=/ Yeah I fear that is too tempting of a solution to landfills and just simply lest wasteful practices. That is horrifying to hear. Don't get my wrong I live in a household that produces its fair share of waste and I take it to the landfill every few weeks. And I am always frowning at how much there is. Though a lot is biodegradable. However separating the biodegradable food waste etc... from the crap that should be cleaned and stacked and re-sold-re-used is something IMPOSSIBLE to teach my roommates. They refuse to consider it an option. "Why should we do it if no one else does". "Its garbage!"
B.S. there could be warehouses were this stuff was stored neatly and cleanly until it needed to be used again as packaging material, containers etc...
And the amount of energy it would take to clean it all and re-transport it would be far less than creating new stuff in China.
Replying here so I can reply to both. Reducing them on land will indirectly reduce them in the sea. This is a good idea. I don't like plastic bags very much. But they seem to be a necessary evil to grease the supermarket wheels. I have also seen good uses come out of recycling them in interesting ways.
I agree 100%. Internet connections to not make you a better person. Only you do. I find all to often that people who rely on this excuse for enabling them to do something good are ignorant of the fact that it is harming them or their peers in some way they do not fully understand.
Hahah you couldn't make it clearer than day. I never quite looked at it from that perspective (mind you I knew it was more about limiting the government than us) meaning if its not in the constitutions they shouldn't be messing with it at the federal level...
But hey you perfectly stated it. Thanks, I will use your points to help teach others.
I actually once got a Lukewarm response. I wasn't sure if an aid wrote it or the official did. It was about new rules before the SOPA act. Something to do with courts being able to order domains blocked without going to a judge. I politely explained that its not a corporations place to make such calls and that it belongs in the governments hands. Namely the courts. And that I was disappointed at the increasingly corporate favoritism the government was showing in regards to IP law. I think a lot of people probably had a similar viewpoint when they emailed. And it was through an EFF website form as well. Though I cut out their default message and wrote my own.
I can guarantee it wasn't perfect considering my writing ability. I think on really big issues that net them a large response congress listens more.
I agree global warming is a serious issue. It may not be as extreme as some make it out to be (I think in the worst case scenario humanity as a whole would last out a century). But it should be near the top of our political agenda for discussion. Because it is one thing we must do together. No one person or group is going to be able to fix it. And than its going to have to be tackled even further in a global arena.
Millions or even ~billion dead is far to many to keep going like there is nothing wrong. It is clear that humans have artificially changed the entire balance of the worlds ecosystem. 400 parts per million CO2 is all I need to know and to look at current global weather trends and ecosystem changes.
We need a way to clean and prune this tree that doesn't rely on "appointees". People need to prove they either know what they are doing when they write these regulations and be audited by the majority or by committees with power and even more oversight. And this stuff needs to be done openly and for well stated reasons. Stuff should not be able to go on the books without at least being discussed so we can give feedback. I don't care if they specifically look at mine. But if someone (take you for example) who knows a bit more about global warming can give solid feedback it should be listened too.
Not every problem can be solved through regulation either. Sometimes subsidies or other actions are better. I'm by no means an expert on the full political spectrum of solutions to varying problems.
The people we have appointed now may either ignore things like global warming or don't want to sour their political careers over it. Or they even feel unqualified so pass judgment on those issues.
In some ways the court system has a better model for "finding the truth" so to speak in those kinds of situations it might work to have judges or panels and different sides argue their case openly. I don't know just guessing wildly and hoping I come to some interesting idea here.
I more or less agree with you and my big gripe is in seeing something not working and being tired of advocating what we have as a good solution.
I also think we need to clean up our laws quite a bit. The shear volume is insane. Most don't even really apply to normal every day activities or could be merged into one kind of law that covers many different applications of the situation.
A bit more info: These construction projects are between 20 and 30% of the economy and the people paying for these properties to be built could loose big time if they don't get filled. Poor people are being moved into them (for example Ordos, Inner Mongolia) but they cannot afford the equivalent 100,000 USD price. Ordos is supposed to be able to house 1 million people.
I was also told that some of that was the way people stored wealth in China. Not necessarily for tourism or new rich. But yeah I posted a dupe of parents post. Sorry parent.
There are actually large empty towns in China because the wealth is actually disproportionate there and there are rich people who own property just because that is the only way to gain wealth. Money gets taken. But they can have their empty towns. Communism fail.
Makes me wonder if this is the catch22 behind stuff like Privitize VPN on TBP.... but thats a wopper of an informative post. Makes a lot of sense the Saudi's would rage over the service. Surprised they are letting it back.
P.S. Saudi law is insane =/
P.S.P.S. This actually makes me feel a tiny bit better about the NSA. At least their only recording that my communications were secure and to whom (probably would make me a target though if I had a lot of secure calls to somewhere in Saudi). Which I wouldn't blame some paranoid person for wanting to do just to talk to family. That works for people in Saudi wanting to call out etc..
We need to change how we elect our officials and how campaigns are funded and how people lobby. That is at the root of the issue. If you want I can come back and post a link for you to Larry Lestigs TED talk about Lester Land. Its on Elections. Its fairly easy to google. It breaks down the issue very well. Than the next step is to fix our governments regulatory agencies and make them more democratic. This has been broken since the 1700's and needs to be updated for modern issues. I am not advocating no regulations. The next step is to address these symptoms of the broke system which you have listed.
We may need to do all of that include address your listed issues at the same time.
Uruguay and Argentina are very popular south American countries. Canada is super corrupt. Spanish is easy to learn, you can just learn it while begging on the streets if you need to.
Argentina was in a rough spot in 2002. Now they are payed up with the IMF and their economy is doing real well. Uruguay's national motto is "Liberty or Death". And they supposedly like Americans and $$. Any country with a lot of American Ex Patriots (people retired and living abroad) (many military) will be very friendly.
But it is trolls that that that produce very informative comments that are extremely enlightening. I don't mind the trolls. Especially when the results are so astoundingly good. I'm a firm believer in freedom. But being able to read through some of these counterpoints really reinforces my beliefs to the max. It is great to hear it from other people, get their own perspectives, and see their sources.
In fact this is the WONDERFULL thing about the internet and why NOTHING should be censored. Because even the bad and worst can bring out the absolute best response when you take shear violence and physicality out of the equation.
I really hope you are right. But to quote another meme... hope and change... aint going to cut it for me. So I try and vehemently voice my opinion. Sometimes I do it very badly. Sometimes I think I make a good point. Sometimes I'm very wrong.
At the very least thanks for reading through all of that. I can agree, that things change, and to equate modern issues like this to past issues might be shortsighted. Perhaps this is the a particular issue. I know I have not been personally attacked yet. That is all I can really vouche for.
I still don't like it. I still would like the money to be spent elsewhere. And it still makes me think twice. Yet I do still freely try and express myself on the web more often than not. I would like to see more respect given to regular everyday Americans. The respect to trust us rather than fear us as if we may be the enemy.
Part of what made America great I think throughout history was that if there was an enemy like this hiding amongst us we would oust them ourselves. Than again you have things like scientists on the Manhatten project leaking information. But that may have actually saved our asses by ensuring mutually assured destruction. At least it saved the Russians many lives. It is very hard for me to think we should play god with things like that. But those guys were not the American majority. That was a few individuals. Our government can go after people it thinks may be extremely important. Why does it need to worry about all of us in such great detail. Not to mention the new leak about PRISM.
This is a succinct satire in the form of a F.A.Q. that pretty much sums up the attitude our current government has. I wrote up a little better of an article submission but the editors ate it in fury (nah it probably just wasn't good enough or to much of a dupe compared to all these NSA articles).
So I figured I would share it with you guys here. Notice how Obama dresses in a very similar fashion to the Turkish Prime Minister (compare to resent Reuters photo). Tiny flag on the same lapel in a very uniform fashion. I think the New Yoker picked that picture for a reason.
I read to the first answer than hit the floor laughing my ass off. It is good to know that some Journalists still have a head on their shoulders and a good sense of humor about this.
Good observation. I spoke from memory. Who knows why really. I suspect the guy was radiation sick or ionizing radiation messed with some electronics and the pilot couldn't correct. Kind of hard to get an NTSB report on that one.
I was being a bit of a smart Alic because I knew what the article was about. Sorry =) I honestly didn't expect much mods and figured other people would put forth much more informative responses. Which they eventually did.
Those are just two of my favorite topics. Pick something you would like to see fixed that is regulatory and take a stab at it. And find out how many people actually had a say in how those regulations get put into place and how to fix it.
We shouldn't deregulate back to anarchy. I agree stuff like that needs some kind of oversight.
We should change the nature of how that regulation gets put into place. Rather than granting different departments of each branch defacto ability to just regulate. Everything should be passed democratically through a people elected body and tested thoroughly against the constitution.
Also much regulation was meant for times past and has no use in present times. Or many things in present times are not sufficiently covered by times past regulation. The wording needs to be good. The finest recent example: Classification of humans as munitions for export control in regards to space flight.
But there are tons of other issues which go off topic but however are tangential to regulatory issues. Starting with things like the NRC. Which I doubt very few actual nuclear scientists have any actual say in.
Well here I did it again. I apologize. I think if you took an in depth look at history. You could see that *consistent* is the only word I should use here. But the abuses have been sparse enough that we tend to collectively forget really fast.
Starting with Indians, nuclear tests in southern Utah later on... etc.. being two grievous issues that pop to mind. We should not be cheering this on or defending it.
Slashdot Mirror
=/ Yeah I fear that is too tempting of a solution to landfills and just simply lest wasteful practices. That is horrifying to hear. Don't get my wrong I live in a household that produces its fair share of waste and I take it to the landfill every few weeks. And I am always frowning at how much there is. Though a lot is biodegradable. However separating the biodegradable food waste etc... from the crap that should be cleaned and stacked and re-sold-re-used is something IMPOSSIBLE to teach my roommates. They refuse to consider it an option. "Why should we do it if no one else does". "Its garbage!"
B.S. there could be warehouses were this stuff was stored neatly and cleanly until it needed to be used again as packaging material, containers etc...
And the amount of energy it would take to clean it all and re-transport it would be far less than creating new stuff in China.
Sharks with frickin' lasers can vaporize the bags! Lets get that patent in!
Replying here so I can reply to both. Reducing them on land will indirectly reduce them in the sea. This is a good idea. I don't like plastic bags very much. But they seem to be a necessary evil to grease the supermarket wheels. I have also seen good uses come out of recycling them in interesting ways.
I agree 100%. Internet connections to not make you a better person. Only you do. I find all to often that people who rely on this excuse for enabling them to do something good are ignorant of the fact that it is harming them or their peers in some way they do not fully understand.
Hahah you couldn't make it clearer than day. I never quite looked at it from that perspective (mind you I knew it was more about limiting the government than us) meaning if its not in the constitutions they shouldn't be messing with it at the federal level...
But hey you perfectly stated it. Thanks, I will use your points to help teach others.
I actually once got a Lukewarm response. I wasn't sure if an aid wrote it or the official did. It was about new rules before the SOPA act. Something to do with courts being able to order domains blocked without going to a judge. I politely explained that its not a corporations place to make such calls and that it belongs in the governments hands. Namely the courts. And that I was disappointed at the increasingly corporate favoritism the government was showing in regards to IP law. I think a lot of people probably had a similar viewpoint when they emailed. And it was through an EFF website form as well. Though I cut out their default message and wrote my own.
I can guarantee it wasn't perfect considering my writing ability. I think on really big issues that net them a large response congress listens more.
I agree global warming is a serious issue. It may not be as extreme as some make it out to be (I think in the worst case scenario humanity as a whole would last out a century). But it should be near the top of our political agenda for discussion. Because it is one thing we must do together. No one person or group is going to be able to fix it. And than its going to have to be tackled even further in a global arena.
Millions or even ~billion dead is far to many to keep going like there is nothing wrong. It is clear that humans have artificially changed the entire balance of the worlds ecosystem. 400 parts per million CO2 is all I need to know and to look at current global weather trends and ecosystem changes.
We need a way to clean and prune this tree that doesn't rely on "appointees". People need to prove they either know what they are doing when they write these regulations and be audited by the majority or by committees with power and even more oversight. And this stuff needs to be done openly and for well stated reasons. Stuff should not be able to go on the books without at least being discussed so we can give feedback. I don't care if they specifically look at mine. But if someone (take you for example) who knows a bit more about global warming can give solid feedback it should be listened too.
Not every problem can be solved through regulation either. Sometimes subsidies or other actions are better. I'm by no means an expert on the full political spectrum of solutions to varying problems.
The people we have appointed now may either ignore things like global warming or don't want to sour their political careers over it. Or they even feel unqualified so pass judgment on those issues.
In some ways the court system has a better model for "finding the truth" so to speak in those kinds of situations it might work to have judges or panels and different sides argue their case openly. I don't know just guessing wildly and hoping I come to some interesting idea here.
I more or less agree with you and my big gripe is in seeing something not working and being tired of advocating what we have as a good solution.
I also think we need to clean up our laws quite a bit. The shear volume is insane. Most don't even really apply to normal every day activities or could be merged into one kind of law that covers many different applications of the situation.
A bit more info: These construction projects are between 20 and 30% of the economy and the people paying for these properties to be built could loose big time if they don't get filled. Poor people are being moved into them (for example Ordos, Inner Mongolia) but they cannot afford the equivalent 100,000 USD price. Ordos is supposed to be able to house 1 million people.
I was also told that some of that was the way people stored wealth in China. Not necessarily for tourism or new rich. But yeah I posted a dupe of parents post. Sorry parent.
There are actually large empty towns in China because the wealth is actually disproportionate there and there are rich people who own property just because that is the only way to gain wealth. Money gets taken. But they can have their empty towns. Communism fail.
https://www.google.com/search?q=empty+chinese+towns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=rnmxUbHtDbGg4AOM7IHABA&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1201&bih=814
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094492,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/business/china-building-mega-cities-but-they-remain-empty-sparking-fears-of-housing-bubble-burst/story-e6frfm1i-1226611169281
So you guys might not have to worry. People may never inhabit this structure. It might be purely for vanity.
Makes me wonder if this is the catch22 behind stuff like Privitize VPN on TBP.... but thats a wopper of an informative post. Makes a lot of sense the Saudi's would rage over the service. Surprised they are letting it back.
P.S. Saudi law is insane =/
P.S.P.S. This actually makes me feel a tiny bit better about the NSA. At least their only recording that my communications were secure and to whom (probably would make me a target though if I had a lot of secure calls to somewhere in Saudi). Which I wouldn't blame some paranoid person for wanting to do just to talk to family. That works for people in Saudi wanting to call out etc..
I do not think you are a troll. You have a very valid point. I'll leave it at that.
We need to change how we elect our officials and how campaigns are funded and how people lobby. That is at the root of the issue. If you want I can come back and post a link for you to Larry Lestigs TED talk about Lester Land. Its on Elections. Its fairly easy to google. It breaks down the issue very well. Than the next step is to fix our governments regulatory agencies and make them more democratic. This has been broken since the 1700's and needs to be updated for modern issues. I am not advocating no regulations. The next step is to address these symptoms of the broke system which you have listed.
We may need to do all of that include address your listed issues at the same time.
Uruguay and Argentina are very popular south American countries. Canada is super corrupt. Spanish is easy to learn, you can just learn it while begging on the streets if you need to.
Argentina was in a rough spot in 2002. Now they are payed up with the IMF and their economy is doing real well. Uruguay's national motto is "Liberty or Death". And they supposedly like Americans and $$. Any country with a lot of American Ex Patriots (people retired and living abroad) (many military) will be very friendly.
*But it is trolls like this (I think the NSA did the that that that part).
But it is trolls that that that produce very informative comments that are extremely enlightening. I don't mind the trolls. Especially when the results are so astoundingly good. I'm a firm believer in freedom. But being able to read through some of these counterpoints really reinforces my beliefs to the max. It is great to hear it from other people, get their own perspectives, and see their sources.
In fact this is the WONDERFULL thing about the internet and why NOTHING should be censored. Because even the bad and worst can bring out the absolute best response when you take shear violence and physicality out of the equation.
I really hope you are right. But to quote another meme... hope and change... aint going to cut it for me. So I try and vehemently voice my opinion. Sometimes I do it very badly. Sometimes I think I make a good point. Sometimes I'm very wrong.
At the very least thanks for reading through all of that. I can agree, that things change, and to equate modern issues like this to past issues might be shortsighted. Perhaps this is the a particular issue. I know I have not been personally attacked yet. That is all I can really vouche for.
I still don't like it. I still would like the money to be spent elsewhere. And it still makes me think twice. Yet I do still freely try and express myself on the web more often than not. I would like to see more respect given to regular everyday Americans. The respect to trust us rather than fear us as if we may be the enemy.
Part of what made America great I think throughout history was that if there was an enemy like this hiding amongst us we would oust them ourselves. Than again you have things like scientists on the Manhatten project leaking information. But that may have actually saved our asses by ensuring mutually assured destruction. At least it saved the Russians many lives. It is very hard for me to think we should play god with things like that. But those guys were not the American majority. That was a few individuals. Our government can go after people it thinks may be extremely important. Why does it need to worry about all of us in such great detail. Not to mention the new leak about PRISM.
*** Wow I really apologize. I spell checked and reread yet this comment is rife with missing letters woops.
The New Yorker
This is a succinct satire in the form of a F.A.Q. that pretty much sums up the attitude our current government has. I wrote up a little better of an article submission but the editors ate it in fury (nah it probably just wasn't good enough or to much of a dupe compared to all these NSA articles).
So I figured I would share it with you guys here. Notice how Obama dresses in a very similar fashion to the Turkish Prime Minister (compare to resent Reuters photo). Tiny flag on the same lapel in a very uniform fashion. I think the New Yoker picked that picture for a reason.
I read to the first answer than hit the floor laughing my ass off. It is good to know that some Journalists still have a head on their shoulders and a good sense of humor about this.
Good observation. I spoke from memory. Who knows why really. I suspect the guy was radiation sick or ionizing radiation messed with some electronics and the pilot couldn't correct. Kind of hard to get an NTSB report on that one.
I was being a bit of a smart Alic because I knew what the article was about. Sorry =) I honestly didn't expect much mods and figured other people would put forth much more informative responses. Which they eventually did.
Those are just two of my favorite topics. Pick something you would like to see fixed that is regulatory and take a stab at it. And find out how many people actually had a say in how those regulations get put into place and how to fix it.
We shouldn't deregulate back to anarchy. I agree stuff like that needs some kind of oversight.
We should change the nature of how that regulation gets put into place. Rather than granting different departments of each branch defacto ability to just regulate. Everything should be passed democratically through a people elected body and tested thoroughly against the constitution.
Also much regulation was meant for times past and has no use in present times. Or many things in present times are not sufficiently covered by times past regulation. The wording needs to be good. The finest recent example: Classification of humans as munitions for export control in regards to space flight.
But there are tons of other issues which go off topic but however are tangential to regulatory issues. Starting with things like the NRC. Which I doubt very few actual nuclear scientists have any actual say in.
consistently and on occasion
Well here I did it again. I apologize. I think if you took an in depth look at history. You could see that *consistent* is the only word I should use here. But the abuses have been sparse enough that we tend to collectively forget really fast.
Starting with Indians, nuclear tests in southern Utah later on... etc.. being two grievous issues that pop to mind. We should not be cheering this on or defending it.