Probably wouldn't work. Who would take a scientific journal owned by the Chinese government seriously? All it would do is kill that journal off... as the staff quit in protest, crossed the street to some open office space and established a new one.
No, the problem is that the staff at most scientific journals are academic types who when push comes to shove are on the side of the Communists and thus do not want to censure them. So they have to speak out in extreme cases like this one to maintain credibility but will quietly accede to the demands once the hubbub dies out a bit.
> Should that billion dollars go towards funding solar research or healthcare for the poor?
Not quite the right formulation. If (big IF) Climate Change (human caused or not) is happening there are some questions science can answer, but is currently forbidden from even asking... since the science is so settled we not only know climate change is happening, humans are the cause by releasing CO2 and a massive wealth redistribution scheme that just happens to be the same communism the same pinheads were pushing for fifty years is the only possible solution.
Question 1: If it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the climate is warming and is likely to continue doing so if nothing changes, the question is WHY? Is it CO2, the Sun, deforestation, something else?
Question 2: Once we know #1 we will likely know if it is man caused. But this question isn't really important. If the planet is on a long term warming trend it doesn't really matter if we are causing it, the result is the same.
Question 3: Finally we need to know what the economic costs of doing nothing are. That goes on the list of options. Then we should carefully list actions we could take that would cause temps to decrease, but not go below where they are now since colder is bad, really bad. Each option should be scored with costs, political (loss of freedom, etc.) and economic along with the best guess of how much it would reduce the economic losses by reduction of warming.
Only after we have a real list of options from science can the political process begin to pick from them. Doing nothing could very well be the best option. Just depends how much it costs vs the costs of the proposed solutions. I know I'd probably pick nothing over the current proposals.
> It has always been a political affair and general popularity contest award.
This. After they gave one to Arafat anyone who would still accept one was tainted as far as I was concerned. Personally I'd tell em to go perform an improbable act of self procreation because while the money would be super sweet I wouldn't want to be associated with most of the other 'winners' of the award. Obama isn't even close to the worst person to own one. Obama is just a SCoaMF, more stupid than evil.
The problem is anyone working in China is required to assert Chinese territorial claims because to do otherwise would be an admission that there is a dispute, i.e. that the State might be wrong; and that idea is sedition to a police state.
The only solution is for the scientific journals in the Free World to accept papers as written and then add a editorial note on the order of this:
"Note: This paper was submitted by a prisoner of the Communist Chinese dictatorship and thus must promote Chinese foreign policy goals or be sent to a labor camp or killed. Because the science in this paper is otherwise sound we are publishing it as written, however this should not be taken as an endorsement of Chinese territorial claims by this journal." [Internationally accepted map inset goes here with differences highlighted.]
In other words, throw a passive aggressive turd in their faces and they will be shamed into backing down.
And every use of it goes through Google's servers. The computing isn't in Android, it is on Google's cluster. And if, like me, you have no data plan it only works when in range of WiFi.
And I suspect Apple is doing the exact same thing. Puny ARM processors can't do good voice recognition.
Yes it would. Too bad Apples suck for running X. A one button pointer is useless for running *NIX/X apps. And it would defeat the whole purpose to carry around a mouse just because Jobs was an utter asshole on that point. How hard would it be to let the pad track where you tap on the button area and have an option let it send left/center/right events? But no, he had a religious thing about one button being the only way to go.
Then there is the whole price/performance thing. A Thinkpad is a better built machine for less money compared to just about any comperable MacBook. Many even have Firewire ports... they just don't call them that. And you can have them your way, not the two or three ways Steve decreed were the only choices you wanted. Pick your display, pick your hdd, pick which wireless tech(s) you want or don't want, pick from a half dozen base chassis options from ultralight to portable workstation. And since you almost always have to buy a more expensive Macbook to get the one or two features you wanted vs the customized Thinkpad you save even more. Yes you will have to buy a Windows license but almost all of them run Linux really well.
> with 66% of the worldwide industry profits in cell phones?
No. Maybe in smartphones, but they are a minority of the market. There is a whole world beyond the 1st world and nobody there can afford a smartphone yet. It is a volume business but there is a lot of profit there in churning out cheap phones by the container. And who the fsck cares about profits unless you are an Apple shareholder, units moved are what counts for everyone else. Developers don't give a crap how much Apple is making, they want to know how many potential customers they have to justify developing for the platform to judge how much THEY stand to make. Most users don't really care how much Apple is making in profit except if they learn Apple makes 50 juicy points it might piss some off while some fanboys like yourself seem to get off on how hard Apple is screwing you.
And in volume of Smartphones Apple is at 18% and falling fast into their 5-10% market niche they have stayed within on the desktop since the 1980s. Give it another year and they will probably be falling fast in tablets until they hit boutique luxury good territory. Because that is what Apple is, a premium brand experience. The only reason developers still care about iOS is they (rightly it appears) assume anyone who can afford an iProduct has enough disposable income to afford to pay for lots of apps so while in absolute percentage of potential customers they may be shrinking, they rakeoff per customer is high enough to justify porting.
> Would someone please please make Exxon et al. at least pay 10% of what they make
Uh, even the Center for American Progress (i.e. Soros) is bitchin that they 'only' pay 17.2% and their numbers are suspect... and that number is just corporate income tax, it doesn't count extraction royalties paid to various governments, property taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, etc. They pay a crapload in taxes. Just ask Google, they will point at a Washington Post piece on the subject if you ask "Exxon taxes".
As for the rest of your post about trying to avoid dealing with 'the corporations' it is just laughable. You want a solar system to avoid paying the electric company. And where do you think the panels, controllers, batteries, etc. in that solar system would come from? Big corporations, mostly in China. Modern civilization is built on the idea that specialization and division of labor increases productivity and thus gives us the consumer bounty and wealth we currently enjoy. Just how much time are you expending reinventing so many wheels? How much more wealth would you create for yourself if you put that time into whatever skill you actually enjoy and are valued for instead of low volume gardening? Unless of course you LIKE gardening, then go for it since everybody should have a hobby.
> Have you ever noticed how everybody in the world is getting cell phones that are cheap--practically disposable, even--and yet perfectly functional?
Every actually priced a cell phone? Didn't think so. You are paying a lot more than you think for that shiny toy, they just figured out you will swallow $200 up front and finance the rest over two years a lot better than $499 up front. Or did you think cell service alone is why your bill is as high as it is? Ever wondered why people with 'good credit' who can qualify for a contract phone pay more than the poor schlubs with their TracPhones? It is because the TracPhone is crap and you are making notes on an expensive phone. If you bring your own phone and look for the deals (because they don't want to publicise the notion) you can get monthly service at reasonable rates. T-Mobile just started selling a plan at Wallyworld for $30/month that gives you 5GB of 4/3G data, unlimited 2G after that, unlimited text and a hundred minutes of talk, device not included. Most people are getting a $30/month surcharge just for data or to be allowed to buy a smartphone if they are on contract.
That said, if one knows where to look on eBay you can find Android phones at reasonable prices now, just don't expect to find a current, name brand, flagship one for less than a few hundred.
Pretty much the similar thing which is why I mentioned it. If this thing is a scam it was because they could use "for the children" to unlock some sweet sweet taxpayer money from the Indian govt. Meanwhile over here Solyndra used "for the Earth" to unlock half a gigabuck. Imagine that much money for a tablet project. Even at $50 per unit the money we pissed away on Solyndra would have put 10 million tablets into our schools. That would give every K-1 student one and almost every second grader.
Sounds like it will have a wholesale price in quantity of $35 then get marked up to $60 for retail which is about right considering the specs. If it actually appears at retail anywhere in the world around that price you know the thing is probably legit. If not, it is just a scam on the Indian govt. We have Solyndra so we can't laugh.
> As the Earth heats, we can expect to find less arable land.
Oh bull poop. Ever looked at a map? Noticed how much land mass is currently useless for growing in Russia, Canada, etc? Warm things up a bit and we will lose some land and gain some.
Anyway, this is the second Warmer story today, this is getting silly. This isn't dkos... or it least it wasn't.
> this is going to require the intervention of what you right-wing kooks call "big government" to make happen
Not really. Mostly it would involve having the government NOT do the stupid things it is now doing, mostly FEMA not bailing the same people out every couple of years and creating moral hazard. If your house flooded yet again and THIS time FEMA said it was the last time they intended to pay you or provide zero interest loans, whatever and that you had better take this check and use it to build somewhere a little higher up or put your house on very tall stilts you would do exactly that.
The city of Cameron, LA (an hour or so from where I live) has been destroyed to the foundations and the naked bank vault three times in the last hundred years. And guess what they are doing right now? Yup, rebuilding. At what point does this start sounding like Monty Python and Swamp Castle? At least this this time a fair portion are getting the hint and either building up or elsewhere. But it took two total wipeouts in a ten year window to put that lesson in and I'll bet you in another decade people will forget and build it right back up because they know FEMA will be there. Some of that city does need to be there, they do important work. But much of it could be somewhat more inland and still do what needs to be done. People insist on rebuilding on the same patch of ground though, because they can. Because FEMA will be there, regardless of the risk.
Yup, it just might. If a majority realized that political office is going to attract undesirables as a natural function we would be more serious about keeping them on a short leash. Government is dangerous. That was why our system of government put so much design effort in limiting it.
Go read history. It used to be unseemly to be seen wanting to be President. You used to have to let your supporters do most of the speechifiying about how wonderful you were. This was because people understood that wanting the job was a disqualification. That while it was impossible to actually pick a President who didn't really want the office you could and should avoid people who were willing to appear to badly want it.
I was already pretty offtopic and wanted to say on topic things in an area where most viewers wouldn't have to click read more. Besides, most of the solutions flow from the three observed flaws and a belief in Free People being able to act rationally to solve their problems.
Divorce health insurance from employment. This makes people see the cost and makes them responsible. It also aligns better with todays employment picture, people don't graduate from high school and head down to the factory where they will work until retirement. Thus you make health savings accounts and such a lot more attractive. And even the HSA is just a tax dodge, a proper reform of the tax code makes them obsolete. This moves us back to insurance territory. People pay out of pocket for day to day health expenses, thus making them very cost conscious and driving prices down. The insurance portion is there for the sort of unexpected disasters we buy other insurance to protect against. And we come to grips with the hard reality that super rich people are going to get better health care than us normal folk, who will get better medical care than the poor. Just like everything else in life. Yes we will be putting a dollar value on a human life, we do it every day already. We just don't talk directly about it in polite company. Everyone doesn't get to drive a Volvo or Mercedes and when we get in wrecks the cheap crappy little cars we can actually afford aren't nearly as survivable. Just to pick one example of hundreds.
Eventually we will have to come to grips with the uninsured and the uninsurable. They are knotty problems but nothing in Obamacare is going to fix them. Everyone, especially anyone who can say "Social Justice" without a snicker, isn't going to like some of the answers but we don't live in a land of rainbow crapping unicorns. People who decide to buy things instead of medical insurance just might have to hope society is feeling charitable if they have an accident or a major illness. The uninsurable is the thorniest problem, even somebody as free market libertarian as myself can't see a totally free market solution to that one.
> BZZZZZT! Use the term "Obamacare" and poof, thinking people write you off as a wingnut.
And here is the problem. If people actually liked it Obama would be calling it that, his suporters and the media (but I repeat myself) would be calling it that and if we 'wingnuts' didn't call it that we would be racists for denying Obama proper credit for his signature achievement. But We The People hated it when it was being rammed down our throats, and now that it has passed and we have read it and are beginning to see just what is in it we hate it even more. Obama's signature achievement is apparently just full of FAIL. As is Porkulus.
> Your "fuck everyone that ever lived anywhere there was risk" idea is just fucking stupid and you know it.
How the holy fuck could you read "We can still have ports and resorts along the beaches, just price relocating/rebuilding them into the cost of doing business instead of lining up for the FEMA check." and get me wanting nobody living along the coastline?
Just what percentage of the people living in New Orleans are involved in in the port, gas terminal or fishing? Be generous and count the shopkeepers, schoolteachers, policemen, plumbers, etc and such required to supply the needs of the dockworkers and fishermen and their families. New Orleans should be at most 20% of its current population. Then add in the French Quarter since it beings in so much tourism and besides, it is about the only land around there that is actually above sea level. Why do you think the French established a city where they did? The ninth ward, totally below sea level, should never have been rebuilt since it is just a huge people warehouse and could equally be anywhere in CONUS.
Same for flood plains. Yea, we get most of our food from them, farmers should be living there. But vast housing developments? Office blocks? Factories? Tell me again why we are growing cities there instead of pricing things such that most new growth happens a few miles inland where it doesn't flood every couple of years?
> > The sea level rising a couple feet sounds really scary in a perfect knowledge vacuum.
> Obviously you don't live anywhere near a coast.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, he doesn't live near a coast because he understands. And if more people understood there wouldn't be a problem. And if the insurance companies were allowed by the government to correctly price risk people wouldn't need to understand all of the details. Invisible hand and all that stuff progressives seem unable to understand. Of course since the government has a monopoly on flood insurance we need to start the change there. Once upon a time living on a waterway was required if you wanted to have a prosperous city and occasional floods was the price you paid. That is no longer true. We should price things such that populations begin to migrate to more stable inland areas. No need to panic, cause huge upheavals or anything of the sort. We can still have ports and resorts along the beaches, just price relocating/rebuilding them into the cost of doing business instead of lining up for the FEMA check. Just slowly allow insurance prices to reflect real costs and when a hurricane wipes out a beach front inform everyone that if they rebuild there their rates are going to be insane going forward. Same for river flood plains.
Exactly. The trick isn't to elect better congresscritters, it is to bring the voters up to the point where powercrazed venal congresscritters will do the right things for the same reasons they are doing the wrong ones now, because that is what gets them reelected. They are doing what they are doing because it works, i.e. it gets them reelected.
Yes. But the original context was we will all die due to climate change. And to that, no. Even under a worst case scenario will more than 1% of people living today could possibly die due to AGW. If (big if) the theory is right there might be some economic upheavals as some current population centers have to relocate, growing patterns will shift, making some people poor and others will suddenly have very productive farmland, lesser species who fail to adapt or migrate quickly enough will become extinct. But we won't die and I tend to doubt future generations will be diminished in population due to AGW directly. If the Four Horsemen get loose (War especially) as a side effect all bets are of course off.
Yea, well I disagreed with 90% of what was in it. Why? Because it can't work.
The fools who wrote the bill didn't even realize what the fracking problems were and frankly couldn't have cared less. It was about control.
The problems with health care are:
1. The people who pay for it aren't the ones consuming it. Obamacare makes this problem worse, not better.
2. We call it insurance but it isn't like anything else we put that word on. Obamacare makes this problem worse, not better. If you can buy health 'insurance' after you get sick and can't even be forced to pay higher rates it isn't insurance. Imagine being able to buy auto insurance after you wreck your car. Or flood insurance when a hurricane is bearing down on your town. Doesn't work, can't work.
3. We refuse to come to terms with reality. Medical science can do all sorts of things. We can't afford to provide all of them to everyone. Not because we are heartless rethuglican bastards, because there isn't enough wealth to do it now and the scientists will invent a hundred new even more expensive things tomorrow. If we try we will simply impoverish overselves to the point we can no longer afford to invent new things or do anything of note... and still won't be able to give everyone access to every new treatment available. In other words we kill the goose. Obamacare makes this problem worse, not better.
And yes I have some notions how to actually fix it, but I'd rather move back ontopic. If some interesting replies pop up we can go back to HC.
Which brings us to the stupid in this article. The whole point of the climate debate is whether it is a great green swindle or not. Many of us who do understand the scientific method.. AND how communists/progressives/liberals work have come to the reasoned conclusion that there is more than enough evidence to hold off reordering our entire civilization and giving politically connected hacks like Al Gore trillions of dollars to redistribute. To date I haven't seen anything in the AGW faith that is falsifiable, thus it isn't science. I haven't seen any models make predictions strong enough for the modelers to stake their reputation on the predictions which then came true a decade out. And yes I goddamn well know the difference between weather and climate, but if you can't put down a marker on a decade climate prediction I don't want to even discuss your century ones since we all know none of the guys making them will be around to account for them.
When they use circular arguments (and even more important nobody calls them on it) like "All Climate Scientists agree that AGW is real... if Climate Scientist is defined as someone who believes in AGW." you can call me an ignorant savage all you like but I am suspicious. And yes, it is really that bad. If you want to be a climate scientist you need funding and there are basically two sources. Industry, which gets you bounced from the climate scientist racket for being a shill for industry or you go for government funding. And since the NSF is part of the consensus, good luck getting funding if you EVER submit a proposal that isn't politically correct.
> They're not really "iTaxes" as the iPad is the same price or cheaper than almost all alternatives.
And that is why they fail. Look over that list, three catagories:
1. Vaporware
2. Cheap underperforming crap that Google withheld the tablet editions of Android and often the Market and the other closed source bits from.
3. Stuff priced like an iPad.
The PC world learned back in the 80's that only Apple can make insanely great margins, everyone else has to settle for normal ones. Once Google allows open competition (releases the source again plus allow Market access) the name brands will come down under pressure from the generic Chinese stuff that will be running the same Android 3.2 on the same CPUs and selling in the $150-$300 price range. Then it will be game ON. Once the choice is between sharing one iPad and having his and hers Android tablets we shall see who wins.
Compared to a netbook a tablet should not cost more. Slightly more for an IPS screen with touch and take out most of the battery and housing, the Microsoft Tax, hard drive and stick in what should be a lower cost CPU since the ARMs are System on Chip and the big selling point of ARM is lower cost and lower power. If they are paying more for a Tegra than an Atom + GPU + chipset then I think I have found the problem with the tablet market.
Um, no. In America the top 1% pay 38% of all Income Tax and a really huge percentage of all revenue the government takes in from the other taxes that mostly hit the wealthy such as the Alternative Minimum Tax Capital Gains, Estate, etc . The top 50% supply 97% of all personal tax revenue to the Federal Governent. The bottom half pay 3%. Most in the bottom half come out ahead, even factoring in FICA due to the Earned Income Tax Credit and other income redistribution schemes.
So since you didn't know any of this I give you a pass for thinking the rich aren't paying 'their fair share.' But I must ask you, and any other Progs reading, to once and for all go on the record and tell me what you think 'their fair share' should be. Stop the talking points and demagoguery and put a real number on it. What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them. Or even more bluntly, what percentage of a person's labor is their own and to what extent are they your slave?
If you don't like my slavery formulation you are welcome to propose another.. if you can. Yes the State has a legit power to tax but only for the legitimate objects of government, defense, public works and infrastructure, courts, etc.
Oh no they don't. I somehow suspect Activision has a few more development resources than some guy in his Mom's basement plinking away on an old Macbook. The great thing was that for a brief moment, just as the App Store think took flight, the guy in the basement had an advantage of faster time to market without the layers of corporate BS. But that window is now closing. Now you need marketing budgets and stuff to break through the noise of a million other apps and the advantage again swings back to the big development houses.
And even individual devels vary greatly. Equality is a myth. Equality before the law is all we should even be teaching as a goal.
Sturgeon's Law at work. 90% of everything is crap. The 10% that isn't crap is where most of the money goes and the few big budget well designed titles are pulling in most of that while the $0.99 apps, even if they sell well probably won't make it into that upper crust. But requiring a lot less developer time a simple yet interesting $0.99 app is probably more profitable.
This same process is at work everywhere. A small percentage of movies take home most of the box office and DVD revenue. A couple of pop stars (with no more tangible talent than a thousand others) end up with most of the fame and money. A few athletes take home zillions, a few more make a few million and thousands and thousands never make the big leagues at all. It is the way of things. We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.
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Probably wouldn't work. Who would take a scientific journal owned by the Chinese government seriously? All it would do is kill that journal off... as the staff quit in protest, crossed the street to some open office space and established a new one.
No, the problem is that the staff at most scientific journals are academic types who when push comes to shove are on the side of the Communists and thus do not want to censure them. So they have to speak out in extreme cases like this one to maintain credibility but will quietly accede to the demands once the hubbub dies out a bit.
> Should that billion dollars go towards funding solar research or healthcare for the poor?
Not quite the right formulation. If (big IF) Climate Change (human caused or not) is happening there are some questions science can answer, but is currently forbidden from even asking... since the science is so settled we not only know climate change is happening, humans are the cause by releasing CO2 and a massive wealth redistribution scheme that just happens to be the same communism the same pinheads were pushing for fifty years is the only possible solution.
Question 1: If it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the climate is warming and is likely to continue doing so if nothing changes, the question is WHY? Is it CO2, the Sun, deforestation, something else?
Question 2: Once we know #1 we will likely know if it is man caused. But this question isn't really important. If the planet is on a long term warming trend it doesn't really matter if we are causing it, the result is the same.
Question 3: Finally we need to know what the economic costs of doing nothing are. That goes on the list of options. Then we should carefully list actions we could take that would cause temps to decrease, but not go below where they are now since colder is bad, really bad. Each option should be scored with costs, political (loss of freedom, etc.) and economic along with the best guess of how much it would reduce the economic losses by reduction of warming.
Only after we have a real list of options from science can the political process begin to pick from them. Doing nothing could very well be the best option. Just depends how much it costs vs the costs of the proposed solutions. I know I'd probably pick nothing over the current proposals.
> It has always been a political affair and general popularity contest award.
This. After they gave one to Arafat anyone who would still accept one was tainted as far as I was concerned. Personally I'd tell em to go perform an improbable act of self procreation because while the money would be super sweet I wouldn't want to be associated with most of the other 'winners' of the award. Obama isn't even close to the worst person to own one. Obama is just a SCoaMF, more stupid than evil.
> Is territory relevant to this research?
The problem is anyone working in China is required to assert Chinese territorial claims because to do otherwise would be an admission that there is a dispute, i.e. that the State might be wrong; and that idea is sedition to a police state.
The only solution is for the scientific journals in the Free World to accept papers as written and then add a editorial note on the order of this:
"Note: This paper was submitted by a prisoner of the Communist Chinese dictatorship and thus must promote Chinese foreign policy goals or be sent to a labor camp or killed. Because the science in this paper is otherwise sound we are publishing it as written, however this should not be taken as an endorsement of Chinese territorial claims by this journal." [Internationally accepted map inset goes here with differences highlighted.]
In other words, throw a passive aggressive turd in their faces and they will be shamed into backing down.
And every use of it goes through Google's servers. The computing isn't in Android, it is on Google's cluster. And if, like me, you have no data plan it only works when in range of WiFi.
And I suspect Apple is doing the exact same thing. Puny ARM processors can't do good voice recognition.
> That would be awesome.
Yes it would. Too bad Apples suck for running X. A one button pointer is useless for running *NIX/X apps. And it would defeat the whole purpose to carry around a mouse just because Jobs was an utter asshole on that point. How hard would it be to let the pad track where you tap on the button area and have an option let it send left/center/right events? But no, he had a religious thing about one button being the only way to go.
Then there is the whole price/performance thing. A Thinkpad is a better built machine for less money compared to just about any comperable MacBook. Many even have Firewire ports... they just don't call them that. And you can have them your way, not the two or three ways Steve decreed were the only choices you wanted. Pick your display, pick your hdd, pick which wireless tech(s) you want or don't want, pick from a half dozen base chassis options from ultralight to portable workstation. And since you almost always have to buy a more expensive Macbook to get the one or two features you wanted vs the customized Thinkpad you save even more. Yes you will have to buy a Windows license but almost all of them run Linux really well.
> with 66% of the worldwide industry profits in cell phones?
No. Maybe in smartphones, but they are a minority of the market. There is a whole world beyond the 1st world and nobody there can afford a smartphone yet. It is a volume business but there is a lot of profit there in churning out cheap phones by the container. And who the fsck cares about profits unless you are an Apple shareholder, units moved are what counts for everyone else. Developers don't give a crap how much Apple is making, they want to know how many potential customers they have to justify developing for the platform to judge how much THEY stand to make. Most users don't really care how much Apple is making in profit except if they learn Apple makes 50 juicy points it might piss some off while some fanboys like yourself seem to get off on how hard Apple is screwing you.
And in volume of Smartphones Apple is at 18% and falling fast into their 5-10% market niche they have stayed within on the desktop since the 1980s. Give it another year and they will probably be falling fast in tablets until they hit boutique luxury good territory. Because that is what Apple is, a premium brand experience. The only reason developers still care about iOS is they (rightly it appears) assume anyone who can afford an iProduct has enough disposable income to afford to pay for lots of apps so while in absolute percentage of potential customers they may be shrinking, they rakeoff per customer is high enough to justify porting.
> Would someone please please make Exxon et al. at least pay 10% of what they make
Uh, even the Center for American Progress (i.e. Soros) is bitchin that they 'only' pay 17.2% and their numbers are suspect... and that number is just corporate income tax, it doesn't count extraction royalties paid to various governments, property taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, etc. They pay a crapload in taxes. Just ask Google, they will point at a Washington Post piece on the subject if you ask "Exxon taxes".
As for the rest of your post about trying to avoid dealing with 'the corporations' it is just laughable. You want a solar system to avoid paying the electric company. And where do you think the panels, controllers, batteries, etc. in that solar system would come from? Big corporations, mostly in China. Modern civilization is built on the idea that specialization and division of labor increases productivity and thus gives us the consumer bounty and wealth we currently enjoy. Just how much time are you expending reinventing so many wheels? How much more wealth would you create for yourself if you put that time into whatever skill you actually enjoy and are valued for instead of low volume gardening? Unless of course you LIKE gardening, then go for it since everybody should have a hobby.
> Have you ever noticed how everybody in the world is getting cell phones that are cheap--practically disposable, even--and yet perfectly functional?
Every actually priced a cell phone? Didn't think so. You are paying a lot more than you think for that shiny toy, they just figured out you will swallow $200 up front and finance the rest over two years a lot better than $499 up front. Or did you think cell service alone is why your bill is as high as it is? Ever wondered why people with 'good credit' who can qualify for a contract phone pay more than the poor schlubs with their TracPhones? It is because the TracPhone is crap and you are making notes on an expensive phone. If you bring your own phone and look for the deals (because they don't want to publicise the notion) you can get monthly service at reasonable rates. T-Mobile just started selling a plan at Wallyworld for $30/month that gives you 5GB of 4/3G data, unlimited 2G after that, unlimited text and a hundred minutes of talk, device not included. Most people are getting a $30/month surcharge just for data or to be allowed to buy a smartphone if they are on contract.
That said, if one knows where to look on eBay you can find Android phones at reasonable prices now, just don't expect to find a current, name brand, flagship one for less than a few hundred.
Pretty much the similar thing which is why I mentioned it. If this thing is a scam it was because they could use "for the children" to unlock some sweet sweet taxpayer money from the Indian govt. Meanwhile over here Solyndra used "for the Earth" to unlock half a gigabuck. Imagine that much money for a tablet project. Even at $50 per unit the money we pissed away on Solyndra would have put 10 million tablets into our schools. That would give every K-1 student one and almost every second grader.
Sounds like it will have a wholesale price in quantity of $35 then get marked up to $60 for retail which is about right considering the specs. If it actually appears at retail anywhere in the world around that price you know the thing is probably legit. If not, it is just a scam on the Indian govt. We have Solyndra so we can't laugh.
> ...may falsify one piece of it but that doesn't destroy...
Sounds like religion. Seriously.
> As the Earth heats, we can expect to find less arable land.
Oh bull poop. Ever looked at a map? Noticed how much land mass is currently useless for growing in Russia, Canada, etc? Warm things up a bit and we will lose some land and gain some.
Anyway, this is the second Warmer story today, this is getting silly. This isn't dkos... or it least it wasn't.
> this is going to require the intervention of what you right-wing kooks call "big government" to make happen
Not really. Mostly it would involve having the government NOT do the stupid things it is now doing, mostly FEMA not bailing the same people out every couple of years and creating moral hazard. If your house flooded yet again and THIS time FEMA said it was the last time they intended to pay you or provide zero interest loans, whatever and that you had better take this check and use it to build somewhere a little higher up or put your house on very tall stilts you would do exactly that.
The city of Cameron, LA (an hour or so from where I live) has been destroyed to the foundations and the naked bank vault three times in the last hundred years. And guess what they are doing right now? Yup, rebuilding. At what point does this start sounding like Monty Python and Swamp Castle? At least this this time a fair portion are getting the hint and either building up or elsewhere. But it took two total wipeouts in a ten year window to put that lesson in and I'll bet you in another decade people will forget and build it right back up because they know FEMA will be there. Some of that city does need to be there, they do important work. But much of it could be somewhat more inland and still do what needs to be done. People insist on rebuilding on the same patch of ground though, because they can. Because FEMA will be there, regardless of the risk.
Yup, it just might. If a majority realized that political office is going to attract undesirables as a natural function we would be more serious about keeping them on a short leash. Government is dangerous. That was why our system of government put so much design effort in limiting it.
Go read history. It used to be unseemly to be seen wanting to be President. You used to have to let your supporters do most of the speechifiying about how wonderful you were. This was because people understood that wanting the job was a disqualification. That while it was impossible to actually pick a President who didn't really want the office you could and should avoid people who were willing to appear to badly want it.
> And if you have "some notions"
I was already pretty offtopic and wanted to say on topic things in an area where most viewers wouldn't have to click read more. Besides, most of the solutions flow from the three observed flaws and a belief in Free People being able to act rationally to solve their problems.
Divorce health insurance from employment. This makes people see the cost and makes them responsible. It also aligns better with todays employment picture, people don't graduate from high school and head down to the factory where they will work until retirement. Thus you make health savings accounts and such a lot more attractive. And even the HSA is just a tax dodge, a proper reform of the tax code makes them obsolete. This moves us back to insurance territory. People pay out of pocket for day to day health expenses, thus making them very cost conscious and driving prices down. The insurance portion is there for the sort of unexpected disasters we buy other insurance to protect against. And we come to grips with the hard reality that super rich people are going to get better health care than us normal folk, who will get better medical care than the poor. Just like everything else in life. Yes we will be putting a dollar value on a human life, we do it every day already. We just don't talk directly about it in polite company. Everyone doesn't get to drive a Volvo or Mercedes and when we get in wrecks the cheap crappy little cars we can actually afford aren't nearly as survivable. Just to pick one example of hundreds.
Eventually we will have to come to grips with the uninsured and the uninsurable. They are knotty problems but nothing in Obamacare is going to fix them. Everyone, especially anyone who can say "Social Justice" without a snicker, isn't going to like some of the answers but we don't live in a land of rainbow crapping unicorns. People who decide to buy things instead of medical insurance just might have to hope society is feeling charitable if they have an accident or a major illness. The uninsurable is the thorniest problem, even somebody as free market libertarian as myself can't see a totally free market solution to that one.
> BZZZZZT! Use the term "Obamacare" and poof, thinking people write you off as a wingnut.
And here is the problem. If people actually liked it Obama would be calling it that, his suporters and the media (but I repeat myself) would be calling it that and if we 'wingnuts' didn't call it that we would be racists for denying Obama proper credit for his signature achievement. But We The People hated it when it was being rammed down our throats, and now that it has passed and we have read it and are beginning to see just what is in it we hate it even more. Obama's signature achievement is apparently just full of FAIL. As is Porkulus.
> Your "fuck everyone that ever lived anywhere there was risk" idea is just fucking stupid and you know it.
How the holy fuck could you read "We can still have ports and resorts along the beaches, just price relocating/rebuilding them into the cost of doing business instead of lining up for the FEMA check." and get me wanting nobody living along the coastline?
Just what percentage of the people living in New Orleans are involved in in the port, gas terminal or fishing? Be generous and count the shopkeepers, schoolteachers, policemen, plumbers, etc and such required to supply the needs of the dockworkers and fishermen and their families. New Orleans should be at most 20% of its current population. Then add in the French Quarter since it beings in so much tourism and besides, it is about the only land around there that is actually above sea level. Why do you think the French established a city where they did? The ninth ward, totally below sea level, should never have been rebuilt since it is just a huge people warehouse and could equally be anywhere in CONUS.
Same for flood plains. Yea, we get most of our food from them, farmers should be living there. But vast housing developments? Office blocks? Factories? Tell me again why we are growing cities there instead of pricing things such that most new growth happens a few miles inland where it doesn't flood every couple of years?
> > The sea level rising a couple feet sounds really scary in a perfect knowledge vacuum.
> Obviously you don't live anywhere near a coast.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, he doesn't live near a coast because he understands. And if more people understood there wouldn't be a problem. And if the insurance companies were allowed by the government to correctly price risk people wouldn't need to understand all of the details. Invisible hand and all that stuff progressives seem unable to understand. Of course since the government has a monopoly on flood insurance we need to start the change there. Once upon a time living on a waterway was required if you wanted to have a prosperous city and occasional floods was the price you paid. That is no longer true. We should price things such that populations begin to migrate to more stable inland areas. No need to panic, cause huge upheavals or anything of the sort. We can still have ports and resorts along the beaches, just price relocating/rebuilding them into the cost of doing business instead of lining up for the FEMA check. Just slowly allow insurance prices to reflect real costs and when a hurricane wipes out a beach front inform everyone that if they rebuild there their rates are going to be insane going forward. Same for river flood plains.
Exactly. The trick isn't to elect better congresscritters, it is to bring the voters up to the point where powercrazed venal congresscritters will do the right things for the same reasons they are doing the wrong ones now, because that is what gets them reelected. They are doing what they are doing because it works, i.e. it gets them reelected.
> So, you think we will not all die?
Yes. But the original context was we will all die due to climate change. And to that, no. Even under a worst case scenario will more than 1% of people living today could possibly die due to AGW. If (big if) the theory is right there might be some economic upheavals as some current population centers have to relocate, growing patterns will shift, making some people poor and others will suddenly have very productive farmland, lesser species who fail to adapt or migrate quickly enough will become extinct. But we won't die and I tend to doubt future generations will be diminished in population due to AGW directly. If the Four Horsemen get loose (War especially) as a side effect all bets are of course off.
Yea, well I disagreed with 90% of what was in it. Why? Because it can't work.
The fools who wrote the bill didn't even realize what the fracking problems were and frankly couldn't have cared less. It was about control.
The problems with health care are:
1. The people who pay for it aren't the ones consuming it. Obamacare makes this problem worse, not better.
2. We call it insurance but it isn't like anything else we put that word on. Obamacare makes this problem worse, not better. If you can buy health 'insurance' after you get sick and can't even be forced to pay higher rates it isn't insurance. Imagine being able to buy auto insurance after you wreck your car. Or flood insurance when a hurricane is bearing down on your town. Doesn't work, can't work.
3. We refuse to come to terms with reality. Medical science can do all sorts of things. We can't afford to provide all of them to everyone. Not because we are heartless rethuglican bastards, because there isn't enough wealth to do it now and the scientists will invent a hundred new even more expensive things tomorrow. If we try we will simply impoverish overselves to the point we can no longer afford to invent new things or do anything of note... and still won't be able to give everyone access to every new treatment available. In other words we kill the goose. Obamacare makes this problem worse, not better.
And yes I have some notions how to actually fix it, but I'd rather move back ontopic. If some interesting replies pop up we can go back to HC.
Which brings us to the stupid in this article. The whole point of the climate debate is whether it is a great green swindle or not. Many of us who do understand the scientific method.. AND how communists/progressives/liberals work have come to the reasoned conclusion that there is more than enough evidence to hold off reordering our entire civilization and giving politically connected hacks like Al Gore trillions of dollars to redistribute. To date I haven't seen anything in the AGW faith that is falsifiable, thus it isn't science. I haven't seen any models make predictions strong enough for the modelers to stake their reputation on the predictions which then came true a decade out. And yes I goddamn well know the difference between weather and climate, but if you can't put down a marker on a decade climate prediction I don't want to even discuss your century ones since we all know none of the guys making them will be around to account for them.
When they use circular arguments (and even more important nobody calls them on it) like "All Climate Scientists agree that AGW is real... if Climate Scientist is defined as someone who believes in AGW." you can call me an ignorant savage all you like but I am suspicious. And yes, it is really that bad. If you want to be a climate scientist you need funding and there are basically two sources. Industry, which gets you bounced from the climate scientist racket for being a shill for industry or you go for government funding. And since the NSF is part of the consensus, good luck getting funding if you EVER submit a proposal that isn't politically correct.
> They're not really "iTaxes" as the iPad is the same price or cheaper than almost all alternatives.
And that is why they fail. Look over that list, three catagories:
1. Vaporware
2. Cheap underperforming crap that Google withheld the tablet editions of Android and often the Market and the other closed source bits from.
3. Stuff priced like an iPad.
The PC world learned back in the 80's that only Apple can make insanely great margins, everyone else has to settle for normal ones. Once Google allows open competition (releases the source again plus allow Market access) the name brands will come down under pressure from the generic Chinese stuff that will be running the same Android 3.2 on the same CPUs and selling in the $150-$300 price range. Then it will be game ON. Once the choice is between sharing one iPad and having his and hers Android tablets we shall see who wins.
Compared to a netbook a tablet should not cost more. Slightly more for an IPS screen with touch and take out most of the battery and housing, the Microsoft Tax, hard drive and stick in what should be a lower cost CPU since the ARMs are System on Chip and the big selling point of ARM is lower cost and lower power. If they are paying more for a Tegra than an Atom + GPU + chipset then I think I have found the problem with the tablet market.
Um, no. In America the top 1% pay 38% of all Income Tax and a really huge percentage of all revenue the government takes in from the other taxes that mostly hit the wealthy such as the Alternative Minimum Tax Capital Gains, Estate, etc . The top 50% supply 97% of all personal tax revenue to the Federal Governent. The bottom half pay 3%. Most in the bottom half come out ahead, even factoring in FICA due to the Earned Income Tax Credit and other income redistribution schemes.
So since you didn't know any of this I give you a pass for thinking the rich aren't paying 'their fair share.' But I must ask you, and any other Progs reading, to once and for all go on the record and tell me what you think 'their fair share' should be. Stop the talking points and demagoguery and put a real number on it. What percentage of a persons income, no matter how rich, no matter if earned or trust fund baby, OR total wealth, do you think YOU are entitled to have redistributed away from them. Or even more bluntly, what percentage of a person's labor is their own and to what extent are they your slave?
If you don't like my slavery formulation you are welcome to propose another.. if you can. Yes the State has a legit power to tax but only for the legitimate objects of government, defense, public works and infrastructure, courts, etc.
Oh no they don't. I somehow suspect Activision has a few more development resources than some guy in his Mom's basement plinking away on an old Macbook. The great thing was that for a brief moment, just as the App Store think took flight, the guy in the basement had an advantage of faster time to market without the layers of corporate BS. But that window is now closing. Now you need marketing budgets and stuff to break through the noise of a million other apps and the advantage again swings back to the big development houses.
And even individual devels vary greatly. Equality is a myth. Equality before the law is all we should even be teaching as a goal.
Sturgeon's Law at work. 90% of everything is crap. The 10% that isn't crap is where most of the money goes and the few big budget well designed titles are pulling in most of that while the $0.99 apps, even if they sell well probably won't make it into that upper crust. But requiring a lot less developer time a simple yet interesting $0.99 app is probably more profitable.
This same process is at work everywhere. A small percentage of movies take home most of the box office and DVD revenue. A couple of pop stars (with no more tangible talent than a thousand others) end up with most of the fame and money. A few athletes take home zillions, a few more make a few million and thousands and thousands never make the big leagues at all. It is the way of things. We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.