2. Some science topics are so politicized (such as abortion, stem cell research, global warming, evolution)
Further, what is interesting of the 4 you listed: one of them isn't much of a topic (in the sense there's much to debate) at all (evolution), since from scientific point of view there really aren't 2 sides to talk about. There are no credible scientific theories that would contradict evolution, nor big concerns regarding its accuracy at explaining observed phenomena.
It's something that you could say has gained tremendously from journalists and activist trying make it somehow seem like an open issue, when it really isn't.
This is obviously not to say that evolution is a holy cow of any sort -- if there were some puzzling contradicting observation, it obviously should be re-evaluated like all scientific theories. But as of now, there aren't such observations.
Other 3 do certainly have things that can be debated on scientific (and sometimes philophical/etchical) level; global warming on techical accuracy level (does it occur or not), abortion and stem cell research more on philosophical and practical level (consequences).
Can you imagine an episode of Friends or Boston Public or 60 minutes concluding that abortion is wrong,
Actually; to me it always seems they do just that, just in quite subtle way.
There is no big "Abortion is WRONG" statement, sure, but more often than not TV shows do actually show the alternative (keeping the baby, giving it up for adoption) as the "right choice" ("I would feel so guilty if I had done that"). Similarly for teens having sex (before being married), or adults having "promiscuous" sex; these are always presented as negative by definition. And as such, the seemingly neutral stance doesn't mean there's no value statement in there.
Also, I have yet to see a CSI/Law'n Order episode where people working in porn business are just regular people, instead of abusive/abused unbalanced wrecks of human beings. They are always either victims or morally corrupt; black and white all the way.
In this last case, it may well be functional compromise of left and right views (porn industry is bad because it (a) is morally corrupt or (b) it victimizes peole), but nonetheless, it supports conservative views quite nicely.
This is how change is affected in a free market. Not by the government, but by the people involved.
Supposing that fairy tale was true (who knows? it's a good story, but realistic?), the next question is "SO WHAT?"
There is nothing inherently better about "free market" (or "people involved") fixing the problem instead of government, or vice versa. Question is, will it fix it, and at what cost. And the difference between my effecting the change and government; one of us has a life to live, and the other doesn't. That other one is essentially working for me (and you and everyone else it represents): which one do you think should take the time to prevent abuses like one described by the article?
Forcing people to use a browser that has, as yet, not been proved completely secure is ridiculous.
No comments on the forcing part, but in general it's (practically) impossible to fully prove that something as complex as a modern web browser is completely secure. You can only prove something as insecure; and failing to do that for extended period of time you can assume it's secure. For what it's worth, Firefox security looks better than the sieve IE started as (although apparently MS is getting serious about security improvements to both IE and Windows).
Lastly, there is a distinct impression amongst Americans that they are being talked down to from Europe. Told there stupid. Told there cowboys. Told to just be quite and follow daddy Europe's lead. Don't expect this to ever win favor.
The ironic thing here is, that it's exactly the same sentiment many europeans have about US government... (esp. the current one). I mean, you just need to replace "cowboys" part with, say, "pacifist cowards" or "economic fools" (I don't think european leaders ever imply americans are stupid, although obviously that doesn't mean there couldn't be such impression... vigilante cowboys, definitely; and a few other stereotypical prejudices) and sentence would be completely true from the other perspective.
I fully agree that patronizing tone is the best way to alienate potential friends and allies.
As to overly ambitious protection plans; yeah, I don't even want to think about similar things in
my home country (trying to "save" few dozens of "endangered" sea gulls, by preventing rezoning of an existing industrial zone to a harbour etc.).
That's probably a universal problem: way too many environmentalist don't see the big picture but focus on strawmen fights... the Greenpeace approach. Those groups may well do more damage to actual environmental protection than help it.
Oh, and for what it's worth: I do kinda like aestbetics of mini-cooper, and never understood the "bigger is better" angle (big screen tvs, SUVs). But that's probably just my european upbringing.:-)
Well; human brain is really at its best in finding similarities (patterns, analogies), so it's no wonder that oftentimes similarities are found where none really exist.
However, in case of da Vinci, while there may be some over-eagerness in explaining how he invented everything, he truly was a remarkably talented inventor... one that doesn't really need any extra credit. Not to mention being multi-talented individual gifted in other areas as well.
As opposed to Nostradamus, whose babblings are well over-inflated... but same can be said about all fortune tellers, from apocalypse to most sci-fi authors (ones that try hard to 'predict' future).
So I think it's bit unfair to compare da Vinci with Nostradamus.
I'd like to see a candidate whose policies, according to you, do NOT work!
Actually, no I wouldn't. It's bad enough with this guy who you allege is doing a wonderful job. Or maybe it's just that your interests are closer to Chthulhu's than mine?
Hmmh. I thought the biggest complaint actually wasn't so much between registrations and results, but alleged consistent discrepancy between the exit polls and actual results; consistent in magnitude and in kinds of precincts it occured in. Note the word alleged; I don't know how credible these claims are.
Ok; that would be adequate general answer to a general question. But somehow I doubt that's relevant to the specific case of steel production.... or can you honestly say that, for example, german or french steel is second-rate product? Or that its production is more wasteful, knowing european countries are much more committed to environmentalism than USA?
What many non-Americans don't realize, is that many Americans voted for Bush for these very reasons.
I'm fully aware of that, actually.:-/
There are plenty of tin-foil folks having nightmares about UN "domination"... those are hilarious; on one hand these deriding of UN as useless powerless institution (which it is, and was designed to be, with veto powers), and on the other, there's deep concern about UN's sinister plans. I guess it has to be based somewhat on trying to find one more level of "bad government"... after all, it's "our guy" in the white house, so there has to be some other evil organization above it that we can fight against.
That their motivations for many global policies being driven more from "third-world jealousy" and "aristocratic guilt" than global prosperity.
Yes, it goes back to values. Just like I can rephrase "global prosperity" as "simple greed" (and claim US could give a flying fuck about global prosperity; it's just the old Reaganomics' idea of "give more money to the rich so some trickles to the poor" in global scale; ie. reason for why rich need more and poor whatever drips down),
you can rephrase terms
"global justice" (ICC) to "third-world jealousy".
But I do think it also shows that economics aspects are not number one priority for most countries; and claiming that's wrong makes as much sense as claiming international solidarity has to be the number one shared global value.
But in the end there's nothing fundamentally wrong about being selfish at international level. You just have to present it right; to minimize damage.
Bush does decent job explaining his stances to US citizens (judging by the election results...); but doesn't even try the same abroad.
So why does this matter?
Because it wouldn't cost him anything to be bit more tactful! He'd get more support from his allies; avoid aggravating non-allies even more, and yet cost NOTHING in domestic politics.
90% of americans couldn't care less what he (or any president) says outside of this country. Just like europeans paid lip service to Bush's Iraq plans ("yes, we are also concerned about Iraq"... No they weren't; they were just being diplomatic there!), Bush could easily do what Clinton did. Claim it's a "decent idea", yet drag his feet, and never do anything bare minimum (or less) to suppor t whatever idea it was. But no, he has to grand-stand, argue it's a sucky idea and that essentially only an idiot would propose it.
And to top it off, bitch and whine about others not proposing American "lead" in fixing the world. Amazing.
Um, well, European community (and its member countries) are committed to managing it. Whether
they succeed or not is one thing, but isn't that
better than USA that doesn't even want to try it?
I thought it wasn't very American (tm) to surrender to a powerful enemy? But maybe it is; maybe it's ok to be coward if alternative is costly.
Now as to Germany (and Sweden), I fully agree that their stance on nuclear power is totally and completely absurd. It's one thing not to build new capacity, but quite another to decommission fully functional safe units that have already been paid for (and for which waste processing has to be handled no matter what). But then there are countries like France and Finland, that have
pretty different views on the future of nuclear
power.
Personally I'm one of those practical engineers who thinks that fission power is the best short-term answer to electricity needs. And for longer term, wind and solar can provide some help, depending on location (yes, not so much in Europe), as well as bio-fuels (that can actually work in many european countries). Couple that with
modest goals in efficiency improvements and actual
reduction in use and the goal is not unachievable.
The biggest fundamental difference however is the general attitude of population. In Europe it's FASHIONABLE to "be green". Big parties pay at least lip service to environment. It's much like gun "rights" and "moral values" in US; every candidate HAS to use phrases like "god bless you" as minimum requirement to get votes... no matter what person's beliefs are. But environmentalism is a curse word, and greens are just those whackoes out there.
Thanks for the reply. Although I'm not fully convinced that US couldn't afford to do it whereas most european nations plan to (using various strategies, from Finland's new nuclear plant to Denmark's ambitious wind energy programs), at least it's good to know that there are people in US evaluating various approaches. As to Europe having had more time... granted, industrialized age started in early 19th century, but really, except for past couple of decades, most anything done earlier is largely irrelevant (due to speed of technological changes... 70s oil crisis probably is one milestone you could consider for "modern" energy use planning). It is definitely true that many european countries have seen first-hand the problems (I remember the news during eighties, specifically about acid rains you mentioned), however.
Also, improvements done by european countries prior to 1995 are in a way make it more, not less difficult, since they lower the starting point.
Finally, I thought poor quality (brown) coal is something many european countries (Germany, eastern europe) had problems with as well?
But I guess the fact that US has plentiful cheap domestic supply of energy does matter when calculating costs: for Japan and many other industrialized countries savings are more significant, as they directly replace exportable fuels, and create bigger cost savings.
Personally I don't think it was a big surprise GWB is not planning to care about Kyoto protocol.
He's pretty averse to participating in any multi-lateral treaty, unless it's proposed by US (kind of NIH syndrome at governmental level).
But I hope there could be some public plan to aim at similar goals; for US to commit to some improvements, even if that was separate from Kyoto protocol. Even something as modest as trying to freeze current Co2 output as of 2004 level...
Kyoto protocol itself is meant more as proof-of-concept (prototype) than anything else; if US would produce something similar, at least
it would indicate americans aren't ignoring the potential problem.
I think it really is interesting that at state-level there are much more ambitious plans; like the Colorado's brand new "10% from renewable sources" amendment. And that from a generally conservative mid-western state.
(yes yes, I do understand it's part of weird american cultural tradition to spout off references to divine being(s)... and mere use of such ostensibly religious sayings isn't quite as bad as it sounds).
This is why the U.S. is so apprehensive about the treaty... we're already doing what we can within our country's own TER system to combat pollution, so there's not much room left for maneuvering on a global scale
The main counter-point here, though, is the question of "but how do europeans do it".
Otherwise it might be a reasonable stand... but
really, what with Bad Socialism, strong labor
unions and high taxes, somehow (western) Europe still has
similar standards of living to that of US, and they seem to be able to afford to comply with Kyoto protocol.
Same also applies to, say, China and Japan, both of which seem serious enough about compliance.
Not unlike say Microsoft making an extra 200M xboxes, giving away all their 'excess' in japan and having japan/Sony getting a _bit_ upset.
That would be implying that steel was given to US for free, which I have hard time believing.
Maybe it's just a bad analogy.
But since WTO in general has also outlawed government support for industries (such as steel producers...), how else would it be possible to sell cheaper steel than by more efficient production? Isn't that EXACTLY what free trade is all about?
Of course the real answer is that there are always double-standards when conservatives talk about Free Trade: it's touted as long as it's convenient; then there are lots of excuses for scrapping freedom with respect to certain industry.
the bill would cost millions of jobs, because it would DRAMATICALY increase the cost of energy
FUD. How do you think they manage(d) to do this in Europe, where the target is even stricter than that of USA?
The target for USA was measly 7%; there's nothing absurd or unreasonable about that goal (if anything it's rather low...). That much you'd save by rather simple measures; combining small increases in use of non-fossil energy sources (nuclear, wind, solar) with increases in energy efficiency (hybrid cars, reasonable insulation of houses).
For crying out loud: even conservative Colorado voted for an amendment that requires energy producers to produce 10% of all energy from renewable sources by 2015. How hard could it be to get the whole country to do the tiny little step, without whining and bitching about "undue burden".
And you are an ignoramus. Check out
Wikipedia
for details if you don't take my word:
The Kyoto protocol was specifically designed to hamper american economic dominance
This is so silly it's hard to even comment.
Maybe try wearing looser tin foil hat?
A treaty that places tight restrictions on CO2 coming from developed countries, but no restrictions what so ever on developing countries like China
Uh, China has ratified the damn thing!
80/20 rule also applies here: of course it's better to focus on the biggest producers.
Who cares if, say, Gambia reduces its Co2 production by 12% if USA continues its
excessive Co2-producing energy consumption?
Likewise, although limits could be set to be,
say, equal amounts per capita, those would
be meaningless for third world countries: they'd
have to increase production tenfold to reach
such limits.
There's no reason to ask the US taxpayers to actually pay for an outsourcing of thier jobs when the net result will actually be to increase worldwide pollution, now is there.
Increase? Huh? Even if industry did move (which it wouldn't, to any large degree), how on earth
would Co2 production increase?
If the treaty had reasonable constraints on all countries, then the US should sign it, but a treaty that seeks to move dirty industries from the US (and EU, though to a lesser degree)
Actually not only has EU slightly stricter RELATIVE targets (even though it already produces less than half
as much pollutants than USA, per capita), EU
has already worked on reducing pollution much
more efficiently than USA.
And for some weird reason, EU doesn't whine and
bitch about cleanup costs. Partly because it's
more densely populated, and people have experienced pollution (acid rain of 80s killing
forests in Germany etc); partly because the
sense of social responsibility is much higher
back there.
From rhetorical stand-point, I would think USA
would WANT to lead the world here... but I guess
that theme is only used when there's a dictator
the president has beef with. So in the meantime,
it's actually that loathed pacifist continent
of Europe that is actually leading the world
in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
They're the new monarchy, they just don't rely on God or Tradition as excuses any more.
I take it you didn't follow the rhetorics Bush/Cheney gang used on election 2004...:-)
I recall those 2 particular excuses were excessively used, to dupe people to vote for them.
(other than that I agree in most of the points -- indeed it's the power most such folks are after. And with power, you can get wealth reasonably easily)
This treaty doesn't hold India or China to the same levels that the USA and EU are held to.
Yes. And maybe that's because they produce fraction of Co2 per capita USA and Europe do?
As such, freezing their Co2 production to current levels would be much more damaging to their prospects of improving standards of living: they never got to waste energy to the degree current industrial giants did. Conversely, USA et al.
have many more opportunities to reduce excessive
usage, using new technology.
Funny thing is that there are people in USA and Europe (and Japan, Australia etc) that have enjoyed the high standards of living energy usage has allowed, for quite a while... and now would want to freeze the situation, and call that fair. Amazing.
No, Bushs position is total BS and is yet another reason why pretty much everybody in Europe loathes him and can't believe middle America was dumb enough to vote for him.
Indeed! What many americans do not realize is that non-americans dislike of George is and was based on many things other than Iraq.
GWB basically gave the middle-finger salute to the rest of the world right after becoming the president in 2000: refusing to join land-mine treaty and international court of war crimes, along with Kyoto protocol; and doing so without any diplomatic tact. In many cases excuses given were ridiculous ("gee, in the court it could happen that americans would get prosecuted and that would be bad"... yeah, saints like, say, torturers at that iraqi prison).
Iraq really is the icing on the cake: important, but not the sole reason.
The whole presidential election was like a bad dream: and yes, it's hard to believe how dumb the middle class here is.
What about moving the company to another country that not only does NOT have limitations on green house gas production
You do realize that Kyoto protocol is an international treaty, and as such reduces number of such hypothetical countries?
And specifically, it is to be ratified by all significant industrialized countries.
The reason for this is exactly to prevent unfair competition between countries.
As much fun as conspiracy theories are, I think the simplicity principle applies here: don't attribute to evil what can be easily explained by ignorance.
I think it's enough that he's just short-sighted greedy ignorant fool, representing wants of other likeminded fools.
Sad as it is, I don't think mr. Bush really needs alleged extra money this will save/earn him.
In order to not sacrific ergonomics, it has to be BIG, and I mean BIG.
Nope. It's input (keyboard, mouse) and output (display) devices have to be well designed.
That need not make it huge; and especially, not heavy. It does generally make them more expensive, however.
In order to provide desktop-like performance, it has to have a full-fledged desktop chip... In this case, a P4.
I didn't say "desktop-like", I said reasonable. And any current mobile chip is plenty fast. At work I have 450 mhz desk top system and have no need for faster one. And it's been a while since you could find anything that low-power on the market.
But in the end what really matters is the tradeoff: given laptop that is good enough to replace a work station, I'd switch right away.
Work stations are ok, but they are static; you can't take them with you. If you never leave your mommy's basement, that may be good enough for you. But that's not the case for me.
So choices are either cheap ubiquitous (shared) terminals ("network appliances") available anywhere, or advanced (personal) lap tops.
Right now it's an easy choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Further, what is interesting of the 4 you listed: one of them isn't much of a topic (in the sense there's much to debate) at all (evolution), since from scientific point of view there really aren't 2 sides to talk about. There are no credible scientific theories that would contradict evolution, nor big concerns regarding its accuracy at explaining observed phenomena. It's something that you could say has gained tremendously from journalists and activist trying make it somehow seem like an open issue, when it really isn't.
This is obviously not to say that evolution is a holy cow of any sort -- if there were some puzzling contradicting observation, it obviously should be re-evaluated like all scientific theories. But as of now, there aren't such observations.
Other 3 do certainly have things that can be debated on scientific (and sometimes philophical/etchical) level; global warming on techical accuracy level (does it occur or not), abortion and stem cell research more on philosophical and practical level (consequences).
Actually; to me it always seems they do just that, just in quite subtle way. There is no big "Abortion is WRONG" statement, sure, but more often than not TV shows do actually show the alternative (keeping the baby, giving it up for adoption) as the "right choice" ("I would feel so guilty if I had done that"). Similarly for teens having sex (before being married), or adults having "promiscuous" sex; these are always presented as negative by definition. And as such, the seemingly neutral stance doesn't mean there's no value statement in there.
Also, I have yet to see a CSI/Law'n Order episode where people working in porn business are just regular people, instead of abusive/abused unbalanced wrecks of human beings. They are always either victims or morally corrupt; black and white all the way. In this last case, it may well be functional compromise of left and right views (porn industry is bad because it (a) is morally corrupt or (b) it victimizes peole), but nonetheless, it supports conservative views quite nicely.
Supposing that fairy tale was true (who knows? it's a good story, but realistic?), the next question is "SO WHAT?"
There is nothing inherently better about "free market" (or "people involved") fixing the problem instead of government, or vice versa. Question is, will it fix it, and at what cost. And the difference between my effecting the change and government; one of us has a life to live, and the other doesn't. That other one is essentially working for me (and you and everyone else it represents): which one do you think should take the time to prevent abuses like one described by the article?
No kidding; you already have your pointy-haired boss doing that for you. Just bend over, mr. anonymous coward, take another one for the team.
Me? I'd rather that hypothetical PhBureucrat tell my PhBoss what to NOT do (as in breaking the labour laws as mentioned in the article).
No comments on the forcing part, but in general it's (practically) impossible to fully prove that something as complex as a modern web browser is completely secure. You can only prove something as insecure; and failing to do that for extended period of time you can assume it's secure. For what it's worth, Firefox security looks better than the sieve IE started as (although apparently MS is getting serious about security improvements to both IE and Windows).
The ironic thing here is, that it's exactly the same sentiment many europeans have about US government... (esp. the current one). I mean, you just need to replace "cowboys" part with, say, "pacifist cowards" or "economic fools" (I don't think european leaders ever imply americans are stupid, although obviously that doesn't mean there couldn't be such impression... vigilante cowboys, definitely; and a few other stereotypical prejudices) and sentence would be completely true from the other perspective. I fully agree that patronizing tone is the best way to alienate potential friends and allies.
As to overly ambitious protection plans; yeah, I don't even want to think about similar things in my home country (trying to "save" few dozens of "endangered" sea gulls, by preventing rezoning of an existing industrial zone to a harbour etc.). That's probably a universal problem: way too many environmentalist don't see the big picture but focus on strawmen fights... the Greenpeace approach. Those groups may well do more damage to actual environmental protection than help it.
Oh, and for what it's worth: I do kinda like aestbetics of mini-cooper, and never understood the "bigger is better" angle (big screen tvs, SUVs). But that's probably just my european upbringing. :-)
As opposed to Nostradamus, whose babblings are well over-inflated... but same can be said about all fortune tellers, from apocalypse to most sci-fi authors (ones that try hard to 'predict' future).
So I think it's bit unfair to compare da Vinci with Nostradamus.
Dude, chances are you already hit the bottom based on that post alone!
I'd like to see a candidate whose policies, according to you, do NOT work!
Actually, no I wouldn't. It's bad enough with this guy who you allege is doing a wonderful job. Or maybe it's just that your interests are closer to Chthulhu's than mine?
Hmmh. I thought the biggest complaint actually wasn't so much between registrations and results, but alleged consistent discrepancy between the exit polls and actual results; consistent in magnitude and in kinds of precincts it occured in. Note the word alleged; I don't know how credible these claims are.
Ok; that would be adequate general answer to a general question. But somehow I doubt that's relevant to the specific case of steel production.... or can you honestly say that, for example, german or french steel is second-rate product? Or that its production is more wasteful, knowing european countries are much more committed to environmentalism than USA?
I'm fully aware of that, actually. :-/
There are plenty of tin-foil folks having nightmares about UN "domination"... those are hilarious; on one hand these deriding of UN as useless powerless institution (which it is, and was designed to be, with veto powers), and on the other, there's deep concern about UN's sinister plans. I guess it has to be based somewhat on trying to find one more level of "bad government"... after all, it's "our guy" in the white house, so there has to be some other evil organization above it that we can fight against.
That their motivations for many global policies being driven more from "third-world jealousy" and "aristocratic guilt" than global prosperity.
Yes, it goes back to values. Just like I can rephrase "global prosperity" as "simple greed" (and claim US could give a flying fuck about global prosperity; it's just the old Reaganomics' idea of "give more money to the rich so some trickles to the poor" in global scale; ie. reason for why rich need more and poor whatever drips down), you can rephrase terms "global justice" (ICC) to "third-world jealousy". But I do think it also shows that economics aspects are not number one priority for most countries; and claiming that's wrong makes as much sense as claiming international solidarity has to be the number one shared global value.
But in the end there's nothing fundamentally wrong about being selfish at international level. You just have to present it right; to minimize damage. Bush does decent job explaining his stances to US citizens (judging by the election results...); but doesn't even try the same abroad.
So why does this matter? Because it wouldn't cost him anything to be bit more tactful! He'd get more support from his allies; avoid aggravating non-allies even more, and yet cost NOTHING in domestic politics. 90% of americans couldn't care less what he (or any president) says outside of this country. Just like europeans paid lip service to Bush's Iraq plans ("yes, we are also concerned about Iraq"... No they weren't; they were just being diplomatic there!), Bush could easily do what Clinton did. Claim it's a "decent idea", yet drag his feet, and never do anything bare minimum (or less) to suppor t whatever idea it was. But no, he has to grand-stand, argue it's a sucky idea and that essentially only an idiot would propose it. And to top it off, bitch and whine about others not proposing American "lead" in fixing the world. Amazing.
Um, well, European community (and its member countries) are committed to managing it. Whether they succeed or not is one thing, but isn't that better than USA that doesn't even want to try it? I thought it wasn't very American (tm) to surrender to a powerful enemy? But maybe it is; maybe it's ok to be coward if alternative is costly.
Now as to Germany (and Sweden), I fully agree that their stance on nuclear power is totally and completely absurd. It's one thing not to build new capacity, but quite another to decommission fully functional safe units that have already been paid for (and for which waste processing has to be handled no matter what). But then there are countries like France and Finland, that have pretty different views on the future of nuclear power.
Personally I'm one of those practical engineers who thinks that fission power is the best short-term answer to electricity needs. And for longer term, wind and solar can provide some help, depending on location (yes, not so much in Europe), as well as bio-fuels (that can actually work in many european countries). Couple that with modest goals in efficiency improvements and actual reduction in use and the goal is not unachievable.
The biggest fundamental difference however is the general attitude of population. In Europe it's FASHIONABLE to "be green". Big parties pay at least lip service to environment. It's much like gun "rights" and "moral values" in US; every candidate HAS to use phrases like "god bless you" as minimum requirement to get votes... no matter what person's beliefs are. But environmentalism is a curse word, and greens are just those whackoes out there.
Personally I don't think it was a big surprise GWB is not planning to care about Kyoto protocol. He's pretty averse to participating in any multi-lateral treaty, unless it's proposed by US (kind of NIH syndrome at governmental level). But I hope there could be some public plan to aim at similar goals; for US to commit to some improvements, even if that was separate from Kyoto protocol. Even something as modest as trying to freeze current Co2 output as of 2004 level... Kyoto protocol itself is meant more as proof-of-concept (prototype) than anything else; if US would produce something similar, at least it would indicate americans aren't ignoring the potential problem.
I think it really is interesting that at state-level there are much more ambitious plans; like the Colorado's brand new "10% from renewable sources" amendment. And that from a generally conservative mid-western state.
(yes yes, I do understand it's part of weird american cultural tradition to spout off references to divine being(s)... and mere use of such ostensibly religious sayings isn't quite as bad as it sounds).
The main counter-point here, though, is the question of "but how do europeans do it". Otherwise it might be a reasonable stand... but really, what with Bad Socialism, strong labor unions and high taxes, somehow (western) Europe still has similar standards of living to that of US, and they seem to be able to afford to comply with Kyoto protocol.
Same also applies to, say, China and Japan, both of which seem serious enough about compliance.
That would be implying that steel was given to US for free, which I have hard time believing. Maybe it's just a bad analogy. But since WTO in general has also outlawed government support for industries (such as steel producers...), how else would it be possible to sell cheaper steel than by more efficient production? Isn't that EXACTLY what free trade is all about?
Of course the real answer is that there are always double-standards when conservatives talk about Free Trade: it's touted as long as it's convenient; then there are lots of excuses for scrapping freedom with respect to certain industry.
FUD. How do you think they manage(d) to do this in Europe, where the target is even stricter than that of USA?
The target for USA was measly 7%; there's nothing absurd or unreasonable about that goal (if anything it's rather low...). That much you'd save by rather simple measures; combining small increases in use of non-fossil energy sources (nuclear, wind, solar) with increases in energy efficiency (hybrid cars, reasonable insulation of houses).
For crying out loud: even conservative Colorado voted for an amendment that requires energy producers to produce 10% of all energy from renewable sources by 2015. How hard could it be to get the whole country to do the tiny little step, without whining and bitching about "undue burden".
And you are an ignoramus. Check out Wikipedia for details if you don't take my word:
The Kyoto protocol was specifically designed to hamper american economic dominance
This is so silly it's hard to even comment. Maybe try wearing looser tin foil hat?
A treaty that places tight restrictions on CO2 coming from developed countries, but no restrictions what so ever on developing countries like China
Uh, China has ratified the damn thing! 80/20 rule also applies here: of course it's better to focus on the biggest producers. Who cares if, say, Gambia reduces its Co2 production by 12% if USA continues its excessive Co2-producing energy consumption? Likewise, although limits could be set to be, say, equal amounts per capita, those would be meaningless for third world countries: they'd have to increase production tenfold to reach such limits.
There's no reason to ask the US taxpayers to actually pay for an outsourcing of thier jobs when the net result will actually be to increase worldwide pollution, now is there.
Increase? Huh? Even if industry did move (which it wouldn't, to any large degree), how on earth would Co2 production increase?
If the treaty had reasonable constraints on all countries, then the US should sign it, but a treaty that seeks to move dirty industries from the US (and EU, though to a lesser degree)
Actually not only has EU slightly stricter RELATIVE targets (even though it already produces less than half as much pollutants than USA, per capita), EU has already worked on reducing pollution much more efficiently than USA.
And for some weird reason, EU doesn't whine and bitch about cleanup costs. Partly because it's more densely populated, and people have experienced pollution (acid rain of 80s killing forests in Germany etc); partly because the sense of social responsibility is much higher back there.
From rhetorical stand-point, I would think USA would WANT to lead the world here... but I guess that theme is only used when there's a dictator the president has beef with. So in the meantime, it's actually that loathed pacifist continent of Europe that is actually leading the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
I take it you didn't follow the rhetorics Bush/Cheney gang used on election 2004... :-)
I recall those 2 particular excuses were excessively used, to dupe people to vote for them.
(other than that I agree in most of the points -- indeed it's the power most such folks are after. And with power, you can get wealth reasonably easily)
Yes. And maybe that's because they produce fraction of Co2 per capita USA and Europe do? As such, freezing their Co2 production to current levels would be much more damaging to their prospects of improving standards of living: they never got to waste energy to the degree current industrial giants did. Conversely, USA et al. have many more opportunities to reduce excessive usage, using new technology.
Funny thing is that there are people in USA and Europe (and Japan, Australia etc) that have enjoyed the high standards of living energy usage has allowed, for quite a while... and now would want to freeze the situation, and call that fair. Amazing.
Indeed! What many americans do not realize is that non-americans dislike of George is and was based on many things other than Iraq. GWB basically gave the middle-finger salute to the rest of the world right after becoming the president in 2000: refusing to join land-mine treaty and international court of war crimes, along with Kyoto protocol; and doing so without any diplomatic tact. In many cases excuses given were ridiculous ("gee, in the court it could happen that americans would get prosecuted and that would be bad"... yeah, saints like, say, torturers at that iraqi prison). Iraq really is the icing on the cake: important, but not the sole reason.
The whole presidential election was like a bad dream: and yes, it's hard to believe how dumb the middle class here is.
You do realize that Kyoto protocol is an international treaty, and as such reduces number of such hypothetical countries? And specifically, it is to be ratified by all significant industrialized countries. The reason for this is exactly to prevent unfair competition between countries.
Sad as it is, I don't think mr. Bush really needs alleged extra money this will save/earn him.
Nope. It's input (keyboard, mouse) and output (display) devices have to be well designed. That need not make it huge; and especially, not heavy. It does generally make them more expensive, however.
In order to provide desktop-like performance, it has to have a full-fledged desktop chip... In this case, a P4.
I didn't say "desktop-like", I said reasonable. And any current mobile chip is plenty fast. At work I have 450 mhz desk top system and have no need for faster one. And it's been a while since you could find anything that low-power on the market.
But in the end what really matters is the tradeoff: given laptop that is good enough to replace a work station, I'd switch right away. Work stations are ok, but they are static; you can't take them with you. If you never leave your mommy's basement, that may be good enough for you. But that's not the case for me. So choices are either cheap ubiquitous (shared) terminals ("network appliances") available anywhere, or advanced (personal) lap tops. Right now it's an easy choice.