Slashdot Mirror

OK, how about these cases:

Hans Reiser - $60M
Roberto Ramirez - $10M
Jose Antonio Ramos - $2M
Aaron Walter Foster - $6M
Jason Young - $15.5M

...getting found liable in a civil trial for murder is going to cost you thousands of times what it costs to be found liable for copyright infringement.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your math is off by a few orders of magnitude.
first award: $222k
second: $1.9m
third: $1.5m

Even the lowest of those is only off by 1 order (10x's) compared to the lowest of the examples you provided, and the highest (1.9mil) is basically the same as Ramos' $2mil.
Granted, those are all still higher, and this case was for 24 counts of infringement (which is pretty silly IMO), but they're a hell of a lot closer to each other than I'm comfortable with.

OK, how about these cases:

Hans Reiser - $60M
Roberto Ramirez - $10M
Jose Antonio Ramos - $2M
Aaron Walter Foster - $6M
Jason Young - $15.5M

Are all these people rich and famous? No. The point remains valid - getting found liable in a civil trial for murder is going to cost you thousands of times what it costs to be found liable for copyright infringement.

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/08/wall_street_to_bail_out_jersey.html

NJ was thinking about it, and the local rags weren't too happy: http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2012/01/legal_notice_bill_a_sneak_atta.html

I don't think anyone has ever eaten some guy's face after smoking a cigarette or filling up their car with gas, so no... the same reason shouldn't be used to ban cigarettes and fossil fuels.

There are rational arguments for why you might want to ban either (and arguments for why you shouldn't), but the one you're presenting here makes no sense whatsoever.

The only evidence that the face-eating zombie guy was on bath salts is speculation by a police officer, who was previously quoted in the Miami Herald as saying that the cause of the attack was "cocaine" and "a new form of LSD" time.com. They're just pulling it out of their rear ends to fit an anti-drug agenda. In fact, no drugs were found on the suspect, and no toxicology reports have been released proving he was on ANY drugs. The other high-profile murder attributed to bath salts was the murder of a New Jersey student that led to the passing of Megan's Law, criminalizing possession and sale of bath salts. Well lo and behold, the murderer turned out not to have any bath salts in his system. What a shock! I wouldn't be surprised if the same is the case with the face-eating zombie. Why is it so hard for people to accept that people can commit horrific acts without the aid of drugs or demons? Some people are just mentally ill.

I call bullshit. Racial profiling can get a police organization into all sorts of shit.

Example: The NJ State Police got into big trouble for racial profiling.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/race-d02.shtml

They are subject to all sorts of monitoring as a result.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/gov_corzine_signs_racial_profi.html

So when the FBI uses stings to catch international arms traffickers, organized crime figures, corrupt public officials, and embezzlers, are they "morons" too, or just would-be terrorists? Your post is nonsense.

The examples you cite are generally not entrapment because the persons they catch were already doing these things before they met the FBI agents. The difference between the terrorism stings and a traditional sting can be illustrated thus:

Traditional sting: send out agents to places where drugs are sold and arrest those who mistake them for drug dealers and try to buy.

New-style sting: send agents into the community to make friends and introduce them to weed. When they convince someone to try it, they will take him to a "drug dealer" who is really a cop.

The parallel is not perfect, but I think it is close enough to show that these stings are different and the concerns some have are not nonsense.

Not to mention you'll at most catch absolute morons who at their best would simply win a Darwin Award because the kind of bozos these "stings" catch are frankly the same gullible dipshits that fall for 419 scams and other stupidity.

So when the FBI uses stings to catch international arms traffickers, organized crime figures, corrupt public officials, and embezzlers, are they "morons" too, or just would-be terrorists? Your post is nonsense.

Anyone with a brain is immune to this nonsense.

Anyone with a brain and a passing familiarity with the news knows your post is nonsense. Three weeks ago a notorious Russian arms dealer was convicted in US Federal court. Guess how they got him? If stings are good enough to take down experienced international arms traffickers, and organized crime figures, public officials, embezzlers, and others, they are good enough to take down potential terrorists. If you don't think so, please tell us why? And please, please tell us that you really believe that everyone taken down in a sting is no brighter than a hick good 'ole boy complaining about the "gubermint" and that it never works on anyone more sophisticated, and what your "reasoning" is?

Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years in prison

Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer* caught in an undercover sting by U.S. agents posing as Colombian guerrillas seeking weapons, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday by a U.S. judge in New York. . . .

Two DEA informants who posed as FARC leaders testified for the prosecution at Bout's trial. A former Bout business associate, Andrew Smulian, also testified for the government after pleading guilty to participating in the FARC deal.

  According to prosecutors, in a meeting at a Bangkok hotel with the supposed FARC representatives, Bout agreed to sell the 100 advanced man-portable surface-to-air missiles or the approximately 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles that were discussed.

  Bout was charged only in connection with the suspected arms deal, but U.S. authorities have said he has been involved in trafficking arms since the 1990s to dictators and conflict zones in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Said to be the inspiration for one of the chief bad guys in Act of Valor

Amazon currently doesn't have a NJ warehouse and doesn't charge sales tax. Thats likely to change soon and Amazon is trying to get a sales tax holiday http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/03/if_nj_legislature_doesnt_amazo.html

If you look at the actual breakdown of the charges Ravi was convicted of, you'll notice that he was acquitted of all the bias intimidation sub-charges that he knowingly intimidated Clementi. The one that he was convicted of, which caused the bias intimidation guilty verdict was that "under circumstances that caused Tyler Clementi to be intimidated, and considering the manner in which the offense was committed, Clementi reasonably believed that he was selected to be the target of the offense because of sexual orientation".

So basically he was convicted not because Ravi had any bias when committing the act, but but because Clementi believed that the act was committed out of bias.

That's a very scary verdict because it basically states that it doesn't matter whether or not you have any real bias when committing a crime. You can still be convicted of bias intimidation if the victim believes you are biased. In other words, it's not what you believe, it's what someone else things you believe.

With that precedent, you can use bias intimidation charges to charge and convict preachers for preaching against homosexuality in churches or comics for making "inappropriate" jokes in comedy houses.

Of course, you're never going to hear about people who didn't get a job because of what HR found on Facebook. And if I hacked your credit card account with your mothers maiden name that I got off of your facebook page, how would you know? But you do, or at least I do, hear complaints about Facebook being used in divorce settlements. Or even just posting your vacation plans on Facebook can lead to your house getting burlarized.

I don't like Zuckerburg, but I'd say yes.

Keep on being jealous of others. You don't have it, or you don't understand it and therefore it's somehow evil.

Your best bet when shopping for schools is to find out what the average property tax paid in the area was last year. That's really the only way to find out if the school is worth it or not -- how well it's funded.

hahahahahahaha. My home city of Newark, NJ is closing 7 schools for underperforming. Severely.

Our schools are falling apart across the board, too. Wilson Avenue school, for instance, had to be closed because it was flooded with water laced with benzene.

We spend just shy of $17,000 per student. So no, funding alone is not a good indicator at all.

Your best bet when shopping for schools is to find out what the average property tax paid in the area was last year. That's really the only way to find out if the school is worth it or not -- how well it's funded.

hahahahahahaha. My home city of Newark, NJ is closing 7 schools for underperforming. Severely.

Our schools are falling apart across the board, too. Wilson Avenue school, for instance, had to be closed because it was flooded with water laced with benzene.

We spend just shy of $17,000 per student. So no, funding alone is not a good indicator at all.

To have a battery penetration here, you would have to have a side intrusion into the car which extends about 2 feet in from the side of the car. Your side airbags will have gone off, the car likely isn't even drivable.

No one is going to think their car had only small physical damage with this kind of wreck.

And your statements about gas cars are also incorrect. I've followed cars on the highway which clearly were leaking gas. This isn't a fire hazard because it's been more than a few minutes since the wreck? I've seen cars just plain catch fire on the side of the road with no wreck at all.

And gas cars can catch fire in garages too.

http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2012/01/gloucester_township_car_fire_s.html

Firstly, I firmly believe parents should be responsible for their children's education. Stealing money from me, to pay for your kids (through government, who will assert force to redistribute that money) is wrong.

Secondly, money spent on education does not have a direct or positive affect on whether or not children become criminals. I live a couple miles from the city recently downgraded from #1 violent crime city in the US to #2 violent crime city. I have worked in the schools in that city. The cost per student in that city is FAR higher than in surrounding middle and upper class neighborhoods. The students are dumb, I won't lie, they really are. They are not interested in learning anything. The State throws more money at the problem for kids that graduate high school barely able to read, or not able to read at all. Police roam the halls. Violent fights are a daily occurrence. No amount of money put into the schools will fix this. No amount of money stolen from me, to put into the schools will fix this.

Also, take the situation of many middle class families. They are forced to pay for public schools to the tune of $3000-$6000/yr depending on what town they live in. The actual cost per student for public education is roughly $14k per student. In this higher crime areas it's around $20k per student. Private school, around $7k per student. If all of us, with or without children, were not forced to subsidize the education of others, there would be a lower cost per student and a net gain is available cash to spend on other efforts. Parents would send their children to better private schools because it's CHEAPER than lower quality public schools, around half the cost and not much more than the current individual tax burden to send one child to school. Figure on halving the cost of education for these kids and you have a lot more money that can be spent to increase quality of life, buy goods or services, which creates a demand for jobs... Jobs that can be taken by the underachievers from that high crime neighborhood since most of them are content with a life working food service or retail jobs for near minimum wage. If they at least have those jobs, they are far less likely to become violent criminals than if they are unemployed.

Some quick googling to support my claims on education cost.
A highly regarded private school in the region
Article on education costs

Finally, growing up I found school to be a tremendous waste. It was basically babysitting, teaching you to submit and obey. Do what these people say, don't ask questions, if you want to learn more advanced material or have any content expanded on in areas that may be more useful in life we will not do that. Submit and obey, ask too many questions or ask for better courses and you will be punished. Just be a good little mindless tax paying slave. That was my take on high school, and that was in a highly regarded public school district in the state. People move to that town so their kids can go to those schools. Going through those schools, I was not impressed.

YANATL (you are not a tax lawyer).

TYCO (Thank You Captain Obvious)

You also have to pay the corporate income tax on the cap. gains.

Haha, like GE?

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/nj_police_salaries_rank_highes.html

In my area we pay cops over six figures. reaching 120-130k in some counties, to patrol crime-less suburbs filled with middle-class on up suburbanites.

In Newark, we pay cops around 60k or less where shootings occur regularly, and the police force was dramatically reduced. It's nuts.

I have sympathy for cops in the rough neighborhoods. The cops in the other neighborhoods are overpaid bullies.

In a state which still practices excecution, I wouldn't want to settle for any amount of error

Also, it's not just the police/government mistaking someone's identity that is scary

There is nothing of greater threat to national security than a HOMELESS hacker.

Homeless doesn't mean "unskilled." It may simply mean "unemployable." Morris County shelters see growing number of white-collar professionals becoming homeless

But are we looking at deep poverty here or a cyberpunk fantasy?

Feds: Homeless Computer Hacker Launched 'Anonymous' Attack Over Anti-Camping Law

After 23 nights, an area near the county courthouse steps is filled with sleeping bags, coolers, food, books, backpacks and other personal belongings campers have brought with them.

Homeless campers plead with Santa Cruz city leaders to change sleeping law

This is nothing.

Don't EVER get into a traffic accident with a police officer. Seriously it will screw up your life big time.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/off-duty_nj_state_police_offic.html

Two years ago on a darkened stretch of South Jersey highway, Clayton Tanksley was almost killed when his SUV was rammed from behind and sent tumbling to the side of the road â" by a man who doesnâ(TM)t exist.

"He hit me hard enough to crush the back of the car like an accordion," said Tanksley, 46. "It was like a shark attack. Itâ(TM)s so sudden, out of the blue."

The accident, on Route 295 in Camden County, left Tanksley with a demolished car, back problems and recurring flashbacks.

"In the middle of night, everything is calm and peaceful," Tanksley said. "And then you live through it again. Even the smells."

According to the State Police crash report, a man named William Gillespie was behind the wheel of the other car that night. As Tanksleyâ(TM)s medical bills from the crash neared $30,000, his lawyer filed a lawsuit against Gillespie.

But when it came time to serve him, Gillespie was nowhere to be found. A private investigator couldnâ(TM)t find Gillespie at the home or business listed on the State Police report of the accident, and the insurance company named did not recognize the information about his car.

It was as if Gillespie didnâ(TM)t exist, and for good reason â" he doesnâ(TM)t.

Through a series of interviews and a trail of documents, The Star-Ledger has learned that Gillespie is the undercover name for State Police Detective Sgt. William Billingham and that his true identity was withheld from Tanksley â" in violation of State Police policy â" leaving Tanksley and his lawyer to go on a prolonged wild goose chase for a phantom. The newspaper also found that Billinghamâ(TM)s fellow troopers provided Tanksleyâ(TM)s insurance company with fictional and incomplete information.

In fact, Tanksley â" an actor who has appeared in movies and on television in "The Cosby Show" under the name Clayton Prince â" had no idea who really hit him until The Star-Ledger tracked him to his Philadelphia home in April.

Tanksleyâ(TM)s lawyers are considering a lawsuit against the state claiming his civil rights were violated.

People on the liberal end of the spectrum tend to view taxation in static terms.

Horseshit.

People on the conservative end of the spectrum tend to raise strawmen they can argue against; your post is example of that.

Wealth flees. People cut back in other areas. People hire less. And a bunch of other unintended consequences we can't foresee.

And yet the economic impact of taxes on the poor is much, much higher, because more of their income is spent on actual goods and services. Furthermore, wealth flight has been shown to be much less severe than you conservatives have been crying about. Here's some analysis to get your started. Turns out when NJ increased it's tax on the wealthy in 2004, flight actually decreased. The problem is that there was a reduction in the influx of new wealthy people... partly due to the fact that there were much fewer newly wealthy people, partly due to the fact that real estate prices had skyrocketed. And yet the study referred to in the article I linked to is being used to justify conservatives' fears of wealth flight.

It also turns out that higher taxes on the truly wealthy do NOT greatly reduce hiring. Hiring at that income level is dependent on demand for services, not on accrual of additional wealth. Furthermore, most hiring is not done by the truly wealthy -- it is done by small businesses (typically, the owners of which make less than $200,000 per year) and by corporations -- whose spending on hiring is unaffected by personal income taxes.

I'm not sure you understand the subject as much as you profess to.

Yes, noone has ever been tried for harrassing a normal person over the internet, much less threatening them.

guido punched first. I've seen it clearly documented in the historical documents.

Actually it was "Greedo." Contrary to popular belief, Tatooine is *not* near Bensonhurst.

guido punched first.
I've seen it clearly documented in the historical documents.

The judge in that case was fired, because he made several other bad rulings, too. Did you expect a bunch of humans to somehow be perfect, just because they hold a particular office?

To celebrate Pi Day and Einstein's birthday, Princeton has a "Geek Freak Weekend", including a pi recitation competition. The winner could recite it out to 1371 digits.

Given the rash of medical radiation devices that have been gorking people because they were working incorrectly, I do worry about this.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/health/06radiation.html?src=mv

How about we have an agency OTHER than the TSA provide data on how much radiation in being emitted. Not hard to do -- OSHA rep visits the airport, run the test on each machine, and out. TSA never has to do math again; the radiation output is not a security question anyway.

And you avoid situations like this one, where testing gets somehow... skipped.
Source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/umdnj_didnt_test_medical_x-ray.html

The plant which is closing is in Pitman, NJ. The article never bothered to mention which plant. Whatever happened to the basics of reporting - who/what/where/why/when?

not to be harsh, but probably only 300 people (plus extended family) care, vs 1 billion english readers on the internet.

The plant which is closing is in Pitman, NJ. The article never bothered to mention which plant. Whatever happened to the basics of reporting - who/what/where/why/when?

No one cares about Jersey I guess.

The plant which is closing is in Pitman, NJ. The article never bothered to mention which plant. Whatever happened to the basics of reporting - who/what/where/why/when?

Who cares if he lied about it? If someone asked you an inappropriate question that was absolutely none of their business, would you tell them the truth? What do you expect, for him to tell everyone on nighttime TV exactly what he did just because some other politicians want to know?

I, and many others care. If a person will lie about one thing they'll lie about something else. Like the lies told to support the invasion of Iraq. Truth and lies matter a lot.

As for his wife, I suspect Bill and Hillary have a marriage of convenience only, and always have.

I agree, but it should of been obvious I was not talking about the Clintons when I said "he had it while his wife was fighting breast cancer". That I know of Hillary has never been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was Elizabeth Edwards who has cancer.

Falcon

When your front door comes to me into my area of control, which is what a wireless signal does, it's entirely different. I dealt with this in the post to which I linked, but the short summary is, if you don't want people using something, don't send it to them in a form they can immediately use.

Your parking garage scenario is completely different precisely because it is done, as you say, under contract. In fact warrantless searches of vehicles by property owners are legal and do happen. (That last link is very long, but in short a circuit court of appeals upheld that Weyerhauser could search vehicles on its property, that the 4th Amendment was not violated (as it can only be with private entities if done under the color of law), and that it was acceptable that employees permission where it was obtained (some refused) was done so under threat of immediate termination.)

Now I will grant that many states are considering making cars a sort of extraterritorial sovereign entity as a response to this, but even the gun owners' rights community itself is divided about whether sacrificing private property owners' rights is acceptable.

Your problem is you are confusing what is legal and what is polite. If I repeatedly trespass my friends off my property, I'm going to run out of friends really fast, even if it's my legal right to do that. People don't usually get into their friends' cars for the same reason. There is social expectation that it just isn't done, but legally, it is possible.

You too glossed over an important point, as I said earlier: a deliberately open system is not distinguishable from an accidentally open system.

My network is open right now. I am conscious of this, want it to be that way, and if somebody is using it, fine. How does a user from the outside know this? Because the equipment is configured to let anybody use it with no extra steps. Users from the outside have no way of knowing whether a network is intended to open or accidentally open, and it's not their responsibility to figure that out. They aren't running the network. Whoever owns, operates, and configures the equipment is responsible for that. The end.

Funny this comes up, NJ is also competing for the title of "first US offshore wind farm". http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/preparation_for_first_us_wind.html

I wonder if they'll test it on Pacemakers.

The high speed chase has the potential to get a lot of people killed.

Nothing can protect you from being in the wrong place at the wrong time - and being caught in the path of a high speed chase is about as wrong a place to be as it can get.

Dozier was accused of fleeing Newark police after officers attempted to pull him over. He led them on a pursuit to Elizabeth, where he ran a red light and smashed his Jeep into the unmarked squad car of Officer Christopher Coon.
Coon was violently thrown from the vehicle. Police on the scene initially believed he was dead.
He spent six weeks in a coma. It took a surgeon five hours to reconstruct his face with 500 stitches. The crash left Coon with brain trauma that impairs his speech, short-term memory and ability to control his right arm and leg. Man who seriously injured Union officer in car chase crash gets 9 years in prison

Welcome to NJ! Our beaches will blow you away!

Vaccination is often all or nothing. Call it tyranny of the majority if you like-- most of us want to live. Deal with it.

Vaccination is NEVER "all or nothing".

If the vaccination works, you won't get sick, no matter what the rest of the world does. So why do you believe forcing it on everyone is a good idea?

I call bullshit. Citation, please.

It's easy to "call bullshit" when you're completely ignorant of a subject, and just insist on enforcing your dogma on everyone else...

On the off chance that you do actually want an opportunity to edify yourself:

Do flu shots for the elderly save lives? Just washing hands works better, says study.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_thurman_hart/2007/12/a_useless_vaccine_mandated.html

http://www.globalhandwashing.org/health_impact.htm

Why do you have such a chip on your shoulder?

I have a chip on my shoulder do I? And you don't? If I have one, it's because big businesses get government subsidies. And government is bigger than the limits put on it by the Constitution of the USA. Yes, I'm one of those people who still believe the Constitution still means something, even if it's not followed. After my dad retired from the military I followed an older sister in joining the US Army to protect it. Another sister's son is a Marine stationed in Iraq.

Wind and solar are proven.

Then where are they? If wind and solar are as cheap as you say (and your friends say), then where are they?

Notice I said "proven" not cheaper. Many people have solar panels installed on their roofs. Solar farms are operating in Spain with more being planned and built. In the US there is more than 52 terawatts of wind capacity installed. And more capacity can be added readily. During the rolling blackouts in CA years ago there were wind farms that sat idle when they could have contributed 240 megawatts a day. Why were they idle? Because the powerlines to carry the power were not installed. Those lines would have been needed whether for wind or nuclear power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_united_states#Resurgence

As of March 9, 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had received applications for permission to construct 26 new nuclear power reactors with applications for another 7 expected.

Ah I see you left out an important part of that article, "In recent years,there has been a renewed interest in nuclear power in the US. This has been facilitated in part by the federal government with the Nuclear Power 2010 Program, which coordinates efforts for building new nuclear power plants, and the Energy Policy Act which makes provisions for nuclear and oil industries."

Let's investigate more:

• "The "Nuclear Power 2010 Program" was unveiled by the U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham on February 14, 2002"
• "The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub.L. 109-58) is a bill passed by the United States Congress on July 29, 2005"

The president then was Bush and he's a big supporter of nuclear power but wasn't one for alternative energy sources. Bush excluded alternative energy, citizen's, and consumer groups from his Energy Task Force but Enron and big oil were invited.

OH! You asked for citation regarding the "Megaton to Megawatts" program. (though I don't understand why you are so snappy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program

No, I didn't ask for citation of the Megaton to Megawatts program, I don't recall having heard of it before. I did ask for citation "that the majority of Uranium for Commercial Nuclear Power now comes from deactivated Nuclear Warheads", cut and paste is wonderful.

You believe in the theories of nuclear power

I'm afraid you don't understand the difference between theory and fact.

Generation IV reactors only work in theory, there are none operating and supplying power to the grid now. Meanwhile current plants are having problems.

• "Owners of Oyster Creek nuclear plant may not release leak information"
• After 16 years in service Trojan Nucle

Cost overruns are just the result of sloppy accounting, not some overall problem with the business of Nuclear Power Plant construction.

p>Can you point out one nuclear power plant that did not have cost overruns?

As for you oft-claimed "Hooked on Subsidies" argument, I would say that .

I often claim it because people like you keep on saying nuclear power is profitable. For some reason it doesn't penetrate the skulls of enough people, even when it comes from business and libertarian publications. Instead excuses are made up, such as "any business would be crazy *not* too take free money being handed it".

However, Nuclear Power has always been at a disadvantage simply because the *total* cost of burning Coal has never been factored into the argument.

Nuclear power is at a disadvantage because it is dirty and dangerous. And if the total cost of nuclear power were factored in, like both you and I want the total cost of coal to be factored in, nuclear power would cost even more.

Once the environmental impact of burning coal *is* factored in (which, under the new "Cap and Trade" bill currently under consideration, that is *PRECISELY* what will happen)

According to a table on Levelised energy cost. And "Comparative Cost of California Central Station Electricity" [pfd] (Table 23: Instant Cost Adjustments) says wind is cheaper. However Table 24: Effect of Tax Credits on Costs says wind cost more, and Figure 15: Effect of Tax Credits on Costs says less.

Nuclear can stand straight and tall on it's own too feet because not one of the over 100 Nuclear Plants currently in operation (and the *SEVEN* NEW ones that have been ordered that you conveniently forgot to mention) produce anything but steam and hot water as a byproduct.

Really? Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey didn't leak? Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon, wasn't closed after only 16 years in operation? Here's a List of civilian radiation accidents. And it does produce radioactive waste as well.

No CO2

No CO2? Right, NOT! Nuclear power plants require vast amounts of both concrete and steel. Cement is used to make concrete and the "cement industry produces 5% of global man-made CO2 emissions". And to make steel coke from coal is needed to generate the heat.

no Mercury, and no *radioactive* fly-ash

Oh, I agree. When others have said CFLs, Compact Florescent Lights, contain mercury I've pointed out burning coal releases mercury too. I don't have stats now but I've read how using CFLs will prevent more mercury from being emitted from coal fired power plants than the bulbs contain. Then there's the radioactivity released as well, I see you know it but many others don't know radioactive stuff is released when coal is burned. I oppose coal fired power plants, building of most nuclear power plants, and natural gas fired power plants. If built and paid for by Wall Street, and not government, I may support building reprocessing plants, but that's it.

There are already nearly 100 nuclear plants in the U.S. alone, and the people being served by them seem generally fine with it and do not fear it.

It's pretty easy to conduct a poll of residents living within 10 miles of an arbitrary plant in a high-density population center in the US. You'll find that more than 50% are uncomfortable with the plant being there. Tell them about the evacuation plans for their town, the number will go above 80%.

There's a huge amount of NIMBYism involved in the construction of nuclear plants and some of it is justified. I was around for the construction of the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire, and the opposition was widespread. Sure, there were some environmental groups leading the charge (the ubiquitous "Clamshell Alliance"). But the same groups oppose lots of things --- and are completely unsuccessful at preventing most of them. It's only with nuclear that the fringe groups have managed to get mainstream traction.

Or put it another way: environmental groups also oppose coal power plants. They've even managed to stop a few from being built. But plenty of them have been. On the other hand, no nuclear plants have been constructed since the 1980s. There's a reason for the differing levels of success. Now if you define "anyone who doesn't want a nuclear plant near their home" as an environmentalist, then of course you can blame it all on them.

Beyond the NIMBYism, there are plenty of reasons why utilities don't want to build nuclear plants. They tend to drive utilities into bankruptcy, for one thing. Similarly, the existing designs are highly questionable, requiring active (powered) cooling. I've heard about at least three accidental leaks in the last decade (here's a tritium leak in Long Island). None of these are likely to be fatal, but none of them should have happened, either.

Finally, we'd be insane to advocate building more 1970s-era plants now. There's a terrific amount of progress on the horizon. Pebble-bed and passively-cooled reactors are likely to make nuclear plants a lot safer. Proper waste management may come onstream in the next decade. And of course, breeder reactors are the future, not the obsolete "burn it and chuck it" process we're using now.

Yes, because we all know that every locale has magic electricity faeries just waiting to produce low-carbon-footprint electricity.

I sea some potential ones. So does Ken Salazar .

The internet does "local" really, really badly -- currently, at least.

I disagree. The internet, by nature, reaches an international audience, but local communities can still connect to eachother online. Take a look at craigslist.

Here in New Jersey, we have nj.com which does local news well (though the site itself is unorganized). A lot of the newspapers contribute stories to the site. If newspapers put more energy into sites like these, they might survive. They would not make near the amount of money they used to make, but they'd stay in buisness. Use the craigslist model, and create community portals of classifieds, announcements, and things for sale. Then add some news.

Just don't use AF1

People calling kickbacks a myth piss me off. People believe in this "myth" because it has happened so often

There is no oversight. I was mortified by how many doctors insist on a particular lab performing a test. There aren't any innocent reasons why they would insist on a particular lab.

The reason is often financial interest. If you don't believe that it happens all the time you are a fool, or you are in on it.

"Eddie kept pitching me that they come to Earth in contemporary times, and everyone's cheering and happy, and cut to the White House and the President goes, "Nuke 'em!" And they destroy Galactica -- cut to credits." -- Ron Moore at http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/03/battlestar_galactica_ronald_d.html

haha. hahahaha.

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/03/battlestar_galactica_ronald_d.html gives some insight. In specific, Cavil's skinjobs were supposed to be eradicated.

This past September they had to evacuate a Philadelphia Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park because someone confused a fucking hot dog wrapper for a bomb.

Our government, schools, media, and society as a whole train us to be paranoid and live in fear, to dumb us down. Not to sound like a conspiracy nut but this is the world that we occupy.
http://cbs3.com/topstories/Philadelphia.Phillies.Citizens.2.824722.html
http://www.nj.com/phillies/index.ssf/2008/09/hot_dogs_create_bomb_scare_at.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Hot-dogs-cause-a-delicious-bomb-scare-before-Phi?urn=mlb,110486

Ok, so impose as much taxes as you want, and depend on the generosity of the services and the customers to keep your governments running. I'm sure that will work out well.

Moving makes sense when it makes sense. There are a lot of factors in making a decision to close a store or not, especially when you are a large corporation looking to trim the fat. Why hire a whole new division to deal with collecting and distributing funds from this new tax (which costs $X) when your presence in that state only nets $Y (when Y
Also, there is no need for personal insults. We have a philosophical difference. There is no need to call me stupid of crazy.

New Jersey is considering such a system for the Atlantic City Expressway