If you've ever worked for a government-funded research institute, you would know one thing for sure: The 200 employees who will wind up getting the axe contribute infinitely more to getting real science done than 50 fire-proof drones inflicted on the place by the government. The drones, by the way, will suck up at least three the dollars that the 200 with pink slips did, and contribute exactly nothing to the institution's primary purpose.
Even worse, the situation feeds on itself. It's difficult to find anybody more harshly dismissive of learning than an ignorant person. And since the vote of a mouth-breathing half-wit counts just as much as the vote of a Nobel laureate, it isn't hard to figure out what kind of politician gets elected...and the kind of decisions they subsequently make.
H.L. Mencken said it best more than half a century ago: "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Actually, if I had a nasty purpose in mind, you're exactly the kind of person I'd probably want to imitate. And if I wanted to get a really good idea of how the streets around a bank I was planning to rob were laid out, I'd go strutting around dressed like one of those Guardian Angel dildoes.
It's human nature to concentrate on the memorable stuff...whether it's a beret and an attitude, or a van tarted up like a cross between the batmobile and an AWACS jet.
Having said that, I'll agree that a disproportionate number customs guards, no matter who they work for, are assholes. I especially liked the American ones who picked the one cute little Asian girl on our bus to strip-search. Must have been "Feed The Lesbian Guard Day" or something.
This isn't about eavesdropping, it's about getting information you have no right to possess. If my girlfriend steals my cell phone and finds out that I've been calling Wendy's House of Spanking Ecstasy on the same days as I subsequently say I was working late, she doesn't need the contents of the call to get seriously pissed off and do some major damage to my professional life.
This is exactly the same kind of thing. The telcom has no right to use its special situation to assume police-like powers and check up on people.
And my mention of Wendy's was just an example, OK? I don't know of any such place and I don't know if it even exists and I've never been there if it does. OK? Got it?
Of course those canals carry other traffic, too. My point is that important, heavily-used canals that don't serve oil tankers don't get the freebie.
And I've already given you a couple of URL's. Beyond that...I'm not a grad student anymore (thank god), so I'm done with doing other peoples' work for them. If you're really that interested, go find out for yourself. If your aren't, that's your business.
Your overlook many of the less obvious subsidies. For example, the Army Corps of Engineers routinely dredges canals used by the oil industry at taxpayer expense. The explanation is that they're staying in training. Canals that don't serve oil tankers, regardless of need, do not receive such treatment.
There are many, many examples of such hidden subsidies, none of which are accounted for in your numbers. I invite you to seek them out for yourself rather than take my word for them.
An article in Nature 445, 147 (11 January 2007) published online 10 January 2007, and "Money Down the Pipeline: Uncovering the Hidden Subsidies to the Oil Industry" by the Union of Concerned Scientists are good places to start your investigation.
We seem to cavil about a few million dollars, or even a few hundred million, being spent to jump start emerging energy technology, but we have no problem spending billions on oil industry subsidies.
We need to acknowledge that any new tech investment involves high risk. Success brings high rewards. We accept exactly this reasoning when oil executives tell us that oil exploration is expensive and risky, and therefore requires continuing subsidies even when record profits are rolling in. A few million spent on alt energy research that tanks, however, is usually reported as a "this is what happens when you listen to the tree huggers" story.
An attitude adjustment as 'way overdue, and a rediscovery of our spirit of adventure and innovation. Perhaps putting some money into finding out whether this kind of solar cell works and can be mass produced would be a place to start.
I bet it takes some teenybopper with an attitude and a soldering gun about a week to bypass the chip.
And I hate to make an ad hominem attack, but you have to think a guy with a name like "Nolan Bushnell" was born to be the hopeless dick in Revenge of the Nerds 7...the one where a company president makes a stupid observation and has it jammed up his ass sideways by a bunch of misfits who build machines that rival Cray supercomputers in their parents' basements and whack off a lot.
I tend to look on such legislation as likely to have the reverse effect to the one stated, because it is frequently written to provide cover, loopholes and exceptions for the powerful, well-connected industries it is supposed to govern.
And even with the best of intentions, it often has the effect of limiting an individual's rights to whatever is covered at the time, regardless of scientific and technological advances that can render such rights and protections woefully obsolete.
If anyone wants to investigate whether there is a similar link between sex starvation and jet lag, I could suggest a couple of married friends who'd be ideal candidates for the study.
I'll reply to my own comment and so, hopefully, cover all the replies: You guys are right, it was the Nature Folks who initiated the lawsuit.
My point, though, still applies. Weiner Watchers Entertainment, or whatever the hell they're called now, tried to push the Panda Huggers aside by expanding their use of the initials to a point where confusion could occur, thus violating the "peaceful coexistence" agreement they'd worked out.
Bottom line: I think we can all agree that it's a nice thing when some corporate law weasel overreaches (like J&J hassling the Red Cross), and winds up getting his nose rubbed in the mess he made.
So did my outrageously hilarious, utterly off-topic and completely irreverent "test remark" about CowboyNeal and his extra-species amorous adventures help to set a high enough standard for sophistication and good taste in the new home?
Every once in a while, the douchebags who spend their lives making the rest of us miserable get a well-deserved kick in the crotch. This is one of those times.
The only other occasion I can think of off the top of my head where something like this happened is when the World Wrestling Federation tried to lawyer the (much older) World Wildlife Fund out of its right to use "WWF". What is it they call the giant men who grope each other these days? I can't recall, but it certainly doesn't have an "F" at the end of it.
Given how gay Stephen Harper is for George Bush, I'm surprised he hasn't made it a requirement that our government keep all its sensitive information on US servers. I can just see him making cow eyes at Bush and saying, "I'm yours, George...I shall hold nothing back from you!"
It seems likely that this will turn out to be a poorly-understood conventional exothermic chemical reaction. It might still turn out to be useful and/or enlightening. If nothing else, it serves to remind us that there's quite a lot of fairly basic chemistry that we haven't quite figured out yet.
I understand they're planning a somewhat less "me-centric" version of Twitter for people who still have room in their heads for at least one thought per day that isn't strictly related to themselves.
Your comment couldn't be more accurate. We're already getting people in Canada of a certain religious faith who are attempting to use hate crime laws to muzzle those who speak against them.
...we got to work on some really, really good "cover your tracks" software. The implications of this bullshit from a privacy and freedom point of view are genuinely frightening. You can bet your bottom dollar that's what is really on the table: the right of a government to demand all the personal information an ISP has in its possession at any time, and for any reason.
This incredible technological advance could be of unparalleled value to people like my neighbor, as well as to certain endangered species. The neighbor owned a horrid little chihuahua that never learned either to shut up or, apparently, to look up.
Slashdot Mirror
My job's already got me climbing the goddamn walls, and for a fraction of the cost of a goddamn robot.
They might as well finish the job and make me totally redundant. Invent a robot that begs my girlfriend for sex and gets turned down
If you've ever worked for a government-funded research institute, you would know one thing for sure: The 200 employees who will wind up getting the axe contribute infinitely more to getting real science done than 50 fire-proof drones inflicted on the place by the government. The drones, by the way, will suck up at least three the dollars that the 200 with pink slips did, and contribute exactly nothing to the institution's primary purpose.
Even worse, the situation feeds on itself. It's difficult to find anybody more harshly dismissive of learning than an ignorant person. And since the vote of a mouth-breathing half-wit counts just as much as the vote of a Nobel laureate, it isn't hard to figure out what kind of politician gets elected...and the kind of decisions they subsequently make.
H.L. Mencken said it best more than half a century ago: "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Actually, if I had a nasty purpose in mind, you're exactly the kind of person I'd probably want to imitate. And if I wanted to get a really good idea of how the streets around a bank I was planning to rob were laid out, I'd go strutting around dressed like one of those Guardian Angel dildoes.
It's human nature to concentrate on the memorable stuff...whether it's a beret and an attitude, or a van tarted up like a cross between the batmobile and an AWACS jet.
Having said that, I'll agree that a disproportionate number customs guards, no matter who they work for, are assholes. I especially liked the American ones who picked the one cute little Asian girl on our bus to strip-search. Must have been "Feed The Lesbian Guard Day" or something.
The loser in this case will be whoever has the smallest bladder.
"...new research suggests that a '3-torus' (or 'doughnut universe'), as well as other shapes, could fit our actual observations..."
Great...it all ends when we wind up being eaten by some fat-ass cop from the other side of a black hole.
This isn't about eavesdropping, it's about getting information you have no right to possess. If my girlfriend steals my cell phone and finds out that I've been calling Wendy's House of Spanking Ecstasy on the same days as I subsequently say I was working late, she doesn't need the contents of the call to get seriously pissed off and do some major damage to my professional life.
This is exactly the same kind of thing. The telcom has no right to use its special situation to assume police-like powers and check up on people.
And my mention of Wendy's was just an example, OK? I don't know of any such place and I don't know if it even exists and I've never been there if it does. OK? Got it?
Of course those canals carry other traffic, too. My point is that important, heavily-used canals that don't serve oil tankers don't get the freebie.
And I've already given you a couple of URL's. Beyond that...I'm not a grad student anymore (thank god), so I'm done with doing other peoples' work for them. If you're really that interested, go find out for yourself. If your aren't, that's your business.
Your overlook many of the less obvious subsidies. For example, the Army Corps of Engineers routinely dredges canals used by the oil industry at taxpayer expense. The explanation is that they're staying in training. Canals that don't serve oil tankers, regardless of need, do not receive such treatment.
There are many, many examples of such hidden subsidies, none of which are accounted for in your numbers. I invite you to seek them out for yourself rather than take my word for them.
An article in Nature 445, 147 (11 January 2007) published online 10 January 2007, and "Money Down the Pipeline: Uncovering the Hidden Subsidies to the Oil Industry" by the Union of Concerned Scientists are good places to start your investigation.
We seem to cavil about a few million dollars, or even a few hundred million, being spent to jump start emerging energy technology, but we have no problem spending billions on oil industry subsidies.
We need to acknowledge that any new tech investment involves high risk. Success brings high rewards. We accept exactly this reasoning when oil executives tell us that oil exploration is expensive and risky, and therefore requires continuing subsidies even when record profits are rolling in. A few million spent on alt energy research that tanks, however, is usually reported as a "this is what happens when you listen to the tree huggers" story.
An attitude adjustment as 'way overdue, and a rediscovery of our spirit of adventure and innovation. Perhaps putting some money into finding out whether this kind of solar cell works and can be mass produced would be a place to start.
Why would you want to stop your Muslims from escaping into Canada?
I bet it takes some teenybopper with an attitude and a soldering gun about a week to bypass the chip.
And I hate to make an ad hominem attack, but you have to think a guy with a name like "Nolan Bushnell" was born to be the hopeless dick in Revenge of the Nerds 7...the one where a company president makes a stupid observation and has it jammed up his ass sideways by a bunch of misfits who build machines that rival Cray supercomputers in their parents' basements and whack off a lot.
I tend to look on such legislation as likely to have the reverse effect to the one stated, because it is frequently written to provide cover, loopholes and exceptions for the powerful, well-connected industries it is supposed to govern.
And even with the best of intentions, it often has the effect of limiting an individual's rights to whatever is covered at the time, regardless of scientific and technological advances that can render such rights and protections woefully obsolete.
If anyone wants to investigate whether there is a similar link between sex starvation and jet lag, I could suggest a couple of married friends who'd be ideal candidates for the study.
I'll reply to my own comment and so, hopefully, cover all the replies: You guys are right, it was the Nature Folks who initiated the lawsuit.
My point, though, still applies. Weiner Watchers Entertainment, or whatever the hell they're called now, tried to push the Panda Huggers aside by expanding their use of the initials to a point where confusion could occur, thus violating the "peaceful coexistence" agreement they'd worked out.
Bottom line: I think we can all agree that it's a nice thing when some corporate law weasel overreaches (like J&J hassling the Red Cross), and winds up getting his nose rubbed in the mess he made.
So did my outrageously hilarious, utterly off-topic and completely irreverent "test remark" about CowboyNeal and his extra-species amorous adventures help to set a high enough standard for sophistication and good taste in the new home?
I always like to help...
Every once in a while, the douchebags who spend their lives making the rest of us miserable get a well-deserved kick in the crotch. This is one of those times.
The only other occasion I can think of off the top of my head where something like this happened is when the World Wrestling Federation tried to lawyer the (much older) World Wildlife Fund out of its right to use "WWF". What is it they call the giant men who grope each other these days? I can't recall, but it certainly doesn't have an "F" at the end of it.
Not surprising to see that there's a few fascists out there with moderator points and absolutely no sense of humour.
Given how gay Stephen Harper is for George Bush, I'm surprised he hasn't made it a requirement that our government keep all its sensitive information on US servers. I can just see him making cow eyes at Bush and saying, "I'm yours, George...I shall hold nothing back from you!"
It seems likely that this will turn out to be a poorly-understood conventional exothermic chemical reaction. It might still turn out to be useful and/or enlightening. If nothing else, it serves to remind us that there's quite a lot of fairly basic chemistry that we haven't quite figured out yet.
I understand they're planning a somewhat less "me-centric" version of Twitter for people who still have room in their heads for at least one thought per day that isn't strictly related to themselves.
I believe they're going to call it "Wanker".
Your comment couldn't be more accurate. We're already getting people in Canada of a certain religious faith who are attempting to use hate crime laws to muzzle those who speak against them.
We look forward to hearing from you...frequently.
This incredible technological advance could be of unparalleled value to people like my neighbor, as well as to certain endangered species. The neighbor owned a horrid little chihuahua that never learned either to shut up or, apparently, to look up.
We live on a major hawk migration route.