Nader is an Arab-American "radical" who would like to form a left-wing third party in the United States.
He would also like to cut all US funds to Israel...
If Ralph Nader were in the UK rather than the US, he would probably be a far left Labour supporter, missing those heady days of the seventies when there were food shortages and power outages in London and violent revolution seemed an almost attainable dream.
"with bags of chips and pints of beer We'll keep the red flag flying here"
The simple fact is that American accountants in service of the insurance agencies are a bunch of idiots and should be put down for the greater good
They've created a point system for physicians that requires them to keep inane records of certain details of their encounters with patients and regulates their compensation for visits/services based on point scores. This obscene mess is based on the fantastic, reality-free models these financial geniuses have created to represent patient treatment. In the typical accountant's ficition, a patient comes in with a clear, concise description of a specific, easily recognized condition -- a circumstance that almost never occurs, as anyone in the healthcare field could easily have told these idiots. Then the doctor is supposed to ask a few focused questions about the complaint (and possibly patient and family history--you get more points for that whether the info is relevant or not!) and then come to a diagnosis and treatment plan. The transaction should only take a few minutes,and the healthcare provider will only be paid for a few minutes work, regardless of actual circumstances. The fact that this bullshit has no connection whatsoever with the actual practice of medicine hasn't prevented the HMOs and other insurance providers from imposing these ridiculous systems on doctors -- one result of which is that most doctors now engage in something close to fraud as they manipulate these ludicrous point systems to provide themselves some reimbursment for the actual work they do. Sadly, some physicians follow the rules rather closely and resort to providing substandard care.
The whole stinking mess reminds me of the economists' fantasies about the restructuring of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet empire. The theories these academic pinheads came up with failed to take into account trivial details like the existence of organized crime or the ignorance of even the educated about the elementary workings of a market system...
Actually, I take back the bit about putting the accountants down -- death's to good for them. They should be given chronic diseases and left to fend for themselves in the system they've created, that would be real justice.
t's indisputably true that high-income people *do* pay the lion's share of federal income taxes
Yes, you're right! But you address a different point than the one I was making and, in so doing, you lend support to my argument--
OK, follow the words closely-- there's no trickery here: Billy says: Fewer and fewer americans pay taxes, and they're the richest part of America. I disagree intemperately. you refute me by pointing out that 93.34% of total returns are filed by people with and AGI of less than $100k! That directly refutes the argument that "fewer and fewer people are paying taxes and they're the richest..."
See how it works? Now if the argument is that the richest 6% are paying more in taxes than they used to, or paying a higher percentage of the total tax revenue, then I would have to agree. But that's becuase the rich are very rich and getting richer!
It only stands to reason that it would take a whole shitload of minimum wage earners, taxed at around a third of their income to equal the contirbution of one individual like Paul Allen (for example), paying a third of his income.
Try not to baffle yourself with numbers... There is nothing odd about rich people paying higher dollar sums if they are paying similar percentages of their incomes. They have bigger incomes (that's why we think of them as "rich").
Sorry about the insults, but I am really shocked that you have these ideas...
How much of the income do the top 5% make?
What percentage of that income is being taxed?
You seem to be arguing for something like Thatcher's poll tax (in the UK)-- let each citizen pay an equal share. You would then be asking people who make next to nothing for massive percentages of their income while asking for tiny percentages from the rich. That would produce a much uglier kind of social change, like violent revolution.
As for the rich taking over the Government - this country is already a plutocracy, but there are limits and there is no reason to believe that the forces that keep the rich in check today are suddenly going to vanish.
OK, I pretty much agree with you but my bullshit dector went off on the following points:
1)They were all anti-nuclear zealots. you are making a blanket generalization about a large population and I know that in at least two instances (friends who tried to persuade me that there was too great a risk) you are wrong. Some of the people who opposed the Cassini launch were not ANZs, as you call them. You are certainly correct that ANZs with a veneeer of scientific credibility persuaded many ignorant people into fear, but that does not make the ignorant dupes ANZs
2)it's orders of magnitude less than the risk of deciding to play golf and getting hit by lightning Statistical bullshit, as I'm sure your are well aware - the chance of a golfer being hit by lightning on a perfectly clear day (no clouds in the sky no storms in the region) approaches zero - yes, it's even smaller than 10E-6... There has never been a case of a golfer being hit by lightning in perfectly clear conditions.
3) The SNAP 9-A RTG performed as designed: it burned up in the upper atmosphere rather than delivering its contents to the surface The AEC detected SNAP 9-A radiation in the air and on the ground. The radiation levels were minimal but it is simply false to claim that the contents of SNAP 9-A's RTG did not reach the ground. That's why they did the redesign!
4)...might kill fewer than the number of people annually killed by lightning strikes... The number of people killed in the US each year by lightning strikes is about 100. The number of fatalities in the NASA environmental impact studies was first 2,300 then 120. The second number is close to, but still higher than, the number of people killed annually by lightning... This minor factual error aside, the important distinction is that the lightning strike tally is the result of many events while the Cassini RTG scenario was for just one. Your comparisson is between categorically different causes. It's like a mass murderer claiming that his having killed 80 people isn't really such a bad crime, compared with the 15,000-20,000 people killed in DWI accidents each year, so he should get a light sentence.
[approaches dead horse, bat in hand] The magnitude of the perceived threat was great, hence the higher risk assessment, despite the low probability of a negative outcome. I am persuaded that the risk was even lower by the arguments raised by Jeff Cuzzi, but I think it's important to recognize the legitmacy of people's concern and to assuage it through rational dialog rather than ad hominem attacks and hyperbole -- even if they are all a bunch of ANZ wackos... after all, the ANZ-influenced herds of non-cognoscenti help to influence the science budget.
A method of engaging in electronic transactions by montoring the brainwaves of one or more parties to the transaction(s).
I claim:
1)A method for engaging in electronic commerce comprising the steps of:
A)Using an electronic system to store financial and other information necessary for the completion of a trasaction.
B)Presenting a range of options consitituting a transaction by means of an electronic system generating auditory, visual, tactile or other sensory cues.
C)Monitoring the alpha and theta brainwaves of the parties to the transaction during the presentation of sensory cues about the transaction.
C)Dynamically assessing the level of variation in alpha and theta brainwaves recorded during the display of sensory cues regarding the transaction and creating a record of peak brainwave activity associated with the sensory cues.
D)Creating electronic messages using the data stored in A to effect the option(s) selected in C.
My patent on a mechanism for the distribution of energy in biological or quasi-biological systems using adenosine triphosphate (ATP) covers part of your proposed system, I believe.
I'd be happy to license the technology to you, however.
My lawyer advises me to inform you that instructions coded and stored in deoxyribonucleic acid and necessary for the functioning of the patented ATP mechanism will be licensed seperately and subject to the terms of both UCITA and the DMCA.
My primary point was that you don't acknowledge that the magnitude of a negative outcome, not just its probability, is a significant factor in calculating risk.
Not all those who raised concerns were mindless, ignorant anti-nuke zealots.
You mention the integirty of the RTG in the Appollo 13 accident, but not the release of plutonium during the failure of SNAP 9-A in 1964. NASA's records indicate that in 22 missions with RTG power sources, there have been three accidents, one of which resulted in the release of radioactive material(NASA. Some might examine this record and draw the conclusion that NASA's methodology in determining accident probabilities is flawed. Before Challenger, the probability of catastrophic failure during shuttle launch was calculated as being very low. After the accident, the probability was recalculated and is now estimated to be much higher...
NASA's 1995 environmental impact study indicated that a potential Cassini failure could result in 2,300 fatalities over a 50 year period. This estimate was later reduced to 120 fatalities, but the studies seemed to be an official confirmation of the negative scenarios that alarmed some people.
I agree that the risk was worth taking, but I disagree that there was no risk.
Well if you want to fight totally lame, straw-man arguments so that you can feel victorious, be my guest. Just don't attribute the straw-man arguments to me. I didn't post anything about the legitimacy of non-zero arguments, so perhaps you meant to reply to another post.
What I said was that the magnitude of a negative outcome as well as its probability is a legitimate factor in Risk Assessment. Even small children understand this.
Imagine that Alex regularly does yard work that requires the use of a long-handled tool. This tool is stored on a high shelf and Alex knows that if he tries to get it down using only one hand, it will swing down and strike his leg about one in six times. He finds that it saves time to hold another tool while he gets the long-handled one and calculates that the occaisional slight bruise is an acceptable risk. Now imagine that Alex is invited to participate in a game of Russian roullette. Again, there is a one-sixth probability of a negative outcome. The risk however is much greater...and Alex declines to participate in the game.
Of course, the average person is woefully ill-equiped to make an informed judgement about the risks in the Cassini mission... And many people reacted out of an unreasoned reaction to anything "nuclear".
But not everyone raising the issue was irrational or ignorant and some scientists presented plausible, valid (in the logical sense) arguments that there was reason for concern. The fact that the probability was low and that no negative outcome occurred does not invalidate the argument. Tesserae's statement that all the arguments suggesting that Cassini posed an unacceptable risk was "not right" consisted of assertions about the low probability of negative outcome and ignored the real importance of magnitude of negative outcome in risk assessment.
I agree it certainly should remind us of the vast beauty of the universe.
Sometimes I get depressed when I see the idiocy of human life--as illustrated by recent events in Jerusalem, or Antwerp, for example. At those times, the vast scales required of the imagination by geology, planetary science and cosmology are somehow soothing and exhilirating. We may nuke ourselves tomorrow -- Jupiter will continue in its progress round the sun. Stars will still form in the nebulae of Orion... These thoughts somehow bring me peace.
More importantly, such a moon would be well within Jupiter's Roche Limit and would disintegrate under the strain of tidal forces. Consider that these forces are responsible for the thrermal activity in Io's core... No way a moon could survive deep in the atmosphere.
You may addressing the wrong questions. I happen to agree with you that the risk was worth taking, but I also recognise that there is an ethical problem with putting people's lives at risk without their permission. The probability of an accident was low, but the potential loss of life of that hypothtical accident was high, hence the legitimate concern.
So how long before we start hurling robots to land on it? Then how many millions go down the toilet before we actually land something successfully?
Well, it depends on how you define your terms...
First you have to be clear about what you mean by "land on it" -- Jupiter is a huge gas giant and while "we" might "hurl robots at it", the goal would be to sample its atmospheric composition and conditions, not land on it.
Second, you have to define what you mean when you ask "how many millions must go down the toilet".. etc. If you are wondering how much money will be spent on medical care for uninsured cigarette smokers over the next few years, or how much will be spent on cosmetics or disposable, single use plastic containers or glossy porno printed matter, or fuel inefficient SUVs... then the number is probably staggeringly high.
But if you are wondering how much money will be wasted by NASA beofre a probe is sent into Jupiter's atmosphere then the answer is: none at all. The Gallileo mission sent a probe into the Jovian atmosphere on December 7, 1995. The probe transmitted data for almost an hour and deropped about 200km into the Jovian atmosphere before rising temperatures caused it to fail.
Fewer and fewer americans pay taxes, and they're the richest part of America.
I think you need to adjust your meds again!...
Pitty the oppressed wealthy of America! They get such a raw deal (that's why they are all flocking overseas)...
Am I paraphrasing you correctly, or did you write what you meant to say? If you mean what you have written, then you are out of touch with reality.
Turn off Rush Limbaugh, take a walk in the fresh air and then check your facts.
Your fantasy about the loss of the franchise for the poor being the logical consequence of progressive taxation suggests that you may be experiencing a psychotic break.
I just hope the people who moderated you up did it out of appreciation for the artisitic quality of your fiction--It's disturbing to think that more than four people share this delusion.
Just on the off chance that some of you aren't complete wackos and would like to check the facts:
Microsoft never represented me in anyway, so I guess it's only fair that they shouldn't pay any taxes!
Some might say I', misrepresenting the fine sentiments of the floundering fathers, but I say fair is fair. I just wish there was some other way they could screw us harder.
I don't think it's a restriction of free speech -- the movie isn't your speech. But it's almost certainly a restraint of trade and it might also be an illegal tariff and GATT violation.
The analagous situation is that I build a car in Mexico that reads its position with a GPS and disables its engine when it's driven into the United States. It's being "localised" and bypassing the "localization" might be a vaioation of the DMCA, but the car maker is in violation of NAFTA, GATT, etc. I wish there was someway to prosecute the MPAA and DVD CCA under these bills. Sue the feckers for tripple damages in a class action suit for every movie consumer on the planet!
Why are you making points about a businessman when Jim McCoy is a programmer? A lot of this stuff is still up in the air because they are creating a new market and essentially just a big grey area.
The minute a programer starts trying to code a new market into being, he mutates into a businessman.The exact nature of this metamorphosis varies with circumstances but it's not unusual to see a hacker shed layers of cruft only to emmerge from the chrysalis wearing a slick new suit.
Grok this: he makes a mechanism for turning "Mojo" into cash. He takes a two percent cut of that deal. Walks, talks and smells like a BUSINESSMAN!
Yeah, baby! Can you smell my mojo? Can you? Does it make you horny?
Bad Mojo Jojo! Take that! And That! And That! --Powerpuff Girls
Globalization has been the big corporate wet dream for the last few years. Some/. readers have sung the praises of the global economy.
How is it that it is good for the corporations to take advantage of the wonderful global marketplace, but a crime for consumers to do the same?
Seriously, how can they defend this? The Regionalization mechanism seems to be a system designed both to restrain trade and to fix prices? Doesn't this constitute some kind of criminal conspiracy? I know ADM and it's competitors were busted for global proce fixing in the Lysene market... So there should be some way to prosecute them under US law, at the very least.
I can imagine the defense: "Oh no you can buy a movie wherever you like, you just can't watch that movie..."
Remember when DAT was an up-and-coming technology for something other than backup tapes? The recording industry pinheads killed that technology for audio and it looks like these idiots will do the same for DVD and video.
Wake up and smell the binary data, Mr. Valenti! If you lock up control of this technology, people will use something else!
po_boy wrote: I refuse to believe that in the few thousand years since humans started being "civilized" that we have caused more animal species to become extinct than in the few million years before that. Unless species are becoming extinct at several thousand times the previous rates of extinctions, this is pretty much impossible.
well, If you "refuse to believe" then you are mindlessly dogmatic and debate with you is pointless... but, on the offchance that you were just being melodramatic when you employed that damning phrase, I'll present an argument here. Even if you refuse to believe what you don't like to hear, others who have been misled by your dogma may ne more open minded.
"The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we've seen in the past -- including those [extinctions] related to meteor collisions," said Daniel Simberloff, a University of Tennessee ecologist and prominent expert in biological diversity who participated in the museum's survey. [Note: the last mass extinction caused by a meteor collision was that of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.]
Most of his peers apparently agree. Nearly seven out of 10 of the biologists polled said they believed a "mass extinction" was underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and animal habitats.
Other sources of depressing news you won't want to believe:
A forward slash is rapid motion in which the blade-weilding hand is moved rapidly forward and across the target. There are many variations on the forward slash, but the most common are the uppper-right to lower-left and upper-left to lower-right diagonal forward slashes. The accompanying body motions are similar to the open-hand slap and backhand.
The backslash, on the other hand, is not descriptive of technique, but target. The truly effective backslash lays bare or transects the target's spinal column.
Slashdot Mirror
Nader is an Arab-American "radical" who would like to form a left-wing third party in the United States.
He would also like to cut all US funds to Israel...
If Ralph Nader were in the UK rather than the US, he would probably be a far left Labour supporter, missing those heady days of the seventies when there were food shortages and power outages in London and violent revolution seemed an almost attainable dream.
"with bags of chips and pints of beer
We'll keep the red flag flying here"
The simple fact is that American accountants in service of the insurance agencies are a bunch of idiots and should be put down for the greater good
They've created a point system for physicians that requires them to keep inane records of certain details of their encounters with patients and regulates their compensation for visits/services based on point scores. This obscene mess is based on the fantastic, reality-free models these financial geniuses have created to represent patient treatment. In the typical accountant's ficition, a patient comes in with a clear, concise description of a specific, easily recognized condition -- a circumstance that almost never occurs, as anyone in the healthcare field could easily have told these idiots. Then the doctor is supposed to ask a few focused questions about the complaint (and possibly patient and family history--you get more points for that whether the info is relevant or not!) and then come to a diagnosis and treatment plan. The transaction should only take a few minutes,and the healthcare provider will only be paid for a few minutes work, regardless of actual circumstances. The fact that this bullshit has no connection whatsoever with the actual practice of medicine hasn't prevented the HMOs and other insurance providers from imposing these ridiculous systems on doctors -- one result of which is that most doctors now engage in something close to fraud as they manipulate these ludicrous point systems to provide themselves some reimbursment for the actual work they do. Sadly, some physicians follow the rules rather closely and resort to providing substandard care.
The whole stinking mess reminds me of the economists' fantasies about the restructuring of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet empire. The theories these academic pinheads came up with failed to take into account trivial details like the existence of organized crime or the ignorance of even the educated about the elementary workings of a market system...
Actually, I take back the bit about putting the accountants down -- death's to good for them. They should be given chronic diseases and left to fend for themselves in the system they've created, that would be real justice.
Say what now?
t's indisputably true that high-income people *do* pay the lion's share of federal income taxes
Yes, you're right! But you address a different point than the one I was making and, in so doing, you lend support to my argument--
OK, follow the words closely-- there's no trickery here:
Billy says: Fewer and fewer americans pay taxes, and they're the richest part of America. I disagree intemperately. you refute me by pointing out that 93.34% of total returns are filed by people with and AGI of less than $100k! That directly refutes the argument that "fewer and fewer people are paying taxes and they're the richest..."
See how it works? Now if the argument is that the richest 6% are paying more in taxes than they used to, or paying a higher percentage of the total tax revenue, then I would have to agree. But that's becuase the rich are very rich and getting richer!
It only stands to reason that it would take a whole shitload of minimum wage earners, taxed at around a third of their income to equal the contirbution of one individual like Paul Allen (for example), paying a third of his income.
Try not to baffle yourself with numbers... There is nothing odd about rich people paying higher dollar sums if they are paying similar percentages of their incomes. They have bigger incomes (that's why we think of them as "rich").
Sorry about the insults, but I am really shocked that you have these ideas...
How much of the income do the top 5% make?
What percentage of that income is being taxed?
You seem to be arguing for something like Thatcher's poll tax (in the UK)-- let each citizen pay an equal share. You would then be asking people who make next to nothing for massive percentages of their income while asking for tiny percentages from the rich. That would produce a much uglier kind of social change, like violent revolution.
As for the rich taking over the Government - this country is already a plutocracy, but there are limits and there is no reason to believe that the forces that keep the rich in check today are suddenly going to vanish.
OK, I pretty much agree with you but my bullshit dector went off on the following points:
1)They were all anti-nuclear zealots.
you are making a blanket generalization about a large population and I know that in at least two instances (friends who tried to persuade me that there was too great a risk) you are wrong. Some of the people who opposed the Cassini launch were not ANZs, as you call them. You are certainly correct that ANZs with a veneeer of scientific credibility persuaded many ignorant people into fear, but that does not make the ignorant dupes ANZs
2)it's orders of magnitude less than the risk of deciding to play golf and getting hit by lightning
Statistical bullshit, as I'm sure your are well aware - the chance of a golfer being hit by lightning on a perfectly clear day (no clouds in the sky no storms in the region) approaches zero - yes, it's even smaller than 10E-6... There has never been a case of a golfer being hit by lightning in perfectly clear conditions.
3) The SNAP 9-A RTG performed as designed: it burned up in the upper atmosphere rather than delivering its contents to the surface
The AEC detected SNAP 9-A radiation in the air and on the ground. The radiation levels were minimal but it is simply false to claim that the contents of SNAP 9-A's RTG did not reach the ground. That's why they did the redesign!
4)...might kill fewer than the number of people annually killed by lightning strikes...
The number of people killed in the US each year by lightning strikes is about 100. The number of fatalities in the NASA environmental impact studies was first 2,300 then 120. The second number is close to, but still higher than, the number of people killed annually by lightning... This minor factual error aside, the important distinction is that the lightning strike tally is the result of many events while the Cassini RTG scenario was for just one. Your comparisson is between categorically different causes. It's like a mass murderer claiming that his having killed 80 people isn't really such a bad crime, compared with the 15,000-20,000 people killed in DWI accidents each year, so he should get a light sentence.
[approaches dead horse, bat in hand]
The magnitude of the perceived threat was great, hence the higher risk assessment, despite the low probability of a negative outcome. I am persuaded that the risk was even lower by the arguments raised by Jeff Cuzzi, but I think it's important to recognize the legitmacy of people's concern and to assuage it through rational dialog rather than ad hominem attacks and hyperbole -- even if they are all a bunch of ANZ wackos... after all, the ANZ-influenced herds of non-cognoscenti help to influence the science budget.
A method of engaging in electronic transactions by montoring the brainwaves of one or more parties to the transaction(s).
I claim:
1)A method for engaging in electronic commerce comprising the steps of:
A)Using an electronic system to store financial and other information necessary for the completion of a trasaction.
B)Presenting a range of options consitituting a transaction by means of an electronic system generating auditory, visual, tactile or other sensory cues.
C)Monitoring the alpha and theta brainwaves of the parties to the transaction during the presentation of sensory cues about the transaction.
C)Dynamically assessing the level of variation in alpha and theta brainwaves recorded during the display of sensory cues regarding the transaction and creating a record of peak brainwave activity associated with the sensory cues.
D)Creating electronic messages using the data stored in A to effect the option(s) selected in C.
Wow! Great link... That is truly scary.
My patent on a mechanism for the distribution of energy in biological or quasi-biological systems using adenosine triphosphate (ATP) covers part of your proposed system, I believe.
I'd be happy to license the technology to you, however.
My lawyer advises me to inform you that instructions coded and stored in deoxyribonucleic acid and necessary for the functioning of the patented ATP mechanism will be licensed seperately and subject to the terms of both UCITA and the DMCA.
My primary point was that you don't acknowledge that the magnitude of a negative outcome, not just its probability, is a significant factor in calculating risk.
Not all those who raised concerns were mindless, ignorant anti-nuke zealots.
You mention the integirty of the RTG in the Appollo 13 accident, but not the release of plutonium during the failure of SNAP 9-A in 1964. NASA's records indicate that in 22 missions with RTG power sources, there have been three accidents, one of which resulted in the release of radioactive material(NASA. Some might examine this record and draw the conclusion that NASA's methodology in determining accident probabilities is flawed. Before Challenger, the probability of catastrophic failure during shuttle launch was calculated as being very low. After the accident, the probability was recalculated and is now estimated to be much higher...
NASA's 1995 environmental impact study indicated that a potential Cassini failure could result in 2,300 fatalities over a 50 year period. This estimate was later reduced to 120 fatalities, but the studies seemed to be an official confirmation of the negative scenarios that alarmed some people.
I agree that the risk was worth taking, but I disagree that there was no risk.
Well if you want to fight totally lame, straw-man arguments so that you can feel victorious, be my guest. Just don't attribute the straw-man arguments to me. I didn't post anything about the legitimacy of non-zero arguments, so perhaps you meant to reply to another post.
What I said was that the magnitude of a negative outcome as well as its probability is a legitimate factor in Risk Assessment. Even small children understand this.
Imagine that Alex regularly does yard work that requires the use of a long-handled tool. This tool is stored on a high shelf and Alex knows that if he tries to get it down using only one hand, it will swing down and strike his leg about one in six times. He finds that it saves time to hold another tool while he gets the long-handled one and calculates that the occaisional slight bruise is an acceptable risk. Now imagine that Alex is invited to participate in a game of Russian roullette. Again, there is a one-sixth probability of a negative outcome. The risk however is much greater...and Alex declines to participate in the game.
Of course, the average person is woefully ill-equiped to make an informed judgement about the risks in the Cassini mission... And many people reacted out of an unreasoned reaction to anything "nuclear".But not everyone raising the issue was irrational or ignorant and some scientists presented plausible, valid (in the logical sense) arguments that there was reason for concern. The fact that the probability was low and that no negative outcome occurred does not invalidate the argument. Tesserae's statement that all the arguments suggesting that Cassini posed an unacceptable risk was "not right" consisted of assertions about the low probability of negative outcome and ignored the real importance of magnitude of negative outcome in risk assessment.
I agree it certainly should remind us of the vast beauty of the universe.
Sometimes I get depressed when I see the idiocy of human life--as illustrated by recent events in Jerusalem, or Antwerp, for example. At those times, the vast scales required of the imagination by geology, planetary science and cosmology are somehow soothing and exhilirating. We may nuke ourselves tomorrow -- Jupiter will continue in its progress round the sun. Stars will still form in the nebulae of Orion... These thoughts somehow bring me peace.
These kind of features come and go all the time. They are storm systems.
More importantly, such a moon would be well within Jupiter's Roche Limit and would disintegrate under the strain of tidal forces. Consider that these forces are responsible for the thrermal activity in Io's core... No way a moon could survive deep in the atmosphere.
then again...
You may addressing the wrong questions. I happen to agree with you that the risk was worth taking, but I also recognise that there is an ethical problem with putting people's lives at risk without their permission. The probability of an accident was low, but the potential loss of life of that hypothtical accident was high, hence the legitimate concern.
I don't believe he does, but I'm just trying to lull you to sleep with this post...
Well, it depends on how you define your terms...
First you have to be clear about what you mean by "land on it" -- Jupiter is a huge gas giant and while "we" might "hurl robots at it", the goal would be to sample its atmospheric composition and conditions, not land on it.
Second, you have to define what you mean when you ask "how many millions must go down the toilet".. etc. If you are wondering how much money will be spent on medical care for uninsured cigarette smokers over the next few years, or how much will be spent on cosmetics or disposable, single use plastic containers or glossy porno printed matter, or fuel inefficient SUVs... then the number is probably staggeringly high.
But if you are wondering how much money will be wasted by NASA beofre a probe is sent into Jupiter's atmosphere then the answer is: none at all. The Gallileo mission sent a probe into the Jovian atmosphere on December 7, 1995. The probe transmitted data for almost an hour and deropped about 200km into the Jovian atmosphere before rising temperatures caused it to fail.
I think you need to adjust your meds again!...
Pitty the oppressed wealthy of America! They get such a raw deal (that's why they are all flocking overseas)...
Am I paraphrasing you correctly, or did you write what you meant to say? If you mean what you have written, then you are out of touch with reality.
Turn off Rush Limbaugh, take a walk in the fresh air and then check your facts.
Your fantasy about the loss of the franchise for the poor being the logical consequence of progressive taxation suggests that you may be experiencing a psychotic break.I just hope the people who moderated you up did it out of appreciation for the artisitic quality of your fiction--It's disturbing to think that more than four people share this delusion.
Just on the off chance that some of you aren't complete wackos and would like to check the facts:Census tax data
Census income data
State income & tax data
For those of you who don't like reality, please on your meds and don't play with firearms!
Microsoft never represented me in anyway, so I guess it's only fair that they shouldn't pay any taxes!
Some might say I', misrepresenting the fine sentiments of the floundering fathers, but I say fair is fair. I just wish there was some other way they could screw us harder.
I don't think it's a restriction of free speech -- the movie isn't your speech. But it's almost certainly a restraint of trade and it might also be an illegal tariff and GATT violation.
The analagous situation is that I build a car in Mexico that reads its position with a GPS and disables its engine when it's driven into the United States. It's being "localised" and bypassing the "localization" might be a vaioation of the DMCA, but the car maker is in violation of NAFTA, GATT, etc. I wish there was someway to prosecute the MPAA and DVD CCA under these bills. Sue the feckers for tripple damages in a class action suit for every movie consumer on the planet!
The minute a programer starts trying to code a new market into being, he mutates into a businessman.The exact nature of this metamorphosis varies with circumstances but it's not unusual to see a hacker shed layers of cruft only to emmerge from the chrysalis wearing a slick new suit.
Grok this: he makes a mechanism for turning "Mojo" into cash. He takes a two percent cut of that deal. Walks, talks and smells like a BUSINESSMAN!
Yeah, baby! Can you smell my mojo? Can you? Does it make you horny?
Bad Mojo Jojo! Take that! And That! And That! --Powerpuff Girls
"Windows is going the way of Phlogiston"
So you admit that Phlogiston holds up almost 90% of th3e Celestial Sphere?
Not all BBS's went away... they just aren't on the net (for the most part) and so they have low visibility.
Globalization has been the big corporate wet dream for the last few years. Some /. readers have sung the praises of the global economy.
How is it that it is good for the corporations to take advantage of the wonderful global marketplace, but a crime for consumers to do the same?
Seriously, how can they defend this? The Regionalization mechanism seems to be a system designed both to restrain trade and to fix prices? Doesn't this constitute some kind of criminal conspiracy? I know ADM and it's competitors were busted for global proce fixing in the Lysene market... So there should be some way to prosecute them under US law, at the very least.
I can imagine the defense: "Oh no you can buy a movie wherever you like, you just can't watch that movie..."
The stupidity of the mpaa astounds me.
Remember when DAT was an up-and-coming technology for something other than backup tapes? The recording industry pinheads killed that technology for audio and it looks like these idiots will do the same for DVD and video.
Wake up and smell the binary data, Mr. Valenti! If you lock up control of this technology, people will use something else!
po_boy wrote: I refuse to believe that in the few thousand years since humans started being "civilized" that we have caused more animal species to become extinct than in the few million years before that. Unless species are becoming extinct at several thousand times the previous rates of extinctions, this is pretty much impossible.
well, If you "refuse to believe" then you are mindlessly dogmatic and debate with you is pointless... but, on the offchance that you were just being melodramatic when you employed that damning phrase, I'll present an argument here. Even if you refuse to believe what you don't like to hear, others who have been misled by your dogma may ne more open minded.
Widley accepted figures indicate that current rates of extinction are 100 times the "natural" rate and climbing to something between 1,000 and 10,000 times the natural rate of extinction. According to an article in the Washington Post:
Other sources of depressing news you won't want to believe:
According to scientists at the American Museum of Natural History:"This mass extinction is the fastest in Earth's 4.5-billion-year history and, unlike prior extinctions, is mainly the result of human activity and not of natural phenomena." The same scientists note that "In strong contrast to the fears expressed by scientists, the general public is relatively unaware of the loss of species and the threats that it poses." I guess they've been talking to po_boy...
http://www.greenpeace.org/majordomo/index-press-re leases/1997/msg00184.html
http://beacon-www. asa .utk.edu/issues/v78/n2/asteroids.2n.html
http://www.mapcruzin.com/ scr uztri/docs/news0922991.htm
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/ fie ldguide.html
http://www.pupress.princeton.e du/ titles/6276.html
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/ ext inction.html
A forward slash is rapid motion in which the blade-weilding hand is moved rapidly forward and across the target. There are many variations on the forward slash, but the most common are the uppper-right to lower-left and upper-left to lower-right diagonal forward slashes. The accompanying body motions are similar to the open-hand slap and backhand.
The backslash, on the other hand, is not descriptive of technique, but target. The truly effective backslash lays bare or transects the target's spinal column.