more tip for you. Don't point to some obscure document written in 1996 to re-enforce an obscure document written in 1997 especially if your argument is that we...

a) Don't know anything about the origins of oil.

Of course, what I said nothing of the kind. What I did say was:

"The fact is there's still a lot *not* known about petroleum (how its made, how to find it, how to extract it), even by the experts. "

and

"The fact is we don't know *exactly* how petroleum came to be."

But hey, don't let that get in the way of your tirade...

b) Engieers are taught in schools that we don't know where oil comes from.

which is your take on:

"There are theories, but the book isn't closed on those issues. Even petroleum engineering classes will tell you "Caution: specific models of the origin of fossil fuels should not be taken as absolutely established. "

c) We don't know a whole lot about the origins of oil.

d) There is a lot we don't know about where oil comes from (as if that was even provable).

Well, at least that's a little closer to what I was saying...

BTW. My father worked for Mobil Oil all his life as a chemical engineer (he is now retired). Through him I have met countless engineers and scientists in the oil industry and not one of them would claim that we don't know how oil is made or that we don't know a lot about how oil gets made. The percentage of uncertainty is probably less then 5%. Go ask them yourself.

I have. I actually work with reservoir guys from the majors, and this is a topic I've asked about quite a bit: from questions about Thomas Gold (some think he's a bit mad, some think he may be on to something but more work needs to be done) to reservoirs refilling themselves (most are stumped on that one although they all have their own pet ideas about could be causing it) to why reservoir definition is still one of the riskiest (in terms of project economics) bits of an upstream capital project (*). Almost every one of them to a T will, when asked such controversial things will say "well, there's still a lot we just don't know for sure." But maybe I've just been unlucky enough to know the %5 of dumbshits that you talk about.

So pick an argument from the above and then find some recent knowledge to back it up. Otherwise you are just another dumb idiological fuck who is unable to process information which goes against your beliefs.

What! My beliefs that there's a fair amount of uncertainty out there in the world of petroleum? Which, by the way, has been the only thing I've been arguing about from post one. You seem to be the one with the dogmatic hang up (you can tell by the high insult to data ratio). I'm sorry, but we do not know everything thing there is to know about petroleum. Work in the industry (especially around some reservoir guys) for more than 5 minutes and you'd realize this.

(*) The answer to which is because its god damn hard to define a reservoir. I have seen project blow millions by putting rigs out on land where very smart men with very powerful computers said there would be lots and lots of petroleum and low and behold only to drill some production wells and find that they're sitting on squat. Conversly I've also seen a lot of money made when the reservoir guys got it wrong in the other direction and discovered after the fact they were sitting on a hell of a lot more oil than the previously thought. Of course why these well paid, very educated resevoir guys still have a hard time finding and defining a reservoir when, at least according to you, we know everything there is to know about petroleum I'll leave for you to answer.

Not that I'm in favor of lining the oil industry's pockets any further...

That was really stupid of them. They should have said something like "Yes, our product is unhealthy; so is candy, fast food, and sitting in front of the TV all day. But this is America, and people have the right to make unhealthy choices". Blatantly lying to the public rarely works out in the long term.

Philip Morris ("Phillip"?) recently published a report on the "indirect positive economic effects of early death". Thats sickening.

Maybe, but it's also true. A RAND studay has shown that by dying earlier and collecting less Social Security and Medicare benefits, smokers pay substantially more in cigarette taxes than they cost the public in increased medical care. This is probably why governments at all levels would rather raise taxes on cigarettes than ban them, even when they are more than willing to ban other drugs that are far less dangerous.

It's cheap. A nice used stealable Camry will cost probably $9-12,000--Considering new ones go for $18-19,000. Add the equipment - no need for GPS and high-tech tracking stuff here. Probably a cheap cell-type system that dials 911 then triggers the C4 (I haven't shopped for C4, though it's probably real cheap for the Guv'ment, lets say $1,500). So we have: 12,000 + 1,500 + $500 (phone) + (yeech!) Cleanup costs. If you do it right with a shaped charge, you might be able to shoot the thief right through the roof causing minimal damage to the surroundings. The car can be hauled off on a flatbed for recycling.

If the criminal is a repeat offender (such as on a third strike) this can be a considerable cost savings to taxpayers.

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 don't understand why anyone else didn't make a machine that could compete with theirs?

The realities are that they had between 75% and 85% of the market BECAUSE THEIR PRODUCT WAS BETTER. Mises Institute actually mentions them in a decent "Barriers to Entry" article that denounces most of the "monopolistic practices" that the government has put down in error, in this article.

Another article that briefly talks about how many "monopolies" fell apart on their own even before government lawsuits ran their course. It's obvious that the reason some of these companies exist is because they make a damn good product at a damn good price. Exclusionary practices are a farce -- people who are too lazy to compete are usually the complainers. It's easy to complain, especially if you don't have the brain cells needed to comprehend competing rather than complaing.

That's part of the NRA's argument which I've never understood. They make the following statements:

• If you ban guns, you should ban baseball bats because you can just as easily kill someone with one of them.
• We need guns to protect ourselves because nothing else will do.

I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Like any bunch of loonies, their arguments make no sense when you look at them closely.

Now, imagine your grandma with a baseball bat. Will she even have the reaction time necessary to connect even once with the bat? If she gets that lucky, will she have the strength to stop the criminal's attack? Could she use the bat from 30 feet away when he doesn't honor her commands to back off? Not to mention the logistics of carrying a baseball bat in her purse all the time due to not having the luxury of knowing when said attack would take place.

Now, imagine your grandma with a .38 shooting the criminal at close range in the chest. The criminal can likely imagine that, too. So, odds are if she has the chance to make the gun visible rather than shooting it through her purse, he'll run off.

See the point here? The same can apply to your 115lb wife or girlfriend against a rapist.

Here are a couple quotes from studies:

From http://www.ncpa.org/bothside/krt/krt050301a.html

Using data from all 3,054 U.S. counties Lott found that right-to-carry laws reduce murder by 8.5 percent, rape by 5 percent and severe assault by 7 percent. Had right-to-carry prevailed throughout the country, there would have been 1,600 fewer murders, 4,200 fewer rapes and 60,000 fewer severe assaults.

From http://www.dartreview.com/issues/2.26.01/editorial .html

In attempt to combat an upward trend in rape cases, for example, Orlando, Florida police launched an initiative to train 2,500 women in gun use in 1966. Consequently, Orlando was the only major American city to experience a reduction in rape in 1967; incidents of rape fell by 88 percent.

Not that having data to back up the overall effect of gun ownership should have any bearing on the fundamental human right to self-defense.

The sad thing is, in the US people scream if anyone tries to take away their guns. If anyone tries to take away their information or their right to privacy, only a few /.ers complain.

People scream either way, really. Not all people, of course, but some people. Remember when all the websites got black backgrounds and blue ribbon banners back in 1996 in response to the CDA? I don't think the problem is which abstract issue gets more attention, but that people in general aren't very interested in politics.

Of course, that changes some during wartime and when energy prices fluctuate. Usually not to any consequence. Interestingly, the possibility of using domestically-grown fuels such as hemp oil, rather than petroleum never seems to enter the debate. Meanwhile, that alone could stop enriching our often unfriendly trade partners for petroleum and drastically reduce pollution and deforestation. For a proof of concept on applying this to automobiles, see http://www.hempcar.org/

Anyway, Australia appears to have a very statist position on both speech and self-defense. i.e., that the nice men from the government should create a padded-cell world for you. Meanwhile, grannies have been cast to the mercy of criminals and the prior-restraint flavored net censorship (according to the article) would prevent mainstream political news, historic discussion from happening in an open manner:

According to the [OFLC] classification guidelines 'Adult themes may include verbal references to and depictions associated with issues such as suicide, crime, corruption, marital problems, emotional trauma, drug and alcohol dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues'."

Of course, everyone knows it would only be used to root out vile filth! </sarcasm> Enter yet another law that lets the powers that be selectively shut down anyone they don't like.

Here are the facts on punishment and deterrence:

"Does Punishment Deter?"
http://www.ncpa.org/bg/bg148.html

"Observations of human behavior, the opinions of criminals themselves, simple facts about crime and punishment and sophisticated statistical studies all indicate that what matters most to prospective criminals is the certainty and severity of punishment. In other words, negative incentives matter in the business of crime."

Could you please post some links to information about these two cases? Thanks!

Here, or here, or just search on google.

This kind of crap is nothing new. The only thing new about it is how egregious governments are becoming about it. Now, they no longer need to lie and say it's to build a road, or expand a school. Now, they'll just come out and say it's so we can hand it over to a developer to build a shopping center.

People shouldn't get too worked up
over this invention. You may never
see it hit
the market.

--

If things start to get too warm we can cheaply fix it then. Edward Teller, father of the H bomb, had some suggestions along this line a few years ago. Essentially send up fine particles into the upper atmosphere just like a volcano. Or maybe by then then we'll have an even simpler more reliable solution using nanotech.

Actually, inner city schools tend to be well-funded. The terrible Washington, D.C. system has one of the highest per-student spending in the country. Throwing billions of dollars at the Kansas City schools didn't improve them at all.

In fact, extensive studies have shown that there's very little association between school funding and student performance.

See Does Money Matter or the work of Eric Hanushek

• The Greenhouse Hoax...Noel Mc Donald
• Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective
• Greenhouse Syndrome: Just Hot Air?
• Global Warming: A Political, Economic and Scientific Backgrounder
• A BRIEFING ON GLOBAL WARMING, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
• There are many questions regarding Global Warming
• Global warming has failed experimental test.
• GLOBAL WARMING: INVENTING AN APOCALYPSE
• Home Page of John Daly, author of The Greenhouse Trap.
• John L. Daly Profile of a Greenhouse `Dissenter'

Who says we're going to settle on Mars any time soon anyways? Getting into space already costs loads of money so why would a settler want to make the trip.

Besides, Earth isn't going to be running out of resources any time quick so there isn't a need for this. We've found new and clever ways to push the boundry of our population further and further as time goes on. (Just look at history: We supported more people by centralized farming. We supported even more people when we industrialized. etc.) The myth that we need to relocate because we're running out of resources is just paranoia.

Ecologist Paul R. Ehrlich says population growth is outstripping the earth's resources. Economist Julian L. Simon says that human ingenuity keeps the planet's resources from being depleted in the context of property rights and market prices. In 1980, they put their money where their mouths were and made a bet. Simon offered to let anyone pick any natural resource and any future date, and he bet that the price would decline by that date. If the resource really became scarcer as the world's population grew, he reasoned, then its price should rise over time.

Ehrlich and two associates picked quantities of five metals - chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten - then worth a total of $1,000, and chose a ten-year period. If combined prices of the metals were higher in 1990 than in 1980, Simon agreed to pay the Ehrlich group the difference in cash; if the combined prices were lower, they would pay him the difference. Without ceremony last fall, Ehrlich sent Simon a sheet of calculations and a check for $576.07.

Over the ten-year period, each of the five metals had declined in price when adjusted for inflation.

The drop was so sharp that Simon would have come out slightly ahead even without the adjustment for inflation. Prices of food and most natural resources have been falling for decades because of entrepreneurship, changing consumption patterns and continuing technological improvements. Despite that fact, Ehrlich, who had predicted that "before 1985 mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity" including food shortages, now says it will happen sometime in the next century.

So it really isn't a good idea to complain about waiting to colonize Mars when it isn't going to happen any time soon anyways.

I guess no one has heard of the FISA courts. (No, NOT soccer. FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was expanded after the OK City bombings. Funny thing? The 'experts' claimed foreigners did it, whereas a spook who spoke at H2K predicted 'disgruntled postal employee.' He was right, but Congress heard 'bin Laden' instead of 'John Smith.') These courts ARE the DoJ's 'rubber stamp'. Their proceedings are private, no records are available to the public, and In the 20 years since FISA, the court has not
turned down any of the government's
approximately 10,000 surveillance requests. Additional links are here, here, and here.
"And they said onto the Lord.. How the hell did you do THAT?!"

tc>

Likewise, many would argue that the instructions you can find on the net to make bombs, crystal meth or the alt.suicide.holiday FAQs are protected free speech. I'd find far less use for any of those three things than I would with the source code for virusses, which at least present interesting technical reading.

The government is rapidly trying to take away these dangerous free speech rights by attempting to revoke your right to spread drug or explosive manufacturing information or even to "desecrate" a piece a cloth with 50 stars and 13 stripes on it in a certain arrangement and color scheme.

The Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act (S.R. 486), would make it a 10-year felony to "distribute by any means information pertaining to... the manufacture or use of a controlled substance, knowing that such person intends to use the... information... in an activity that constitutes a federal crime."

This, of course, makes perfect sense. According to an October 1999 NPCA Policy Report, the expected punishment for murder is 41 months, and we all know dissemenating drug information is worse than murder. Burglary and assault's expected sentences were less than 20 days each!

Furthermore, an amendment which was tacked onto the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act prohibits teaching or demonstrating how to make explosives with the "intent" that the information will be used to commit a federal crime. This has been a law for quite some time now.

In other words, don't be too sure about your "Constitutionally guaranteed" free speech rights; you might be committing "offsensive" or "dangerous" acts.

Sounds goood -- except we already tax the far rich more heavily than everyone else. The top 10% of Americans already pay 49% of all federal taxes.

So, the bottom 90% of Americans are paying for only 51% of the cost of the government.

See http://www.ncpa.org/~ncpa/oped/bartlett/sept1399.h tml for details.