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Well, your scenario is exactly where you need to start using your real intelligence. Take for instance the conservative claim that climate scientists are just spinning their doomsday scenarios to get those "fat" research checks or to advance some other agenda.

Well, you do realize that claim originated from Frederick Seitz right? He was after all, the former president of the National Academy of Sciences, decorated by NASA and a few other organizations, president of a university and set up and funded a complete lab at another. It's not like that argument was pulled out of thin air and follow the money which is the modern version of it is only the same that was put forward by the AGW crowd and even you somewhat round about in your post. I mean if anyone who is a "denier" is a paid shill, it can work both ways.

This is where you brains are supposed to kick in when you realize that energy companies are willing and able to fund their research in a lavish style that government research simply can't and won't match.

No energy companies sponsored Seitz when he made the claim. Some of the groups that were ran with his quotes but that's nowhere close to what you are implying.

Further, your brains should be able to tell the difference between honest attempts at research vs. simple attempts to delay and undermine research.

Yes, like when the democrats checked to see when the hottest day of the year would be, turned the AC off, did things to make the room hotter, and then scheduled a hearing on global warming? And yes, that is what happened in 1989 James Hansen later said he thought it was perfectly acceptable to exaggerate because he thought the cause made it necessary or some shit like that. (Its been a while since I read the link and it doesn't resolve any more for some reason).

Oh, and I should note that Wirth left politics specifically to take a high dollar job at one of Ted Turner's charities.

So yes, don't trust everything you are told, but use your analytical skills to understand motive and source reliability.

Indeed, if I had the time to find and show the connections between the political solutions to global warming and the scams behind them, some of which is outlined in Al Gore's book earth in the balance where he chastises how the conservatives inveighed against 'atheistic communism', along with the original Kyoto accords and support for groups like Jubilee2000 and it's offshoots

Even more recently, this crap continues to be distorted for political gain.

So yes indeed, do not trust everything you are told. Use your analytical skills to understand motive and source reliability.

Nothing is as clean as you think it might be. Politics has co-opted this subject from the start.

The parent is dead on correct. Vermont pulls most of it's power from a nuclear reactor that is slated to be shut down. They use almost no natural gas; it doesn't even register as a fuel source for electric power generation in Vermont according to the feds.

Vermont will replace the nuke with Canadian hydro power. They neatly re-classified huge hydro power operations ( > 200MW ) as 'renewable' so they can sign a big contracts with Hydro Quebec.

They're just trading salmon habitat in Canada for the consequences of gas mining, real or imagined, at home. How noble. Maybe they should ban whale oil derived power next.

One of the problems in Silicon Valley, was that may chip fabrication plants stored their chemicals in underground tanks. When these started to leak, they contaminated the groundwater. This was only detected when clusters of rare cancers were detected.

Toxic Chips

Nice reductio ad absurdum. Of course if you only want to reduce violence you could just stop dumping nuclear waste into the pirates fishing grounds so they don't have to become pirates.

that would maybe cause them to be less violent

Their violence is not the cause of the problem. But they are stupid enough to escalate the violence, just like us.

Oh, I have? Where's your proof?

The fact that you're posting to /. rather than in the hospital, fighting smallpox.

That's the sum of your proof? That's no proof, at most it's evidence. Let's see... First, while the US government, specifically the military developed the internet it was not the first widely or generally used computer network. Throughout the 1970s people used bulletin board systems or BBSes that were setup and run by people doing it for themselves. Fidonet was developed to link the various BBSes up together in 1984, it was as the internet is now a network of networks. A year before the commercial Quantum Computer Services network, now called AOL, was founded. AOL eventually acquired CompuServe, which I used to be a member of, and which was started in 1969 as the Compu-Serv Network, Inc subsidiary of an insurance company. Starting in 1985 General Electric ran the GEnie network. There were other services like these also. It was just a matter of tyme before a network of networks as big as the internet was developed.

Next the Smallpox vaccine was Edward Jenner, an English scientist who did not work for government.

There have been innumerable nearly-free markets, and even today, in nearly-lawless countries like Somalia, there is nothing to stop the market from being free. Immigrate and enjoy!

As you say, Somalia is law-less. Therefore a free market does not exist there. What you and every other freemarket opponent do not or refuse to acknowledge is that free markets require voluntary exchanges. Nobody holds a firearm to another's head, threatens, or robs them. I can hear you saying next that laws are anti-freemarkets, that public law enforcement is needed to uphold those laws or some such. You're partially right but not one free market advocate I know of opposes these. Many proponents will actually tell you that that is a legitimate function of government. As is contract law enforcement.

Natural market forces, like economies of scale, do VASTLY MORE to restrict small players from entering the market than any regulations you can name.

BS. If natural market forces did as you say, I would not be a member of 2 of the dozens of co-ops in the upper midwest. Within the greater Minneapolis, St Paul, Twin Cities area there are more than a dozen. One of those co-ops I'm a member of has just one location, it's a few blocks away from me and in weather like today I can walk there in about 5 minutes. The other co-op has 3 stores now though when I joined it there was only one. With some members driving some distances to get to the store they asked that another store be opened close to them, so one was. The other store was a separate co-op that wanted to be acquired by mine, so it was put to a vote of member-owners and we approved. While those co-ops I'm a member of and others are member owned some are worker owned.

Also even co-ops can be big businesses, Horizon Organic is a nationwide co-op owned by farmers. In Spain some businesses are big worker owned co-ops. The Mondragón Cooperative Corporation in northern Spain, the Basque region, "employ more than 100,000 worker/owners and in 2007 generated revenues of more than $24 billion."

In fact it's the government PREVENTING those established players from becomming monop

Oh, I have? Where's your proof?

The fact that you're posting to /. rather than in the hospital, fighting smallpox.

That's the sum of your proof? That's no proof, at most it's evidence. Let's see... First, while the US government, specifically the military developed the internet it was not the first widely or generally used computer network. Throughout the 1970s people used bulletin board systems or BBSes that were setup and run by people doing it for themselves. Fidonet was developed to link the various BBSes up together in 1984, it was as the internet is now a network of networks. A year before the commercial Quantum Computer Services network, now called AOL, was founded. AOL eventually acquired CompuServe, which I used to be a member of, and which was started in 1969 as the Compu-Serv Network, Inc subsidiary of an insurance company. Starting in 1985 General Electric ran the GEnie network. There were other services like these also. It was just a matter of tyme before a network of networks as big as the internet was developed.

Next the Smallpox vaccine was Edward Jenner, an English scientist who did not work for government.

There have been innumerable nearly-free markets, and even today, in nearly-lawless countries like Somalia, there is nothing to stop the market from being free. Immigrate and enjoy!

As you say, Somalia is law-less. Therefore a free market does not exist there. What you and every other freemarket opponent do not or refuse to acknowledge is that free markets require voluntary exchanges. Nobody holds a firearm to another's head, threatens, or robs them. I can hear you saying next that laws are anti-freemarkets, that public law enforcement is needed to uphold those laws or some such. You're partially right but not one free market advocate I know of opposes these. Many proponents will actually tell you that that is a legitimate function of government. As is contract law enforcement.

Natural market forces, like economies of scale, do VASTLY MORE to restrict small players from entering the market than any regulations you can name.

BS. If natural market forces did as you say, I would not be a member of 2 of the dozens of co-ops in the upper midwest. Within the greater Minneapolis, St Paul, Twin Cities area there are more than a dozen. One of those co-ops I'm a member of has just one location, it's a few blocks away from me and in weather like today I can walk there in about 5 minutes. The other co-op has 3 stores now though when I joined it there was only one. With some members driving some distances to get to the store they asked that another store be opened close to them, so one was. The other store was a separate co-op that wanted to be acquired by mine, so it was put to a vote of member-owners and we approved. While those co-ops I'm a member of and others are member owned some are worker owned.

Also even co-ops can be big businesses, Horizon Organic is a nationwide co-op owned by farmers. In Spain some businesses are big worker owned co-ops. The Mondragón Cooperative Corporation in northern Spain, the Basque region, "employ more than 100,000 worker/owners and in 2007 generated revenues of more than $24 billion."

In fact it's the government PREVENTING those established players from becomming monop

Not only that but we know now that there are other places overseas that the feds can take you, and they even have a name for it, torture taxi. And let us be honest here: With all the shit pulled by the US government in the last 30 years you frankly would have to be nuts to take their word at face value on ANYTHING. I personally trust the government about as far as I can throw my overfed corrupt congress critters.

And as we have seen in the past, anytime they start waving the flag and claiming "national security" it means they have been pulling some seriously lowlife shit that they KNOW that even the most diehard Neocon will have trouble swallowing. Or can you give me a reason why this JUDGE shouldn't be trusted with "national secrets" in PRIVATE so he can render a fair and just decision?

Most humorous post today! Also true.

Not "HEIL HITLER!" -- > HEIL CHENEY. Cheney's no-bid contract Halliburton is rapidly building prisons. Obviously someone has a plan to use them.

Cheney is planning to invade Iran. A lot of people are saying that Cheney plans martial law. Prepare for living in a military dictatorship.

People with plenty of political experience are saying Cheney plans to attack the U.S. and claim that it was Iran that attacked. (false flag operation)

Posse Comitatus was altered by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007. It's not really what it used to be anymore.

Here are some articles:

http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5150

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/martial_law_made_easy.html

And here are Senator Leahy's remarks on the Senate floor about this Act, which has since been passed and signed into law. The first paragraph is all you really need to read:

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html

And the wiki, for good measure:

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

I'll be voting pretty much straight Democrat (with one local exception) in the election because I trust the Democrats a heck of a lot more than the Republicans at this point, and because the Democrat's policies are generally a lot closer (key word is "closer") to mine than the Republicans. So my vote is worth something.

But you raise a good point. It's not enough just to vote. We still have to keep the politicians honest. Case in point, my own (Democrat) Senator voted for this bill, and has yet to give me a good reason why.

So today I am sending her a third email - quite a bit more strongly worded then the last two:

I did not see "essential liberties", "balance of powers", or "creeping fascism" as options in the drop down list of subjects. So I have chosen, "Civil Liberties", which I suppose is close enough.

My question is, why? Why did you help Bush do this...

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/

This is a direct erosion of the checks and balances that, so far, have kept our country free.

I wrote you urging you not to vote for this bill and you replied...

"As you may know, the House and Senate versions of the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense Authorization bill included a provision that would allow the President to deploy the National Guard in specified instances of public emergencies. The President could exercise this authority only in instances when state responders are unable to maintain public order after a natural disaster, epidemic, or terrorist attack."

This response is misleading. For one thing, please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the bill actually states, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."

Who is to define what counts as an "insurrection" or "domestic violence"? And "unlawful combination"? Really! We have a President that thinks he can legally justify torture and warrantees wire tapping, and you hand him this?!

I am not naive enough to think that a power mad chief executive might not use this bill to further their own goals - at the expense of freedom and against the will of the people of our state.

And I find it impossible to believe you are this naive either. So, again, why did you vote for this bill?

The final authority over the National Guards should be held by the States. Not only so the National Guard will be there to help the people of their state, but to act as a check on federal power - forcing the president to ask for, rather than demand, the use of the Guard.

Sincerely,
Andrew Davies ....If they hear from enough of us it does make a difference.

This is what's happening in Argentina, see http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/147 /54/

That's interesting but probably wrong, because in this very month, the EU Data Retention Directive came into effect. You can read up here, they have a link to the directive (pdf).

Quote: "Data retention laws already exist in many EU countries. The UK, Ireland and Italy already have their own national data retention laws, but they are all different in scope and substance. For example, the period for communications traffic data to be stored varies by country from 3 months to 3 years. In the UK, data must be stored for 6 months (internet) or 12 months (telephony). In Ireland, the retention period is 3 years."

Other EU countries have yet to pass legislation to implement the directive - Germany is planning a 1 year retention period.