Slashdot Mirror

If we ARE the cause of global warming, then, how come the trend of rising temps occured BEFORE cars have been invented??? It's CYCLICAL! Just like El Nino. The earth is stronger then ANY one being on this planet (ok, except GOD!! ).

This is a troll, right? Why else would you put Ievojah's title ("God") in all caps?

In any case, we do know that the warming and cooling cycle of the planet is just that -- a cycle. The Earth is a self-regulating body. What we don't know is what effects we're having on the cycle. And while El Nino is a natural cycle (Why the hell is something that killed millions called the child? Apologies to Henry Rollins) there were many who said that it exhibited some abnormal behavior, even for a bizarre weather phenomena.

We, as a species or collection thereof, have more power than any other species on the planet. We can burn cities to the ground with a device that you could pack along in the back of your Honda. We can refine minerals from the earth and shoot them into space. And we can, for a little while, halt the effects of such a vital thing as erosion (which forms quaint terrain effects like canyons) to make things more convenient for some upright brachiating mammals who drive around in noisy, stinky, metal and glass boxes.

If you don't think Nature gets upset about some of this stuff, think again. And consider this; We're chopping down rainforests, which can be considered a system for cooling and filtering atmospheric gases. We'll spilling oil into the oceans and killing the blue-green algae, which produces the majority of the oxygen that we (among other creatures and systems) consume. We're probably frying the ozone layer, or at least science leads us to believe so, so that the sun is harsher. We're filling the air with particulate matter finer than nature is wont to produce, raising cancer rates worldwide - Sometime, if you're bored, check out how cancer rates went sharply upward during the industrial revolution.

So maybe we won't disturb the planet all that much. I suspect that life on Earth will long outlast us. But if we kill ourselves off, well, that sure will be a bitch.

In England, one town (Reading) recently ran its buses on diesel from oilseed rape (this may be used in an unmodified engine). New government regulations meant that "because of immense bureaucratic compliance requirements the buses in Reading went back to running on diesel."
However the vehicles worked well: "Drivers reported the buses started well, had no breakdowns and produced little smoke. The fuel was as good or better than diesel." (If you scroll a long way down this link, you will find these quotes.)
For information on the project to use biodiesel in America's Yellowstone National Park, see here.

- Derwen

Here's the nice, fluffy page. Somewhere near the bridge is a nice little museum, put up by the visitors bureau, which details the critical view of it as a pork-barrel project, as there was little traffic around the sleepy little town of Fayetteville prior to construction. Main benefit was expected to be for trucking, IIRC. However, the bridge can easily be defended now as it has brought whitewater rafters, bungee jumpers, hikers and much other recreational use revenues to the area. (Worth a few trips, to be sure.)

My bone of contention over the choice of WV for the Green Bank Radio Telescope is there are obviously much better locations, particularly in the west and at higher elevations.

But who knows, they may make tourist dollars, yet off this thing. Maybe there'll be a bungee jumping day...

Vote Naked 2000

The Space Access Society has occupied an important niche. What they seem to be doing with that niche is not as important as what they are doing with it.

And they hit the mark right on with that last article; it takes a billion dollar initial investment to develop a new launch system

Excuses, excuses...

It doesn't take a billion dollars to develop a new dragster.

Those boys will frequently build new engines the way the Wright Brothers did in their bike shop for their first airplane. Yeah, they blow up a lot of their "innovative" engines, but if you are so much of a pussy you can't deal with regular occurances of high energy events that produce large quantities of metal fragments zipping around hunting for your vitals, you shouldn't be into high power systems in the first place.

Of course, everyone in the US aerospace industry these days is a pussy.

The total weight of copper in the Statue is 62,000 pounds (31 tons) and the total weight of steel in the Statue is 250,000 pounds (125 tons). Total weight of the Statue's concrete foundation is 54 million pounds (27,000 tons). The copper sheeting of the Statue is 3/32 of an inch thick or 2.37mm.

--

Arrgh.

sulli

aaah, but you're forgetting, according to USWest "Life's better here." Which has a whole lot more to do with the Rockies than the phone service.

--

Other than the cute sci-fi details (greenleafyshade.com) and the refraction of the economics, the attitude is all now. That jaded, po-mo chatter is sooo yesterday. In two years this article will look as dated as a 1-gig Athlon.

>>$750 / month for a split-level second floor 2 bedroom apartment in a really nice complex


I'm in St Louis. I'm paying $700/month in MORTGAGE on my 1800 ft^2, 3 bdrm, all brick, ranch house with hardwood floors and fully finished basement. I've got it really good.

Here in St Louis, we also have
Forest Park (site of the 1904 worlds fair)
which includes The Science Center (which is free) and The Zoo (which is also free)
The Gateway Arch
Budweiser
Laclede's Landing which is arguably the coolest place to drink some of that Budweiser

So very right, but at the same time, so very wrong. In an ideal world, you are perfectly right: a democracy is ruled by the majority(who are presumably right, kind, and just) delegating their powers to representatives(who are presumably even kinder and juster). However, in practice things don't always work out this way. Sometimes, you have what is known as "tyranny of the majority", where the majority uses their democratic power to oppress the minority. The Jim Crow laws that sprang up after the Civil War typify this. Certainly this was pure democracy in action -- the legislators doing what their constituents wanted. These laws, coupled with the resurgence ofThe KKK, made it very uncomfortable to be a political(and, in this case, racial) minority in much of this country for quite a time. Democracy in Action!

However, the founders of the US had thought of this, and set down the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is specifically intended to preserve individual liberty, even at the cost of pure majority rule.

Of course, in practice, this hasn't always worked so well (see above). It seems that no matter how many times freedoms are written down, even on real paper, they can be stolen by the government and/or antagonistic fellow citizens.

Only one thing stands between the black sharecropper and the Klan, between the Warsaw Jew and the Nazis, between any oppressed minority and the pogrom. It is the one thing the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto tried desperately to aquire, the one thing that was immediately taken from free blacks in the South, the one thing that every tyrant fears: a gun.

All too often, in America and elsewhere, personal weapons have meant the difference between liberty and slavery, between life and death. Remember the words of Martin Niemoller: "In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
Do you think this would have happened if every Communist, Jew, trade unionist, Catholic, and Protestant had had a gun and ammunition? Of course, one of the first things Hitler did was register, and then later confiscate, almost every priately-owned firearm in Germany.

Maybe I'm just another crazy American obsessed with guns. Maybe this time, for real, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die, government is really kind and benevolent. Maybe you will put your faith in them, and vote, and hope that this time, they won't take away quite so many of your rights.

And maybe, it will be because you have no other choice.

-----------