Landfill space in your region may be scarce, but you do live on a planet with areas that don't have that problem.
You've obviously never lived in Japan. They've had a hell of a time trying to find countries that will take their wastes. And then there's the costs of exporting: fees, shipping infrastructure, fuel and transportation costs. Are you ideologically opposed to recycling? It seems like recycling domestically is simpler and cheaper than shipping unsorted refuse to Africa.
Recycling is cost competitive with incineration. Last I checked, Japan incinerated about 80% of its waste. Given the extremely limited landfill space and high costs of refuse export or incineration, recycling is not a wasted effort. It's a cost reduction strategy.
Not sure if you're just AC or OP as AC? Either way, I suppose I'll take the bait.
...a massacre of ~10.000 people, mostly Jews at first then mostly muslims later, but that took at least 30 years to actually happen, and was essentially a series of attacks on small tribes of a few hundred people at first, and twice a little over a thousand people near the end. These genocides comitted by for example the muslim mughals in India took half a millenium to complete, it's just that every few months or so they'd commit another massacre of a few thousand people, and several loosely affiliated "kingdoms", all mughal, would do this.
Very loaded words. You're essentially lumping all violence committed by all members of all sects of Islam and calling it one giant unprecedented massacre. Do you have *any* sources that give real evidence that Muslims were significantly more violent than other groups during these periods?
Same story in Spain with the Moors, the total death toll of their genocides numbered in the millions, but this was the result of a few hundred people at most every few weeks, and they kept doing that for centuries.
Al-Andalus was pretty damned tolerant (and prosperous). Of course, if you call "a few hundred" deaths from ALL forms of violence every few weeks a genocide, you'd agree that the war on drugs is a giant freaking genocide+massacre+holocaust, right?
They probably did not even kill for racist or religious reasons, it's just the way muslims fight, and it was codified into the religion after the fact : they "raid". They have no internal logistics, they don't feed or clothe or even arm their troops. These armies simply plunder food, horses, animals and so on while they advance.
... well I guess if you define "Muslim" as uncivilized, haphazard warrior groups that didn't care about logistics, then yes. I seem to recall plenty of Muslim groups being rather different, though. The Ottomans, for example. As for pillaging, that's pretty standard in warfare. Yes, they killed and pilfered to the best of their abilities in war, just like every other society.
...These massacres took centuries and did not significanly lower total human population, for the same reason cat attacks don't usually lower mouse populations : there's a sort of balance.
We finally agree! The "massacres" were such a low percentage of the population that they didn't have a significant impact. In other words, routine violence in an anarchic system, relatively balanced because both sides inflicted and absorbed damage.
I've read a physics dissertation claiming that by using 60% polonium 40% uranium you could create a very small nuclear weapon that weighed less than 2 kg with close to 5 kiloton yield. Obviously that has not been tried, and of course this would be bloody hard to make.
That's still my point. "Purse-sized" nukes have not actually been developed. Even if they can be made in theory, actors that would need to use a tiny nuke for assassinations will lack the capability for some time to come.
(on rockets) You have to prevent their lauch or it's game over. In practice these rockets will be able to destroy any city-block sized region, and it is still considered all but impossible to protect even tiny areas like, say the white house, the pentagon or the capitol from getting hit. On the other hand, they would see the rockets coming, and would probably have effective evacuation measures in place. But you can still see the problem, right ?
I can't really see a "problem". At least not back to GGP?'s point. There is no reason to believe mini-nukes are a credible threat from any but the most advanced states. These states know the consequences and know they will not be able to remain anonymous. If I were a major power, and I *really* wanted to assassinate POTUS, I would have better, less costly methods ava
You should read a bit of history...Several muslim empires have killed more then 200 million people each using only the simple and humble knife...
Since you're lecturing on history... have a source?
Seriously, we didn't go much above 200 million until the industrial revolution. I have trouble believing that "several empires" killed off the entire global population with knives.
If you have a nuke, which is the size of a large woman's purse and the weight of 5 bricks of orange juice, it is trivial to...
They'd pause time and fly away on their unicorns before your purse-sized nuclear weapon was detonated. At least, that's what would happen in neocon fantasy land.
The "suitcase sized" nuke is basically the world's largest duffle bag and quite heavy. Even if they *could* be made purse-sized and lightweight, it'd be ridiculous to use them for targeted assassinations. If you can get that close, just use conventional explosives. And if you can't get close but are willing to use nukes, just use a normal-sized one.
Overall, very well reasoned and well supported. And not just because it matches my own conclusions:) but I will nitpick two points and object strongly to one.
Note: there is also the modern day assessment that only the US, China, Great Britain, and maybe France would have enough weapons to offer reprisal. And among the smaller nations, whoever strikes first would not have to face a counter attack.
This can't be a certainty, just a probability. I'd be surprised if Russia didn't still have sufficient second strike. While DPRK and Israel may not be considered to have a robust second strike capability, there is a very real probability that a first strike against them would not destroy all weapons... and could thus be very costly. Granted, this may be difficult, but any country planning a first strike against them would have to consider it.
Additionally, smaller nations also generally have less advanced targeting, intelligence, command and control, and delivery systems. The US is much more able to launch a disarming first strike than, say, Iran. In retaliating, smaller nations probably have weaker controls on nuclear weapons. Local commanders may be able to launch tactical or strategic nuclear weapons without authorization (e.g. launch codes) from national leaders. In short, given the same nuclear arsenals smaller nations are less able to conduct an effective first strike and more likely to be able to launch a second strike.
With nobody else willing to step in on either side, and the participants having no launch on warning capabilities, the situation with proliferation of Nukes is such that some nut-job will sooner or later launch a surprise attack knowing they will not have their own country destroyed in return.
The danger is probably more in extension of nuclear umbrellas. If, say, China extended theirs to DPRK, or if the US does to Israel... things could get interesting very quickly.
MAD only works if its truly MAD and if religious nut jobs don't see it as a path to heaven.
I have never been able to find a shred evidence or intelligent analysis in the literature that concludes Iran or DPRK are anything other than rational, intelligent actors. They may seem crazy, but they follow the same logic as everyone else.
It's a nice assertion, but I don't think anybody has made a sufficient case that Iran, as a state, has been irrational or unintelligent. I'd argue that they pursue WMD precisely because they understand the underlying logic so well and they seek its protection. I think they understand the lessons of Iraq, Libya, and North Korea very well.
The main problem is that Iran won't use nuclear weapons in their own right. They'll use them via a proxy like Hezbollah. So it doesn't quite fit into the scenario he is describing.
Standard neocon justification: "sure, history doesn't back my claim, but this time is different because _____".
Prove it. Prove that Iran is stupid enough to not know that any use of nuclear weapons or dirty bombs by their proxies won't be traced back to them. Or at least show me some game theory where other states won't respond in a way that would be sufficient deterrence.
Iran has, throughout all previous interactions, been a very rational and intelligent actor. You need to either demonstrate that they aren't or give a very strong case for deterrence being somehow broken.
Here are some numbers I trust (to 2 sig digits): * Total wealth in the US: $91T * National debt: $16T * Unfunded social security liability: $16T * Unfunded prescription drug liability: $21T * Unfunded Medicare liability: $83T * Total debt + unfunded liabilities: $135T
Our debt abd (sic) future promises exceed expected tax revenue by more than all the wealth in America. How are we going to pay for what we've already promised? Take everything form everybody, then give it back, then take it again? Wow, that's sure going to be productive.
(emphasis mine) The "unfunded liabilities" are based on expected future costs of healthcare, social security, and pharmaceuticals as well as projected revenues. I'll grant you SS for the sake of argument, but how can you possibly predict future healthcare and pharmaceuticals costs AND revenues to 2 sig? You can't. Saying that's representative of reality is dishonest.
A depression or economic boom would have drastic impacts. Changes in productivity rates would change the formula entirely. Cost controls and revenue changes can be easily implemented.
For example, the US can allow re-importation of pharmaceuticals, destroying an effective drug monopoly. Or they could alter (or eliminate) drug patents, or switch to a system that rewards research rather than marketing. Given that pharmaceutical marketing expenses exceed research, it's not implausible that this would lead to very large cost reductions.
Healthcare costs might very well plummet rather than rise. Future advances in technology (esp. nanotech and stem cells) could make many areas of healthcare affordable. Instead of bypass ($100k+), a series of injections ($1k? 5k? 10k?) could reopen arteries and rebuild the necessary tissue. Recent advances in understanding causal pathways could lead to treatments that prevent serious conditions entirely (stem cells in arterial tissue differentiating into fat/muscle cells and causing buildup). Trials are already underway to reconstruct everything from pancreatic function to the left ventricle.
How can you be so confident in your projections? Do you know the outcome of all of these questions to "2 significant digits"?
Your comment "Most Americans couldn't give a rat's ass" is spot on because most Americans believe they are still the biggest, best, etc,...
How dare you insinuate that we aren't the biggest! We most certainly are.
The only way to let this guy know his behavior is unacceptable is by actually telling him. (supplying proof in some cases as he otherwise just pretends normal conversation is only an opinion)
Ok, now I know you're clueless. Have you watched Fox? Seen a few House Republicans discuss policy in the last decade? "Proof" is right there next to "facts": in the trash next to all that other liberal nonsense.
There's nothing you can do to convince them they're wrong. Your best arguments will be counterproductive because they will always double down inside their little bubble.
The current generation is eating up the goodwill and faith, that previous generations have built up, in a record pace and either the American population in general is being kept in the dark or they lack the mentality or intellect to see what is going on.
...I find it a shame that a once great nation WITH good foundations (equality) has turned from its roots and only acts in its own interest screwing whomever is on or in in their way. Maybe the US once was able to get away with it, but this is becoming less and less the case.
You'll have to define "current generation". I'd say the baby boomers have been the worst generation in American history. It's very much the "I got mine" generation, steadfastly protecting its own government programs while stripping them away from everyone else as it ages... pulling the ladder up behind it. Can you name any other generation that left its children so much debt while so effectively enriching itself? That lowered taxes during a war and didn't give a damn how many kids were dying? Thought 7 tours weren't enough? Allowed torture? Imprisoned such a high percentage of its citizens? Destroyed the global economy and then refused to enact meaningful regulations or provide jobs programs?
They're terrible. But they are also inadvertently doing a lot of good even when motivated by greed, and I think it objectively outweighs the harm.
American universities, research institutions, engineers, and NGOs are responsible for a great deal of the global progress over the last few decades. Americans could do a lot more on these fronts, but I'd say it's been a strong positive. And this isn't mentioning public goods the US provides/provided (maritime security/shipping lanes, security guarantees, GPS, etc.).
It is generally idiotic to view a state as altruistic, but many of America's actions do happen to benefit most of the global community... and I think you'll find the end of American hegemony/global leadership rather unpleasant. But first, you're probably going to see Europe and China collapse. The US will weather the storm and do a victory dance, then double-down on all its bullshit for a while. Sorry:(
No, it's 8-1 because there's no evident legal basis to overturn the lower courts. The judges decide on the law, they don't actually make it (though they're accused of it all the time).
That's not 100% true, and I'm sure you know it. An important function of the higher courts, particularly the US Supreme Court, is to figure out how to deal with gaps in the law. The law never covers every possible scenario, and the law isn't always coherent or consistent (and no, I don't give a damn what Weinrib says). There are obviously different schools of legal thought and jurisprudence, but it's not a stretch to say that judges really do create law or policy when they fill the gaps in existing law. They establish rules, precedents, and interpretations which change the legal reality in the country.
That said, "judicial activism" is just a term people use when they disagree with the outcome.
They can't just overturn properly created legislation that does not conflict with other legislation or treaties or the constitution.
No, but they can make some pretty dramatic over-reaches in their interpretations. Bush v Gore and Citizens United aren't isolated incidents.
It will be interesting to see what sort of legal theory for overturning it will be presented (I don't think "too expensive for small guys" will cut it).
I haven't bothered to read all the documents, but it seems the appeal and district court rulings hinged on whether the treaty violated freedom of expression and whether or not it was a content-neutral regulation of speech. Intermediary scrutiny says it doesn't. The cert petition rehashes the freedom of expression claim, challenges the ability of Congress to take remove works from public domain, etc. Of course you know that if you read the docs on scotusblog... P. 10 or so of the cert petition.
That's like taking your pickup truck to 500,000 miles because you like the color. It makes no sense.
I am not saying to not build safely, but to actually build the new safe designs before we need them to be built in a hurry, and thus under specced.
No, it's a bit more like paying marginal operations and maintenance costs rather than paying billions to decommission your old truck and billions more to buy a new one when the regulators say "that's fine, you can do that."
That's only because the USA and japan and Europe has banned all new reactors of safe designs and decided to extend the life of the old reactors by 2-3 times their original design lifetimes.
Banned? I don't know if you're just trying to use loaded language or intentionally mislead people. First, there is no "safe" design, merely safer designs. Second, new designs aren't "banned", they just haven't been approved... in large part because very few serious attempts have been made to build them since the 70s. Third, Obama took some flak (on this very site) for attempting to spur the construction of new nuclear plants by promising massive loan guarantees.
I hope to everything that's holy and unholy that this will remain as a flag or a config setting, not some forced idiocy like hiding the "http://". The whole of Chrome is too well done to have them ruin it with a nonsensical move like this...
IIRC, http was hidden because Google has been experimenting with SPDY and a lot of their sites actually aren't using HTTP under Chrome anymore.
Since most people have no idea what SPDY is, probably want the features it offers, and will have trouble sending everyone SPDY://google.com links... it makes sense to hide it and automatically replace it with HTTP in copy-paste.
You do realize that Amazon wouldn't be paying sales tax, right? Amazon's customers would be the ones paying the tax. This would just require Amazon to collect the sales tax, which would effectively increase the price of every one of its products and increase overhead to stay on top of sales tax laws in all 50 states.
Really? This tired old argument is the best you can come up with? Amazon currently has a competitive advantage over box retailers because box retailers have to collect sales tax while Amazon gets to say "no tax is owed", shifting the burdens to consumers and essentially castrating tax enforcement. In order for Amazon to at least offer an attempt at aiding tax enforcement, they would have to send a form like a W-2 or 1098 at the end of every year, detailing how much each consumer spent and owes... sending copies to the relevant government agencies. Current policy is that a) they won't tell you how much sales tax you might owe or provide easy totals and b) they don't cooperate with the government to ensure you actually pay your dues.
I'm sure you're an upstanding person who believes everyone should pay their fair share, but this policy doesn't make that happen. Almost nobody pays their dues when it comes to self-reported sales tax owed. Many people simply don't understand the requirement, and the accounting process is tedious.
In order to accurately self-report my sales taxes in California, I would have to retain records/receipts for every single internet purchase I make over the entire year. Then, come tax season, I'd have to tally them all up and try to get them into the form right (I actually got that wrong this year.. I put in that I paid $200 or somesuch in internet sales, and it increased my total owed by the exact same amount). Very, very few people do this.
Requiring Amazon to collect state sales tax would make shopping online more expensive for everyone involved.
It is far easier, cheaper, and more efficient for Amazon to collect sales tax than it is for them to issue tax forms to every customer or for every customer to keep records of every single transaction and attempt to accurately self-report them at the end of the year. Mom and pop stores have been collecting sales tax for a long time now--do you really mean to tell me it's just too hard for Amazon to do? Or are you talking about the "extra expense" of sales taxes that are, y'know, already owed by consumers? If so, what you're really saying is "I like this loophole because it allows people to get out of paying sales tax."
This isn't a subsidy for Amazon, it's a subsidy for consumers all over the US.
Right. It's a subsidy for Amazon customers, which provides a competitive advantage to Amazon over all other companies that don't enjoy the same privileges. You really think they're upset over the "complexities" of collecting sales tax rather than the risk to their competitive advantage over big box retailers?
The only thing that has changed between Ye Olde Sears Catalog and mighty Amazon is the scale and ease at which money is slipping away from the state's grasp AND current budget shortfalls causing states to look anywhere they can for that money.
I responded to this a little above this (search Scripto), but the short reply is: that's not the only thing that changed. Amazon has subsidiaries, legally acting as contractors, who do have a physical presence in many other states (19 last I looked). They're trying to claim interstate commerce when the product ships entirely intrastate, based on contracted "associate" subsidiaries, who are under the full control of Amazon, are NAMED Amazon, and do nothing but sell and ship Amazon products.
Amazon collects tax it has actually presences in, such as Washington State.
But Amazon has found a way to skirt this requirement while still having a contracted physical presence in many other states. These contractors are wholly owned subsidiaries, but legally independent. They use them to fulfill their orders, so the orders are placed, shipped, and received in the same state... but since an out-of-state company is handling the transaction, no sales taxes are collected.
This is a fairly blatant loophole to Quill, but it seems to neatly fall under Scripto, Inc. v. Carson.
In short, a nearly identical case has already been decided on by the Supreme Court. The biggest difference I see is Amazon's addition of "over the internet". Bezos' constitutional argument is crap, but who knows what the current Supreme Court will do. Various state laws may yet be struck down, based on their over-definition of agents, etc.
>Something intended for cargo is going to be large and expensive.
That depends on the cargo. It may be sacks of flour (really heavy), or it may be medicine (not heavy at all). Also, if you're not paying for a pilot, you're saving the weight and the expense of carrying a man wherever that payload needs to go. Not to mention, since computers don't need to sleep, you can fly the UAV 24/7 if you want, and only stop it for refueling, loading and unloading the cargo.
-jcr
On the medicine side, it actually makes sense, but more as a SAR bird. I can imagine the Coast Guard deploying a large fleet of UAVs, able to stay up 24x7, scan for wreckage/ships/survivors, mark locations, and potentially even airdrop some basic relief supplies (life raft, etc.).
They already use C-130s for this, but 130s require a large crew, are fuel limited, and there just aren't that many of them... Granted UAVs still require maintenance, but I really do expect this to happen in the future.
Since the new slashdot look is now broken and doesn't let me accurately preview comments (cuts off the top half of the text, making snippets unreadable), I'm just going to comment without knowing if anyone else addressed this.
Ignoring the question of whether nuclear is safer than wind, nuclear isn't sufficiently scalable. Period. Future advancements MIGHT change this, but even the best modern designs won't allow the world to replace all the world's coal plans, let alone create 15TW+ of nuclear.
Here's the question I have : given that the given arguments against nuclear power are bogus. The dangers of nuclear power, when evaluated as sum(chance_of_occurence * cost_of_occurence) for all occurances, is MUCH less than solar, and the positive payoff (ie. energy for billions of people) of nuclear power is much greater than solar or wind... why the hell would anyone oppose nuclear power ? I mean I realize pretty faces on the idiot tube are saying this, but have you ever thought about this for yourself ?
I don't oppose nuclear power, I think it's a tremendous advancement. I just don't think it is an economic, practical, or even theoretically viable alternative to a huge portion of our current power generation. In terms of large-scale policy decisions, the highest and fastest returns come from conservation efforts--we have a lot of low-hanging fruit there (insulation, mileage, etc.). Beyond that, wind is the only economically viable, scalable alternative energy... we've dammed most dammable rivers, geothermal uses a ton of water, solar is still expensive, etc.
At least for the US, wind is the smart and immediate option. Solar, particularly solar thermal, are still making rapid improvements... and I expect them to be able to provide great returns in the future.
The last I heard, you dealt with terrorists under the criminal justice system, not militarily. The soldiers are there to help out he police. In the UK up to the 'Nineties, we caught PIRA and Loyalist terrorists and put them on trial for their crimes. Yes, occasionally our soldiers shot terrorists, but only in exceptional circumstances.
That's all.
No, it's really not all. Bin Laden formally declared war on the United States. As a non-citizen beyond the borders, leading an army of combatants sworn to war against the US, he was legally and practically an enemy combatant. A military operation was launched to deal with him. Military operations are, by default, not police operations.
The US uses police domestically and military or cooperation with local police elsewhere. When the military is used in war, there is no expected requirement that you provide multiple opportunities to surrender... there are requirements that you take POWs when they try to surrender. UBL apparently did not attempt to surrender, and he was killed.
If you have a problem with this, you should also have a problem with every other military operation in the history of the planet because these operations involved killing many uniformed soldiers without giving them sufficient opportunities to surrender. I think your country owes apologies to every Nazi soldier who was shot by a sniper in WWII.
you say that most ("usually") people suing are douchebags. You got any evidence, or is that just your unsupported opinion ?
I don't know about him, but I've seen data that says basically the reverse... patients are far less likely to sue doctors who apologize for their mistakes, even in surgery. Doctors who don't apologize, and perhaps treat patients less like actual people, get sued more often... and many of them repeatedly.
As a local living in that area, who would you call to report his location and collect your reward? Do you call the police, and hope whoever you talk to is not corrupt?
I know I'd be keen to collect on the reward, but I don't like being dead either...so I don't really know how I personally would have gone about doing it. Presumably you have to be identifiable at the time that you call in the tip, and that's the catch. (Well, maybe I can think of ways *I* would have gone about it, but the situation would likely be very different for most locals in Pakistan).
Use a letter or phone call to the US embassy. Many tips have been filed this way. You don't have to go anywhere in person, and you certainly don't have to entrust your government with it.
That said, a handful of news reports have said that the US knew about this place for a long time, but that we didn't know who was in it. A few other reports have said that we suspected bin Laden (or another high-end terrorist) was there, but we needed confirmation before launching an operation.
What about this interesting suggestion to eliminate suicide attacks: the initiator is motivated by immediate entry into paradise. Word on the ground in Afghanistan is that when the remains are gathered and buried, inclusion of just a small piece of pigmeat with the remains will prevent Allah from seeing the martyr, thus, no paradise, thus, not motivation to die.
We did this in the Philippines... only worse. We cut open pigs, shoved the fighters' corpses inside, then stitched them back up and buried them.
Permanently buried inside a pig. It didn't really ensure our victory there.
Unless interstellar travel becomes more profitable in the short term than waging senseless wars, I'd have to (sadly) agree with you.
Impossible. Imagine I can produce a device capable of outputting enough energy to send a ship to another star in a human's lifetime (ignoring speed limits). Who should I sell it to?
Well, anyone with this device could literally rule (or destroy) the world. That's a lot of energy. So I could use it to capture the entire world's economy, sell it to a government that could essentially do the same, oooor I could sell it to a space tourism outfit that will manage to get a handful of billionaires to shell out some cash to take a ride on their new ship.
Or, with a fraction of that amount of energy, I could bring every asteroid to Earth, mine and process them, separating all of their elements, then bake a million tons of diamond, and have enough energy left over to power the entire planet for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
Landfill space in your region may be scarce, but you do live on a planet with areas that don't have that problem.
You've obviously never lived in Japan. They've had a hell of a time trying to find countries that will take their wastes. And then there's the costs of exporting: fees, shipping infrastructure, fuel and transportation costs. Are you ideologically opposed to recycling? It seems like recycling domestically is simpler and cheaper than shipping unsorted refuse to Africa.
Recycling is cost competitive with incineration. Last I checked, Japan incinerated about 80% of its waste. Given the extremely limited landfill space and high costs of refuse export or incineration, recycling is not a wasted effort. It's a cost reduction strategy.
Not sure if you're just AC or OP as AC? Either way, I suppose I'll take the bait.
...a massacre of ~10.000 people, mostly Jews at first then mostly muslims later, but that took at least 30 years to actually happen, and was essentially a series of attacks on small tribes of a few hundred people at first, and twice a little over a thousand people near the end. These genocides comitted by for example the muslim mughals in India took half a millenium to complete, it's just that every few months or so they'd commit another massacre of a few thousand people, and several loosely affiliated "kingdoms", all mughal, would do this.
Very loaded words. You're essentially lumping all violence committed by all members of all sects of Islam and calling it one giant unprecedented massacre. Do you have *any* sources that give real evidence that Muslims were significantly more violent than other groups during these periods?
Same story in Spain with the Moors, the total death toll of their genocides numbered in the millions, but this was the result of a few hundred people at most every few weeks, and they kept doing that for centuries.
Al-Andalus was pretty damned tolerant (and prosperous). Of course, if you call "a few hundred" deaths from ALL forms of violence every few weeks a genocide, you'd agree that the war on drugs is a giant freaking genocide+massacre+holocaust, right?
They probably did not even kill for racist or religious reasons, it's just the way muslims fight, and it was codified into the religion after the fact : they "raid". They have no internal logistics, they don't feed or clothe or even arm their troops. These armies simply plunder food, horses, animals and so on while they advance.
... well I guess if you define "Muslim" as uncivilized, haphazard warrior groups that didn't care about logistics, then yes. I seem to recall plenty of Muslim groups being rather different, though. The Ottomans, for example. As for pillaging, that's pretty standard in warfare. Yes, they killed and pilfered to the best of their abilities in war, just like every other society.
...These massacres took centuries and did not significanly lower total human population, for the same reason cat attacks don't usually lower mouse populations : there's a sort of balance.
We finally agree! The "massacres" were such a low percentage of the population that they didn't have a significant impact. In other words, routine violence in an anarchic system, relatively balanced because both sides inflicted and absorbed damage.
I've read a physics dissertation claiming that by using 60% polonium 40% uranium you could create a very small nuclear weapon that weighed less than 2 kg with close to 5 kiloton yield. Obviously that has not been tried, and of course this would be bloody hard to make.
That's still my point. "Purse-sized" nukes have not actually been developed. Even if they can be made in theory, actors that would need to use a tiny nuke for assassinations will lack the capability for some time to come.
(on rockets) You have to prevent their lauch or it's game over. In practice these rockets will be able to destroy any city-block sized region, and it is still considered all but impossible to protect even tiny areas like, say the white house, the pentagon or the capitol from getting hit. On the other hand, they would see the rockets coming, and would probably have effective evacuation measures in place. But you can still see the problem, right ?
I can't really see a "problem". At least not back to GGP?'s point. There is no reason to believe mini-nukes are a credible threat from any but the most advanced states. These states know the consequences and know they will not be able to remain anonymous. If I were a major power, and I *really* wanted to assassinate POTUS, I would have better, less costly methods ava
You should read a bit of history...Several muslim empires have killed more then 200 million people each using only the simple and humble knife...
Since you're lecturing on history... have a source?
Seriously, we didn't go much above 200 million until the industrial revolution. I have trouble believing that "several empires" killed off the entire global population with knives.
If you have a nuke, which is the size of a large woman's purse and the weight of 5 bricks of orange juice, it is trivial to...
They'd pause time and fly away on their unicorns before your purse-sized nuclear weapon was detonated. At least, that's what would happen in neocon fantasy land.
The "suitcase sized" nuke is basically the world's largest duffle bag and quite heavy. Even if they *could* be made purse-sized and lightweight, it'd be ridiculous to use them for targeted assassinations. If you can get that close, just use conventional explosives. And if you can't get close but are willing to use nukes, just use a normal-sized one.
Overall, very well reasoned and well supported. And not just because it matches my own conclusions :) but I will nitpick two points and object strongly to one.
Note: there is also the modern day assessment that only the US, China, Great Britain, and maybe France would have enough weapons to offer reprisal. And among the smaller nations, whoever strikes first would not have to face a counter attack.
This can't be a certainty, just a probability. I'd be surprised if Russia didn't still have sufficient second strike. While DPRK and Israel may not be considered to have a robust second strike capability, there is a very real probability that a first strike against them would not destroy all weapons... and could thus be very costly. Granted, this may be difficult, but any country planning a first strike against them would have to consider it.
Additionally, smaller nations also generally have less advanced targeting, intelligence, command and control, and delivery systems. The US is much more able to launch a disarming first strike than, say, Iran. In retaliating, smaller nations probably have weaker controls on nuclear weapons. Local commanders may be able to launch tactical or strategic nuclear weapons without authorization (e.g. launch codes) from national leaders. In short, given the same nuclear arsenals smaller nations are less able to conduct an effective first strike and more likely to be able to launch a second strike.
With nobody else willing to step in on either side, and the participants having no launch on warning capabilities, the situation with proliferation of Nukes is such that some nut-job will sooner or later launch a surprise attack knowing they will not have their own country destroyed in return.
The danger is probably more in extension of nuclear umbrellas. If, say, China extended theirs to DPRK, or if the US does to Israel... things could get interesting very quickly.
MAD only works if its truly MAD and if religious nut jobs don't see it as a path to heaven.
I have never been able to find a shred evidence or intelligent analysis in the literature that concludes Iran or DPRK are anything other than rational, intelligent actors. They may seem crazy, but they follow the same logic as everyone else.
It's a nice assertion, but I don't think anybody has made a sufficient case that Iran, as a state, has been irrational or unintelligent. I'd argue that they pursue WMD precisely because they understand the underlying logic so well and they seek its protection. I think they understand the lessons of Iraq, Libya, and North Korea very well.
The main problem is that Iran won't use nuclear weapons in their own right. They'll use them via a proxy like Hezbollah. So it doesn't quite fit into the scenario he is describing.
Standard neocon justification: "sure, history doesn't back my claim, but this time is different because _____".
Prove it. Prove that Iran is stupid enough to not know that any use of nuclear weapons or dirty bombs by their proxies won't be traced back to them. Or at least show me some game theory where other states won't respond in a way that would be sufficient deterrence.
Iran has, throughout all previous interactions, been a very rational and intelligent actor. You need to either demonstrate that they aren't or give a very strong case for deterrence being somehow broken.
Here are some numbers I trust (to 2 sig digits):
* Total wealth in the US: $91T
* National debt: $16T
* Unfunded social security liability: $16T
* Unfunded prescription drug liability: $21T
* Unfunded Medicare liability: $83T
* Total debt + unfunded liabilities: $135T
Our debt abd (sic) future promises exceed expected tax revenue by more than all the wealth in America. How are we going to pay for what we've already promised? Take everything form everybody, then give it back, then take it again? Wow, that's sure going to be productive.
(emphasis mine)
The "unfunded liabilities" are based on expected future costs of healthcare, social security, and pharmaceuticals as well as projected revenues. I'll grant you SS for the sake of argument, but how can you possibly predict future healthcare and pharmaceuticals costs AND revenues to 2 sig? You can't. Saying that's representative of reality is dishonest.
A depression or economic boom would have drastic impacts. Changes in productivity rates would change the formula entirely. Cost controls and revenue changes can be easily implemented.
For example, the US can allow re-importation of pharmaceuticals, destroying an effective drug monopoly. Or they could alter (or eliminate) drug patents, or switch to a system that rewards research rather than marketing. Given that pharmaceutical marketing expenses exceed research, it's not implausible that this would lead to very large cost reductions.
Healthcare costs might very well plummet rather than rise. Future advances in technology (esp. nanotech and stem cells) could make many areas of healthcare affordable. Instead of bypass ($100k+), a series of injections ($1k? 5k? 10k?) could reopen arteries and rebuild the necessary tissue. Recent advances in understanding causal pathways could lead to treatments that prevent serious conditions entirely (stem cells in arterial tissue differentiating into fat/muscle cells and causing buildup). Trials are already underway to reconstruct everything from pancreatic function to the left ventricle.
How can you be so confident in your projections? Do you know the outcome of all of these questions to "2 significant digits"?
Your comment "Most Americans couldn't give a rat's ass" is spot on because most Americans believe they are still the biggest, best, etc, ...
How dare you insinuate that we aren't the biggest! We most certainly are.
The only way to let this guy know his behavior is unacceptable is by actually telling him. (supplying proof in some cases as he otherwise just pretends normal conversation is only an opinion)
Ok, now I know you're clueless. Have you watched Fox? Seen a few House Republicans discuss policy in the last decade? "Proof" is right there next to "facts": in the trash next to all that other liberal nonsense.
There's nothing you can do to convince them they're wrong. Your best arguments will be counterproductive because they will always double down inside their little bubble.
The current generation is eating up the goodwill and faith, that previous generations have built up, in a record pace and either the American population in general is being kept in the dark or they lack the mentality or intellect to see what is going on.
...I find it a shame that a once great nation WITH good foundations (equality) has turned from its roots and only acts in its own interest screwing whomever is on or in in their way. Maybe the US once was able to get away with it, but this is becoming less and less the case.
You'll have to define "current generation". I'd say the baby boomers have been the worst generation in American history. It's very much the "I got mine" generation, steadfastly protecting its own government programs while stripping them away from everyone else as it ages... pulling the ladder up behind it. Can you name any other generation that left its children so much debt while so effectively enriching itself? That lowered taxes during a war and didn't give a damn how many kids were dying? Thought 7 tours weren't enough? Allowed torture? Imprisoned such a high percentage of its citizens? Destroyed the global economy and then refused to enact meaningful regulations or provide jobs programs?
They're terrible. But they are also inadvertently doing a lot of good even when motivated by greed, and I think it objectively outweighs the harm.
American universities, research institutions, engineers, and NGOs are responsible for a great deal of the global progress over the last few decades. Americans could do a lot more on these fronts, but I'd say it's been a strong positive. And this isn't mentioning public goods the US provides/provided (maritime security/shipping lanes, security guarantees, GPS, etc.).
It is generally idiotic to view a state as altruistic, but many of America's actions do happen to benefit most of the global community... and I think you'll find the end of American hegemony/global leadership rather unpleasant. But first, you're probably going to see Europe and China collapse. The US will weather the storm and do a victory dance, then double-down on all its bullshit for a while. Sorry :(
No, it's 8-1 because there's no evident legal basis to overturn the lower courts. The judges decide on the law, they don't actually make it (though they're accused of it all the time).
That's not 100% true, and I'm sure you know it. An important function of the higher courts, particularly the US Supreme Court, is to figure out how to deal with gaps in the law. The law never covers every possible scenario, and the law isn't always coherent or consistent (and no, I don't give a damn what Weinrib says). There are obviously different schools of legal thought and jurisprudence, but it's not a stretch to say that judges really do create law or policy when they fill the gaps in existing law. They establish rules, precedents, and interpretations which change the legal reality in the country.
That said, "judicial activism" is just a term people use when they disagree with the outcome.
They can't just overturn properly created legislation that does not conflict with other legislation or treaties or the constitution.
No, but they can make some pretty dramatic over-reaches in their interpretations. Bush v Gore and Citizens United aren't isolated incidents.
It will be interesting to see what sort of legal theory for overturning it will be presented (I don't think "too expensive for small guys" will cut it).
I haven't bothered to read all the documents, but it seems the appeal and district court rulings hinged on whether the treaty violated freedom of expression and whether or not it was a content-neutral regulation of speech. Intermediary scrutiny says it doesn't. The cert petition rehashes the freedom of expression claim, challenges the ability of Congress to take remove works from public domain, etc. Of course you know that if you read the docs on scotusblog... P. 10 or so of the cert petition.
Even MI6 doesn't give a rats ass about copyright infringement . I think it would be hilarious if they were sued.
You can't copyright recipes.*
* At least not in the US, probably not many other places.
That's like taking your pickup truck to 500,000 miles because you like the color. It makes no sense.
I am not saying to not build safely, but to actually build the new safe designs before we need them to be built in a hurry, and thus under specced.
No, it's a bit more like paying marginal operations and maintenance costs rather than paying billions to decommission your old truck and billions more to buy a new one when the regulators say "that's fine, you can do that."
That's only because the USA and japan and Europe has banned all new reactors of safe designs and decided to extend the life of the old reactors by 2-3 times their original design lifetimes.
Banned? I don't know if you're just trying to use loaded language or intentionally mislead people. First, there is no "safe" design, merely safer designs. Second, new designs aren't "banned", they just haven't been approved... in large part because very few serious attempts have been made to build them since the 70s. Third, Obama took some flak (on this very site) for attempting to spur the construction of new nuclear plants by promising massive loan guarantees.
I hope to everything that's holy and unholy that this will remain as a flag or a config setting, not some forced idiocy like hiding the "http://". The whole of Chrome is too well done to have them ruin it with a nonsensical move like this...
IIRC, http was hidden because Google has been experimenting with SPDY and a lot of their sites actually aren't using HTTP under Chrome anymore.
Since most people have no idea what SPDY is, probably want the features it offers, and will have trouble sending everyone SPDY://google.com links... it makes sense to hide it and automatically replace it with HTTP in copy-paste.
You do realize that Amazon wouldn't be paying sales tax, right? Amazon's customers would be the ones paying the tax. This would just require Amazon to collect the sales tax, which would effectively increase the price of every one of its products and increase overhead to stay on top of sales tax laws in all 50 states.
Really? This tired old argument is the best you can come up with? Amazon currently has a competitive advantage over box retailers because box retailers have to collect sales tax while Amazon gets to say "no tax is owed", shifting the burdens to consumers and essentially castrating tax enforcement. In order for Amazon to at least offer an attempt at aiding tax enforcement, they would have to send a form like a W-2 or 1098 at the end of every year, detailing how much each consumer spent and owes... sending copies to the relevant government agencies. Current policy is that a) they won't tell you how much sales tax you might owe or provide easy totals and b) they don't cooperate with the government to ensure you actually pay your dues.
I'm sure you're an upstanding person who believes everyone should pay their fair share, but this policy doesn't make that happen. Almost nobody pays their dues when it comes to self-reported sales tax owed. Many people simply don't understand the requirement, and the accounting process is tedious.
In order to accurately self-report my sales taxes in California, I would have to retain records/receipts for every single internet purchase I make over the entire year. Then, come tax season, I'd have to tally them all up and try to get them into the form right (I actually got that wrong this year.. I put in that I paid $200 or somesuch in internet sales, and it increased my total owed by the exact same amount). Very, very few people do this.
Requiring Amazon to collect state sales tax would make shopping online more expensive for everyone involved.
It is far easier, cheaper, and more efficient for Amazon to collect sales tax than it is for them to issue tax forms to every customer or for every customer to keep records of every single transaction and attempt to accurately self-report them at the end of the year. Mom and pop stores have been collecting sales tax for a long time now--do you really mean to tell me it's just too hard for Amazon to do? Or are you talking about the "extra expense" of sales taxes that are, y'know, already owed by consumers? If so, what you're really saying is "I like this loophole because it allows people to get out of paying sales tax."
This isn't a subsidy for Amazon, it's a subsidy for consumers all over the US.
Right. It's a subsidy for Amazon customers, which provides a competitive advantage to Amazon over all other companies that don't enjoy the same privileges. You really think they're upset over the "complexities" of collecting sales tax rather than the risk to their competitive advantage over big box retailers?
The only thing that has changed between Ye Olde Sears Catalog and mighty Amazon is the scale and ease at which money is slipping away from the state's grasp AND current budget shortfalls causing states to look anywhere they can for that money.
I responded to this a little above this (search Scripto), but the short reply is: that's not the only thing that changed. Amazon has subsidiaries, legally acting as contractors, who do have a physical presence in many other states (19 last I looked). They're trying to claim interstate commerce when the product ships entirely intrastate, based on contracted "associate" subsidiaries, who are under the full control of Amazon, are NAMED Amazon, and do nothing but sell and ship Amazon products.
Amazon collects tax it has actually presences in, such as Washington State.
But Amazon has found a way to skirt this requirement while still having a contracted physical presence in many other states. These contractors are wholly owned subsidiaries, but legally independent. They use them to fulfill their orders, so the orders are placed, shipped, and received in the same state... but since an out-of-state company is handling the transaction, no sales taxes are collected.
This is a fairly blatant loophole to Quill, but it seems to neatly fall under Scripto, Inc. v. Carson.
In short, a nearly identical case has already been decided on by the Supreme Court. The biggest difference I see is Amazon's addition of "over the internet". Bezos' constitutional argument is crap, but who knows what the current Supreme Court will do. Various state laws may yet be struck down, based on their over-definition of agents, etc.
>Something intended for cargo is going to be large and expensive.
That depends on the cargo. It may be sacks of flour (really heavy), or it may be medicine (not heavy at all). Also, if you're not paying for a pilot, you're saving the weight and the expense of carrying a man wherever that payload needs to go. Not to mention, since computers don't need to sleep, you can fly the UAV 24/7 if you want, and only stop it for refueling, loading and unloading the cargo.
-jcr
On the medicine side, it actually makes sense, but more as a SAR bird. I can imagine the Coast Guard deploying a large fleet of UAVs, able to stay up 24x7, scan for wreckage/ships/survivors, mark locations, and potentially even airdrop some basic relief supplies (life raft, etc.).
They already use C-130s for this, but 130s require a large crew, are fuel limited, and there just aren't that many of them... Granted UAVs still require maintenance, but I really do expect this to happen in the future.
Since the new slashdot look is now broken and doesn't let me accurately preview comments (cuts off the top half of the text, making snippets unreadable), I'm just going to comment without knowing if anyone else addressed this.
Ignoring the question of whether nuclear is safer than wind, nuclear isn't sufficiently scalable. Period. Future advancements MIGHT change this, but even the best modern designs won't allow the world to replace all the world's coal plans, let alone create 15TW+ of nuclear.
Here's the question I have : given that the given arguments against nuclear power are bogus. The dangers of nuclear power, when evaluated as sum(chance_of_occurence * cost_of_occurence) for all occurances, is MUCH less than solar, and the positive payoff (ie. energy for billions of people) of nuclear power is much greater than solar or wind ... why the hell would anyone oppose nuclear power ? I mean I realize pretty faces on the idiot tube are saying this, but have you ever thought about this for yourself ?
I don't oppose nuclear power, I think it's a tremendous advancement. I just don't think it is an economic, practical, or even theoretically viable alternative to a huge portion of our current power generation. In terms of large-scale policy decisions, the highest and fastest returns come from conservation efforts--we have a lot of low-hanging fruit there (insulation, mileage, etc.). Beyond that, wind is the only economically viable, scalable alternative energy... we've dammed most dammable rivers, geothermal uses a ton of water, solar is still expensive, etc.
At least for the US, wind is the smart and immediate option. Solar, particularly solar thermal, are still making rapid improvements... and I expect them to be able to provide great returns in the future.
Someone already released this for another game, actually, but I can't find the link anymore.
Osama is the VIP, operated by AI. Terrorists have to defend the VIP, and CTs have to kill him.
The last I heard, you dealt with terrorists under the criminal justice system, not militarily. The soldiers are there to help out he police. In the UK up to the 'Nineties, we caught PIRA and Loyalist terrorists and put them on trial for their crimes. Yes, occasionally our soldiers shot terrorists, but only in exceptional circumstances.
That's all.
No, it's really not all. Bin Laden formally declared war on the United States. As a non-citizen beyond the borders, leading an army of combatants sworn to war against the US, he was legally and practically an enemy combatant. A military operation was launched to deal with him. Military operations are, by default, not police operations.
The US uses police domestically and military or cooperation with local police elsewhere. When the military is used in war, there is no expected requirement that you provide multiple opportunities to surrender... there are requirements that you take POWs when they try to surrender. UBL apparently did not attempt to surrender, and he was killed.
If you have a problem with this, you should also have a problem with every other military operation in the history of the planet because these operations involved killing many uniformed soldiers without giving them sufficient opportunities to surrender. I think your country owes apologies to every Nazi soldier who was shot by a sniper in WWII.
you say that most ("usually") people suing are douchebags. You got any evidence, or is that just your unsupported opinion ?
I don't know about him, but I've seen data that says basically the reverse... patients are far less likely to sue doctors who apologize for their mistakes, even in surgery. Doctors who don't apologize, and perhaps treat patients less like actual people, get sued more often... and many of them repeatedly.
more likely would be a 2000lbs JDAM being dropped on it 20 minutes after the SEALS were gone.
2000 lb JDAM in the middle of a populated, affluent neighborhood? Really? Even when we're not actually at war with them?
As a local living in that area, who would you call to report his location and collect your reward? Do you call the police, and hope whoever you talk to is not corrupt?
I know I'd be keen to collect on the reward, but I don't like being dead either...so I don't really know how I personally would have gone about doing it. Presumably you have to be identifiable at the time that you call in the tip, and that's the catch. (Well, maybe I can think of ways *I* would have gone about it, but the situation would likely be very different for most locals in Pakistan).
Use a letter or phone call to the US embassy. Many tips have been filed this way. You don't have to go anywhere in person, and you certainly don't have to entrust your government with it.
That said, a handful of news reports have said that the US knew about this place for a long time, but that we didn't know who was in it. A few other reports have said that we suspected bin Laden (or another high-end terrorist) was there, but we needed confirmation before launching an operation.
What about this interesting suggestion to eliminate suicide attacks: the initiator is motivated by immediate entry into paradise. Word on the ground in Afghanistan is that when the remains are gathered and buried, inclusion of just a small piece of pigmeat with the remains will prevent Allah from seeing the martyr, thus, no paradise, thus, not motivation to die.
We did this in the Philippines... only worse. We cut open pigs, shoved the fighters' corpses inside, then stitched them back up and buried them.
Permanently buried inside a pig. It didn't really ensure our victory there.
Thanks! I was trying to remember the name of this as soon as he mentioned it.
Unless interstellar travel becomes more profitable in the short term than waging senseless wars, I'd have to (sadly) agree with you.
Impossible. Imagine I can produce a device capable of outputting enough energy to send a ship to another star in a human's lifetime (ignoring speed limits). Who should I sell it to?
Well, anyone with this device could literally rule (or destroy) the world. That's a lot of energy. So I could use it to capture the entire world's economy, sell it to a government that could essentially do the same, oooor I could sell it to a space tourism outfit that will manage to get a handful of billionaires to shell out some cash to take a ride on their new ship.
Or, with a fraction of that amount of energy, I could bring every asteroid to Earth, mine and process them, separating all of their elements, then bake a million tons of diamond, and have enough energy left over to power the entire planet for a while.