DST wasn't implemented nation-wide until 1942 in an effort to save energy during the war. It was repealed in 1945, but then was put back into place in the 1960s, again in an effort to save energy, among other things. It has nothing to do with providing anyone on a farm extra time, because the time they get up (or at least got up) is set by the sun, not by a bunch of people in suits. The farmers were the ones that rebelled against it most strongly when it was first attempted in the early 20th century.
As I understand it, extra weight isn't unhealthy (and may actually be healthier on average than "proper" weight), but true obesity (defined as 25% to 30% body fat content, depending on what sources you use) is a health problem that can bring about a number of ailments, including liver and kidney diseases and congestive heart failure. However, true obesity is also less common than many studies would have you think.
Your point on exercise is important, though. The people that I've seen that are generally in shape are those that are willing to put in even a little bit of effort, even if they eat too much. There's no need to do an hour on a treadmill and a dozen laps in the Olympic pool; sometimes it's just as simple as taking the 20 minute walk instead of the ten-minute drive (people in the city know this one) or playing in the pool for a little while a few times a week. If you can learn to fidget, this may also help, as the extreme end of this can actually handle a few hundred calories a day, but if you have touchy coworkers, this may not be the best option.:)
You wanted explanations, I provided them. Here are the short versions for you:
SCO's lawsuit is potentially damaging to a fledgling industry that does not deserve to be hobbled for the selfishness of one company. I hope IBM crushes them.
If it turns out that Rove violated the law in revealing the identity of an undercover agent, then he should be prosecuted and if convicted, given the maximum sentence. The same goes for anyone who does such things, possibly including a member of Cheney's staff.
On Iraq, everyone and their mother thought that Iraq had banned unconventional weapons. But that's not the reason that I wanted Hussein out. I wanted him out because he's a murderous tyrant who has no problems executing anyone that disagrees with him, or who he thinks may be plotting against him. I've thought this since the 1991 Gulf War.
I also hold no preconceptions that this was not about oil, but it was more about steady supply of oil to the world than it was about US control of oil. The whole reason for engagement in the Middle East is oil, just like we pay more attention to Nigeria, Indonesia, and Venezuela, and ignore certain corruption in Mexico. If it was all sand and an occasional oasis, we wouldn't pay any attention to it.
I don't like Bush or Cheney, but that doesn't mean I always disagree with them. I also don't think they're the lying bastards that many people do. Yes, they've misled the public, and while it sometimes has to be done for political (as in with other nations) or military reasons, it's not acceptable when done to dodge personal bullets. I look forward to both of them leaving office and being replaced with people who can admit mistakes. The latter is a bit optimistic, I know, but one can hope.
If that's not good enough for you, then I guess you'll have to find other friends.
Those subsidies may well be falling to the wayside in the next few years as a result of obligations the US has to remove most agriculture subsidies as a member of the WTO, IIRC. Might be GATT. Anyway, there are movements by several nations, rich and poor, to force the US to drop the subsidies or face retaliatory tariffs.
It's not unusual to find people having a hard time trying to figure out where I stand on things, because I have feet in many different locations.:)
When SCO announced the lawsuit, I watched the opening with interest. IBM's experiences with consent decrees suggested to me that they would not be so bold as to go and do something stupid like including raw Unix code in Linux, but IBM is also a big company. As the case continued, I began to realize the situation for what it was, and I hope that IBM is buying time to drop a very large hammer on SCO. What SCO has done may have caused significant damage to the Linux industry, which, while widespread at one level, is still what would be considered fledgling when it comes to corporate deployments. Most major companies have a handful of Linux boxes around, but there are few that have large-scale deployments of any type, and even fewer running them on more than a few IT geek desktops. I have no desire to see an option for the industry removed because of the stupid litigation policies of one company whose relevance was fading too fast for its own happiness.
If by the 'scam' you refer to Rove, I'm still watching that unfold. I believe that it is still possible that what Rove did was legal by the letter of the law, but my suspicions are that his actions were certainly contrary to the spirit of the law, and were unethical in any case. I've never particularly cared for Rove, ever since the dirty tricks of the 2000 presidential campaign. I have reserved some judgement, because I have an admitted bias based on tales of campaign antics reportedly instigated by him that ended up dooming McCain's campaign, and it is unfair to project this bias on someone while that person is under investigation. I am content to allow the investigation to run its course at this point.
That said, if it turns out that Rove was responsible for leaking the name, or at least providing such information as to make it obvious to whom he referred, then it is my firm belief that he should be brought up on charges of naming an undercover intelligence agent, and if found guilty, given the maximum sentence, which is ten years in federal prison and a $50,000 fine. During the trial, he should have his clearance suspended, and should not be allowed to take part in White House briefings. The same feeling applies to the member of Vice President Cheney's staff that provided confirmation to one of the reporters. I do not take kindly to those that put the lives of certain people at risk, particularly undercover intelligence operations, because those involve the safety of the nation at large. I would turn over anyone I knew that took such actions, be they friend, family, even wife.
On the topic of Iraq's unconventional weapons, the whole world was deceived. The US and UK believed it, though hindsight suggested that we needed to listen to wider-ranging viewpoints. France and Germany both believed it. So did Russia and China, and the overall invasion commander (whose name escapes me at the moment) was warned by Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian intelligence that he faced chemical and/or biological weapons. Should we have known better? Yes, we should have. I applaud those in the intelligence community who spoke up in analytical meetings, because they did what they were supposed to, and that's a very hard thing to do when it's against the grain of 'conventional thinking' and involves telling one's superiors that they're flat wrong.
I have no doubt that oil was a measure of the reason for the invasion, though I don't believe it was the sole reason, nor do I believe that the US oil industry had anything to do with it. I hold no naive views that this was just about freedom, or about removing unconventional weapons from the hands of a madman. The Middle East's oil supply powers much of the planet, and this means that it is politically sensitive. If it were not, we'd be largely content to allow some smaller body to come in and arbitrate the various dispute
Use what you like. If you do so, though, I encourage you to use this as a framework and write out your own opinions, though. I tend to dislike parties and prefer consensus. More independent thought is always better.
I've found it somewhat difficult to find exact costs for European projects in general, and Netherlands projects in specific, but one example, pieced together from a few sources, follows.
In August 2004, sums totalling about 230 million euros were committe for construction of the eastern section of the RijnGouweLijn line. The line is "planned to connect Katwijk with Leiden and beyond" (Source), a distance of only about six miles. At that rate, presuming that the money is spent on only that section, the costs for light rail are about 60% below that of the Centerline project.
If you have additional information, I'd appreciate the ability to research it.
EPA estimates for 2005 are 18/28 with a manual transmission. The EPA estimates for the 2002 Camaro Z28 -- which I own -- were 18/25. With the exception of long cruises on highways, my average mileage is 18mpg, and I baby her for the most part. I rarely get much above 3500RPM, I shift from first to third to fifth for the most part, and I accelerate with traffic. Even on lengthy drives maintaining reasonable cruising speeds, I have only matched the listed highway mileage on a handful of occasions.
In any case, the Vette's mileage was a bit higher than I suspected, though it's still well below the average for sport coupes, which is mid-20s/low-30s. Perhaps the GTO would have been a better mention, since it's 16/21.
I doubt it. The more expensive oil gets, the more money gets pumped into tar sands research, which is where a lot of it is going these days. They're getting the costs down significantly, and there are trillions of barrels of oil left in that form, with much of that in Canada and the US. With some luck, some switches to nuclear power will have happened by then, further easing demand.
Oil is forecast to be dropping significantly by the end of the year, down into the mid-$40 range. If China's recent brief economic slip continues, then it may drop further. And even China is realizing that its power future lies in nuclear energy, because allowing its oil-based sectors to continue to grow at ~10% will only result in more rope with which to hang their economy. Price such as $100 will probably result in price controls, and that will be hard to prevent.
There's no theory to it. I work for a county government, though not as a county employee. I've seen what happens when unions get too much power. The county treasurer has announced that he's going to run for a supervisor's seat because the Board of Supervisors refuses to listen to his dire predictions. This is after he ran against the last treasurer while predicting financial collapse for the county, but lost to the incumbent, who led the county to financial collapse six months or so later. The current treasurer was then appointed to the post, was re-elected twice, and still gets largely ignored by the board.
Anyway, major cause of the coming problems? Union benefits, including billions in unfunded pension obligations. For years, they paid into a pension of "2 at 50," meaning they were elegible for 2% of their salary per year worked at age 50 (with a minimum number of years and a cap at some point). Someone who joined the county at age 25 and wanted to retire at 50 got 2% * 25 years = 50% of their salary as pension. The employees paid into this as part of their payroll deductions. The unions managed to talk the county into an increase to 3% at 50 -- a 50% increase with almost nothing paid in to fund it. Because of this, the county is seeing record numbers of retirements.
All of this doesn't even include retiree health benefits, or the paydown from the financial collapse a decade ago. If government employees want to unionize, go ahead. But the county should be able to act like a corporate entity, locking them out when necessary and getting managers and maybe temps to fill the roles. Emergency services such as hospital staff should be prohibited from striking, though they can still unionize and they can picket during off hours.
Personally, I usually consider a situation where employees feel the need to unionize to be a failure of management to keep the employees happy enough that they feel no need to form a union. Situations like acting or radio are different because they're so sporadic, but if it's a full-time job, then something failed along the way if a union became involved.
That would destroy the US economy. US cities are built very differently from European cities, who have been used to walking or taking mass transportation. This works for some locations -- New York and Chicago come to mind -- but for tremendous sections of most states, it just wouldn't work if people were suddenly paying $40 just to get to the next town.
BTW, light rail in the Los Angeles area costs more than $100 million per mile based on the construction cost estimate of $1B for the recently-suspended 9.3-mile Centerline project. This means that putting in a small system covering, say, 40 miles would cost about $4 billion -- money certainly not available in state and local budgets, and unlikely to come from federal coffers. In any event, it would service a negligible fraction of the commuters in the county.
Except that I believe it was justified, and I don't believe that, by and large, we were deceived. Myopic on the stated reasons? Perhaps. Unnecessarily rushed? Probably. Distracting from the proper goal of the time? Almost certainly. But not unjustified. A few friends in the military have served in Iraq, or will be serving. They are proud of what they have done, and some have volunteered to re-up knowing that they will be going directly back.
As for civilian casualties, columnist Molly Ivins has cleared up the scale here. A partial quote summarizing the section stated, "There have been estimates as high as 1 million civilians killed by Saddam, though most agree on the 300,000 to 400,000 range, making my comparison to 20,000 civilian dead in this war pathetically wrong." I really do believe that there is progress being made, and in ten years, we'll look back on the area the same way we looked at Germany in the mid-50s -- friends, though possibly with enemies at the border. We'll see.
I do. In the US, passenger cars have to have a certain mileage level, or else taxes are applied. IIRC, this is an average, so that while most cars fall into the higher range, the high-powered, less-efficient cars like Corvettes can still be made and sold without significant penalty.
For a very long time, light trucks made up only a small segment of auto sales, and so were exempt because they were very often used commercially, and the benefits of commerce outweighed their smaller contribution to pollution. (Just about every Little League baseball team also seemed to have a team mom with a Suburban, and it was cool having all twelve kids pile in for the after-game pizza party.)
With the introduction of the traditional SUV (built on truck frames and so regulated as such), and the improved handling of trucks, they became far more popular, but political pressure has left them exempt from mileage requirements. They make up something near to half of all auto sales now, though, so they really should fall within the the same limits, at least in spirit, as autos. I understand that they will not catch up with the mileage of smaller cars for the most part, but some things can be done. I'm just not sure whether forcing the issue is the best idea.
Part of it was matters of scale. I don't think anything in the legal industry right now -- SCO, Adelphia, Enron, or WorldCom -- scales to a war, and as such, I think such comparisons are inappropriate and designed mostly to garner karma from the anti-conservative Slashdot crowd.
Aside from that, the same crowd that lambasts Bush for 'allowing' the various scandals that erupted after he took office (including the three I mentioned) all really built up during the Clinton administration, something they seem to ignore. For that matter, Ebbers was driving companies into the ground back when Reagan was in office, so there's something to say about the government's (in)ability to keep track of this no matter who is in office. If they're going to blame the Bush administration for allowing deception to become acceptable because it's "the example that's been set at the top," they need to keep in mind that the example is not new to the current occupants of the White House.
I will admit that I was unclear in things. While my intentions were not trolling as I see them, such posts are often seen as trolls by much of the mainstream Slashdot crowd. But sometimes one man's intentions to provoke thought are another man's begging food for the troll.
I also commend you greatly for keeping an open mind, and being mature enough to be able to bring up a rational conversation after your initial response. I took no offense at it, primarily because my political thoughts are all over the place as demonstrated above, and as such I am routinely chased by conservatives and liberals wielding devices intended to induce mass conflagrations upon my person. I simply clarify my views, and hope that others understand me better later on. I am pleased to find another one. People such as you are rare. In fact, I think I shall add you as a friend -- my first one ever.:)
I trust that you are unfamiliar with my political positions, and have incorrectly expanded upon one point to extrapolate my entire ideology. Please allow me to clarify:
I supported the removal of Saddam Hussein, but I have since the first Gulf War. I don't feel that this was the best timing, as a lot of those soldiers should have been in Afghanistan looking for senior al Qaeda operatives. At the very least, waiting until it was possible to end the war going into cooler months would have led to fewer Iraqis mad at the beginning about not being able to get air conditioning in the summer.
I feel that if Karl Rove knew what he was doing, and I suspect he was, that he should be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including fines and prison. If somehow it comes around that the leak was traceable to President Bush, then I feel he should be impeached and removed from office. You don't mess with the lives of covert operatives, whether or not they're in the field at the time.
I voted for Perot in 92 and 96, and wrote in McCain in 2000. I did not vote for Bush in 2004, though to be honest, I could not vote for anyone on the list in 2004, because I could not support any of them in good conscience. I did, however, vote on almost everything else on the ballot, with the possible exception of a water commissioner.
I support the right to choose, and I detest the Patriot Act.
I support wholesale overhaul of copyright legislation to bring it back down to a reasonable time limit of, say, 30 years or so.
I support tightening of requirements for issuing a patent.
I am leaning towards support of reviews of prices charged on prescription medications in the United States. Haven't quite made up my mind on that one, though.
I have no desire to be in a union, but I have no problem with people forming them, just so long as I have the right to opt out of them, or at least to choose how my union dues are spent.
I support the right to bear arms as an individual right, but I support background checks to help ensure that felons have less chance to get them. I also support full prosecution of those felons that try to purchase them.
I support raising the mileage requirements on light trucks and SUVs.
I am skeptical of global warming claims, but I also choose to play it safe and support the development of alternative energy forms, particularly nuclear energy. If global warming is found to be true, then we're moving ahead on reducing sources. If it's found to be false, then we still have cleaner air.
I don't like liars in the White House, whoever they are. There's a difference between hiding secret operations vital to national security (even if they're in a gray area legally) and lying about things happening that should not be. I was too young to be bothered much by Iran-Contra, though I probably would have been in retrospect. There were things in the Bush '88 administration that began to bother me. Clinton was sleazy and everyone knew it, but he was also as teflon-coated as Reagan was. I'm still not convinced that there wasn't more going on there that we really should know about. I'm sure we'll find out in the next 25-75 years.
So now that you know a little more about me, please keep it in mind the next time that you feel the need to jerk that knee and label me a "fringe partisan.":)
Just like Bernie Ebbers, John Rigas, and Ken Lay deceiving the world about what was happening behind closed doors in their headquarters while Bill Clinton was deceiving the world about what was happening behind closed doors in the White House.
Average output of wind farms is between 30% and 40% of peak rated power, depending on technology used and local weather conditions. When a 200MW wind farm goes up, it costs about $200M (average now is about $1 per peak rated watt), but will only produce 60MW to 80MW on average.
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That's been scaled back to two at most per squad, partially because of the cost. The standard infantryman will still be armed with an M16 variant.
DST wasn't implemented nation-wide until 1942 in an effort to save energy during the war. It was repealed in 1945, but then was put back into place in the 1960s, again in an effort to save energy, among other things. It has nothing to do with providing anyone on a farm extra time, because the time they get up (or at least got up) is set by the sun, not by a bunch of people in suits. The farmers were the ones that rebelled against it most strongly when it was first attempted in the early 20th century.
That's a Commie holiday. We don't support Commie holidays here in the US.
Commie.
I thought Hubble couldn't look at the moon because of potential damage to the equipment. Incorrect?
I'm referring to other measures of body fat content, not BMI. BMI is bunk.
As I understand it, extra weight isn't unhealthy (and may actually be healthier on average than "proper" weight), but true obesity (defined as 25% to 30% body fat content, depending on what sources you use) is a health problem that can bring about a number of ailments, including liver and kidney diseases and congestive heart failure. However, true obesity is also less common than many studies would have you think.
:)
Your point on exercise is important, though. The people that I've seen that are generally in shape are those that are willing to put in even a little bit of effort, even if they eat too much. There's no need to do an hour on a treadmill and a dozen laps in the Olympic pool; sometimes it's just as simple as taking the 20 minute walk instead of the ten-minute drive (people in the city know this one) or playing in the pool for a little while a few times a week. If you can learn to fidget, this may also help, as the extreme end of this can actually handle a few hundred calories a day, but if you have touchy coworkers, this may not be the best option.
You wanted explanations, I provided them. Here are the short versions for you:
SCO's lawsuit is potentially damaging to a fledgling industry that does not deserve to be hobbled for the selfishness of one company. I hope IBM crushes them.
If it turns out that Rove violated the law in revealing the identity of an undercover agent, then he should be prosecuted and if convicted, given the maximum sentence. The same goes for anyone who does such things, possibly including a member of Cheney's staff.
On Iraq, everyone and their mother thought that Iraq had banned unconventional weapons. But that's not the reason that I wanted Hussein out. I wanted him out because he's a murderous tyrant who has no problems executing anyone that disagrees with him, or who he thinks may be plotting against him. I've thought this since the 1991 Gulf War.
I also hold no preconceptions that this was not about oil, but it was more about steady supply of oil to the world than it was about US control of oil. The whole reason for engagement in the Middle East is oil, just like we pay more attention to Nigeria, Indonesia, and Venezuela, and ignore certain corruption in Mexico. If it was all sand and an occasional oasis, we wouldn't pay any attention to it.
I don't like Bush or Cheney, but that doesn't mean I always disagree with them. I also don't think they're the lying bastards that many people do. Yes, they've misled the public, and while it sometimes has to be done for political (as in with other nations) or military reasons, it's not acceptable when done to dodge personal bullets. I look forward to both of them leaving office and being replaced with people who can admit mistakes. The latter is a bit optimistic, I know, but one can hope.
If that's not good enough for you, then I guess you'll have to find other friends.
Those subsidies may well be falling to the wayside in the next few years as a result of obligations the US has to remove most agriculture subsidies as a member of the WTO, IIRC. Might be GATT. Anyway, there are movements by several nations, rich and poor, to force the US to drop the subsidies or face retaliatory tariffs.
It's not unusual to find people having a hard time trying to figure out where I stand on things, because I have feet in many different locations. :)
When SCO announced the lawsuit, I watched the opening with interest. IBM's experiences with consent decrees suggested to me that they would not be so bold as to go and do something stupid like including raw Unix code in Linux, but IBM is also a big company. As the case continued, I began to realize the situation for what it was, and I hope that IBM is buying time to drop a very large hammer on SCO. What SCO has done may have caused significant damage to the Linux industry, which, while widespread at one level, is still what would be considered fledgling when it comes to corporate deployments. Most major companies have a handful of Linux boxes around, but there are few that have large-scale deployments of any type, and even fewer running them on more than a few IT geek desktops. I have no desire to see an option for the industry removed because of the stupid litigation policies of one company whose relevance was fading too fast for its own happiness.
If by the 'scam' you refer to Rove, I'm still watching that unfold. I believe that it is still possible that what Rove did was legal by the letter of the law, but my suspicions are that his actions were certainly contrary to the spirit of the law, and were unethical in any case. I've never particularly cared for Rove, ever since the dirty tricks of the 2000 presidential campaign. I have reserved some judgement, because I have an admitted bias based on tales of campaign antics reportedly instigated by him that ended up dooming McCain's campaign, and it is unfair to project this bias on someone while that person is under investigation. I am content to allow the investigation to run its course at this point.
That said, if it turns out that Rove was responsible for leaking the name, or at least providing such information as to make it obvious to whom he referred, then it is my firm belief that he should be brought up on charges of naming an undercover intelligence agent, and if found guilty, given the maximum sentence, which is ten years in federal prison and a $50,000 fine. During the trial, he should have his clearance suspended, and should not be allowed to take part in White House briefings. The same feeling applies to the member of Vice President Cheney's staff that provided confirmation to one of the reporters. I do not take kindly to those that put the lives of certain people at risk, particularly undercover intelligence operations, because those involve the safety of the nation at large. I would turn over anyone I knew that took such actions, be they friend, family, even wife.
On the topic of Iraq's unconventional weapons, the whole world was deceived. The US and UK believed it, though hindsight suggested that we needed to listen to wider-ranging viewpoints. France and Germany both believed it. So did Russia and China, and the overall invasion commander (whose name escapes me at the moment) was warned by Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian intelligence that he faced chemical and/or biological weapons. Should we have known better? Yes, we should have. I applaud those in the intelligence community who spoke up in analytical meetings, because they did what they were supposed to, and that's a very hard thing to do when it's against the grain of 'conventional thinking' and involves telling one's superiors that they're flat wrong.
I have no doubt that oil was a measure of the reason for the invasion, though I don't believe it was the sole reason, nor do I believe that the US oil industry had anything to do with it. I hold no naive views that this was just about freedom, or about removing unconventional weapons from the hands of a madman. The Middle East's oil supply powers much of the planet, and this means that it is politically sensitive. If it were not, we'd be largely content to allow some smaller body to come in and arbitrate the various dispute
The Jubilee Line extension is an extension of a subway, which is naturally going to be more expensive than a surface light rail.
And the Bordeaux example solidifies my point. It's still almost 60% cheaper than building here.
Use what you like. If you do so, though, I encourage you to use this as a framework and write out your own opinions, though. I tend to dislike parties and prefer consensus. More independent thought is always better.
I've found it somewhat difficult to find exact costs for European projects in general, and Netherlands projects in specific, but one example, pieced together from a few sources, follows.
In August 2004, sums totalling about 230 million euros were committe for construction of the eastern section of the RijnGouweLijn line. The line is "planned to connect Katwijk with Leiden and beyond" (Source), a distance of only about six miles. At that rate, presuming that the money is spent on only that section, the costs for light rail are about 60% below that of the Centerline project.
If you have additional information, I'd appreciate the ability to research it.
EPA estimates for 2005 are 18/28 with a manual transmission. The EPA estimates for the 2002 Camaro Z28 -- which I own -- were 18/25. With the exception of long cruises on highways, my average mileage is 18mpg, and I baby her for the most part. I rarely get much above 3500RPM, I shift from first to third to fifth for the most part, and I accelerate with traffic. Even on lengthy drives maintaining reasonable cruising speeds, I have only matched the listed highway mileage on a handful of occasions.
In any case, the Vette's mileage was a bit higher than I suspected, though it's still well below the average for sport coupes, which is mid-20s/low-30s. Perhaps the GTO would have been a better mention, since it's 16/21.
I doubt it. The more expensive oil gets, the more money gets pumped into tar sands research, which is where a lot of it is going these days. They're getting the costs down significantly, and there are trillions of barrels of oil left in that form, with much of that in Canada and the US. With some luck, some switches to nuclear power will have happened by then, further easing demand.
Oil is forecast to be dropping significantly by the end of the year, down into the mid-$40 range. If China's recent brief economic slip continues, then it may drop further. And even China is realizing that its power future lies in nuclear energy, because allowing its oil-based sectors to continue to grow at ~10% will only result in more rope with which to hang their economy. Price such as $100 will probably result in price controls, and that will be hard to prevent.
There's no theory to it. I work for a county government, though not as a county employee. I've seen what happens when unions get too much power. The county treasurer has announced that he's going to run for a supervisor's seat because the Board of Supervisors refuses to listen to his dire predictions. This is after he ran against the last treasurer while predicting financial collapse for the county, but lost to the incumbent, who led the county to financial collapse six months or so later. The current treasurer was then appointed to the post, was re-elected twice, and still gets largely ignored by the board.
Anyway, major cause of the coming problems? Union benefits, including billions in unfunded pension obligations. For years, they paid into a pension of "2 at 50," meaning they were elegible for 2% of their salary per year worked at age 50 (with a minimum number of years and a cap at some point). Someone who joined the county at age 25 and wanted to retire at 50 got 2% * 25 years = 50% of their salary as pension. The employees paid into this as part of their payroll deductions. The unions managed to talk the county into an increase to 3% at 50 -- a 50% increase with almost nothing paid in to fund it. Because of this, the county is seeing record numbers of retirements.
All of this doesn't even include retiree health benefits, or the paydown from the financial collapse a decade ago. If government employees want to unionize, go ahead. But the county should be able to act like a corporate entity, locking them out when necessary and getting managers and maybe temps to fill the roles. Emergency services such as hospital staff should be prohibited from striking, though they can still unionize and they can picket during off hours.
Personally, I usually consider a situation where employees feel the need to unionize to be a failure of management to keep the employees happy enough that they feel no need to form a union. Situations like acting or radio are different because they're so sporadic, but if it's a full-time job, then something failed along the way if a union became involved.
I know. Sorry for not making this clear.
That would destroy the US economy. US cities are built very differently from European cities, who have been used to walking or taking mass transportation. This works for some locations -- New York and Chicago come to mind -- but for tremendous sections of most states, it just wouldn't work if people were suddenly paying $40 just to get to the next town.
BTW, light rail in the Los Angeles area costs more than $100 million per mile based on the construction cost estimate of $1B for the recently-suspended 9.3-mile Centerline project. This means that putting in a small system covering, say, 40 miles would cost about $4 billion -- money certainly not available in state and local budgets, and unlikely to come from federal coffers. In any event, it would service a negligible fraction of the commuters in the county.
Do you have more information on this? The only site that seems to not be an historical reference is on Angelfire.
Except that I believe it was justified, and I don't believe that, by and large, we were deceived. Myopic on the stated reasons? Perhaps. Unnecessarily rushed? Probably. Distracting from the proper goal of the time? Almost certainly. But not unjustified. A few friends in the military have served in Iraq, or will be serving. They are proud of what they have done, and some have volunteered to re-up knowing that they will be going directly back.
As for civilian casualties, columnist Molly Ivins has cleared up the scale here. A partial quote summarizing the section stated, "There have been estimates as high as 1 million civilians killed by Saddam, though most agree on the 300,000 to 400,000 range, making my comparison to 20,000 civilian dead in this war pathetically wrong." I really do believe that there is progress being made, and in ten years, we'll look back on the area the same way we looked at Germany in the mid-50s -- friends, though possibly with enemies at the border. We'll see.
I do. In the US, passenger cars have to have a certain mileage level, or else taxes are applied. IIRC, this is an average, so that while most cars fall into the higher range, the high-powered, less-efficient cars like Corvettes can still be made and sold without significant penalty.
For a very long time, light trucks made up only a small segment of auto sales, and so were exempt because they were very often used commercially, and the benefits of commerce outweighed their smaller contribution to pollution. (Just about every Little League baseball team also seemed to have a team mom with a Suburban, and it was cool having all twelve kids pile in for the after-game pizza party.)
With the introduction of the traditional SUV (built on truck frames and so regulated as such), and the improved handling of trucks, they became far more popular, but political pressure has left them exempt from mileage requirements. They make up something near to half of all auto sales now, though, so they really should fall within the the same limits, at least in spirit, as autos. I understand that they will not catch up with the mileage of smaller cars for the most part, but some things can be done. I'm just not sure whether forcing the issue is the best idea.
Part of it was matters of scale. I don't think anything in the legal industry right now -- SCO, Adelphia, Enron, or WorldCom -- scales to a war, and as such, I think such comparisons are inappropriate and designed mostly to garner karma from the anti-conservative Slashdot crowd.
:)
Aside from that, the same crowd that lambasts Bush for 'allowing' the various scandals that erupted after he took office (including the three I mentioned) all really built up during the Clinton administration, something they seem to ignore. For that matter, Ebbers was driving companies into the ground back when Reagan was in office, so there's something to say about the government's (in)ability to keep track of this no matter who is in office. If they're going to blame the Bush administration for allowing deception to become acceptable because it's "the example that's been set at the top," they need to keep in mind that the example is not new to the current occupants of the White House.
I will admit that I was unclear in things. While my intentions were not trolling as I see them, such posts are often seen as trolls by much of the mainstream Slashdot crowd. But sometimes one man's intentions to provoke thought are another man's begging food for the troll.
I also commend you greatly for keeping an open mind, and being mature enough to be able to bring up a rational conversation after your initial response. I took no offense at it, primarily because my political thoughts are all over the place as demonstrated above, and as such I am routinely chased by conservatives and liberals wielding devices intended to induce mass conflagrations upon my person. I simply clarify my views, and hope that others understand me better later on. I am pleased to find another one. People such as you are rare. In fact, I think I shall add you as a friend -- my first one ever.
So now that you know a little more about me, please keep it in mind the next time that you feel the need to jerk that knee and label me a "fringe partisan."
And yet SCO's allegations in the lawsuit are equal to war in Iraq? Somehow I'm missing where the former rises to the level of the latter.
Just like Bernie Ebbers, John Rigas, and Ken Lay deceiving the world about what was happening behind closed doors in their headquarters while Bill Clinton was deceiving the world about what was happening behind closed doors in the White House.
Average output of wind farms is between 30% and 40% of peak rated power, depending on technology used and local weather conditions. When a 200MW wind farm goes up, it costs about $200M (average now is about $1 per peak rated watt), but will only produce 60MW to 80MW on average.