Sorry, but Sales Tax is not something Wal-Mary, McDonalds, Shell, etc pay. It's something they collect and forward.
There's a very important distinction here. Please bear with me for a minute.
You, as the buyer of an item, incur Sales Tax on every taxable item you buy. That tax is something you pay, and since you are a user of your state's infrastructure that's all well and good.
Amazon/WallyWorld/MickeyDs/Etc, as the seller of an item, do not incur Sales Tax. If they have a physical presence in your state, they are subject to the laws of your state, and a common law to many states is that they must collect Sales Tax on your behalf and forward it to the State for you. They are, of course, liable for Sales Tax on anything they as a corporation purchase for their own use (office supplies, etc), but they don't "pay" Sales Tax on the stuff you buy from them. You do.
The reason this distinction is important is simple - a company that does not have a presence in your State is not subject to your State's laws, they are subject to Federal law and the laws of their own State. My home state of Maine cannot tell Amazon (a Washington company) how to do business, and that includes making them collect tax for my state. If Amazon put a store in Maine, then they are now subject to Maine law, and would start collecting and forwarding Sales Tax like a good Maine company should.
So, if you as a buyer are purchasing something from a company that is not collecting Sales Tax for you, that doesn't mean the tax isn't still due. It just means the company you are buying from isn't helping you pay it. YOU still owe that tax to YOUR state. Most states refer to this as "Use Tax" and collect it when they collect your income taxes.
Sales Tax is not a liability of the seller, it is a liability of the purchaser/buyer/user.
True, many states require companies with a physical business presence within their borders to collect the amount and forward it to the state, but the company is not "paying" Sales Tax, they are collecting it. The buyer is ultimately responsible for paying Sales Tax. If the buyer chooses a business that does not collect Sales Tax for their state, they are still responsible for determining and paying the appropriate Sales Tax to their state. This is commonly referred to as "Use Tax" and the fact that it's largely ignored does not make Amazon liable for their customers breaking the tax laws of their home states.
Amazon pays their share of "state-provided infrastructure" through property and municipal business taxes, and "national defense" through federal business taxes. If they have no presence in a state, they don't owe that state squat. Some of their customers might.
But I understand your confusion - there are two "Use Taxes", metaomni was referring to the "Use Tax" used to reclaim lost "Sales Tax".
Maine, for example, has a "Use Tax". It is a "Sales Tax" that the BUYER pays the State if they have purchased something from a company that does not collect "Sales Tax" (usually meaning a SELLER that is not in Maine). Technically, it applies to any item "Used" in the state that was purchased without paying "Sales" Taxes.
This is paid with your State Income Tax, and appears on the form. There are two ways to pay it:
1. You can keep all the receipts from all the crap you bought out of state and attach them to your form, paying 5%, 7%, or 10% of each receipt based on what kind of item it is. If you ate out at a restaurant and rented a car, that would be 7% and 10%, for example, respectively.
2. You can check a box for "Alternative Minimum Use Tax" and some small percentage of your total taxable income will be levied as a tax, and you can skip the paperwork. This covers all purchases under a given amount, individual purchases over that amount must still be documented and paid as "Use Tax" in addition to the Alternative Minimum.
Then determine what you are selling and if it is taxable at that time under that tax jurisdiction's individual rules, which is frequently dependent upon the sales price of the item, the overall total of the order, and what sort of business you are.
Somehow my post got chopped a bit. The "My Favorite" bit referred to the difference between the brief and deeply incomplete summary on Wikipedia regarding Maine's taxes and the actual rules surrounding which of the four rates (0%, 5%, 7%, 10%) to apply.
No offense, but you've obviously never done sales tax. If you were to put all the RATES (not rules, just RATES) on a sheet of paper, you'd need a large sheet of paper, a plotter and a very small font. Many states have a statewide sales tax, while allowing their counties to set their own taxes, and in some states even municipalities (cities, towns, parishes) can set their own taxes. Some towns charge different rates for different things based on where in town you are located. And almost all of the above have different rates based on what you are buying. There may be a few states that have only one rate (example: New Hampshire = 0%), but they are precious few.
Even in those states where there is a "uniform" sales tax rate sheet throughout the state (no County/Local taxes allowed), there are often multiple rates for different types of product, exemptions or inclusions for different services at the same or different rates, exemptions for "necessities" (food), exceptions to the exceptions (snack food), addons for purchases over certain amounts ("luxury tax") which varies by what you are buying, tax holidays (either for certain classes of goods or as a blanket statement or within given limits), reclamation of partial value of expired gift certificates, and lots of other rules. Never mind states that have county, city, and even "zone within city" based taxes. And, of course, a lot of businesses like to try and use tax exempt / reseller certificates for office supplies and things they don't intend to resell, which is illegal and the seller is partly liable.
My favorite is the thousands of words to describe the difference between "grocery staples" (nontaxable), normal items (taxable at 5%), and a "prepared food" (taxable at 7%). A bottle of soda is taxable at 5% in a convenience store and at 7% in a restaurant. A bottle of milk is nontaxable at a convenience store and is taxable at 7% in a restaurant. Donuts are taxable at both, unless it's a package of 6 or more, then it's considered a "food staple" and is nontaxable. A sandwich is taxable depending on whether it needed to be heated or not prior to sale.
Most honest businesses try to follow "Nexus" rules. In other words, if you have a valid physical presence in a specific state, you charge sales tax in that state. That presence could be a store, a call center, a warehouse, or whatever. Very few charge sales tax in all 50 states.
But if you don't have a presence in a given state, most businesses leave it up to the purchaser to pay Use Taxes.
There is no calendar that predicted the end of the world in 2012. There's nothing to "believe", even if you are of the stripe that likes to believe in ghosts, spirits, boogeymen, faeries, magical trolls, or Gods.
Oh, you mean the Mayan Calendar ending? Or, more accurately, the Mesoamerican calendar that the Mayans adopted reaching the same point at which the Mayans believed the 4th Earth was created (the one that finally worked) the last time around on the Long Count?
So the Mayan calendar will change from 12.19.19.79 to 13.0.0.0. Then about 400 years later, it'll be 14.0.0.0. Those among you good in math will see a pattern developing. The Mayans would probably see this as a cause for mass celebration, much like us celebrating the new year in 2000 differently from, say, 1990. It's a big change in numbers. It's a whole new b'ak'tun, baby! And there are 16 of them.
But the Mayans/Mesoamericans did not have a destruction myth surrounding 13.0.0.0. That was a recent addition by a few New Age cults, and is being marketed by Hollywierd to sell asses in seats.
But, beware! We start a new Long Count cycle on Oct 12 4772! Then the implied leading zero will change to a one, and the year will be 1.0.0.0.0. Now THAT'S going to be an awesome party! Or, more likely, it'll just be 0.0.0.0 again. Then any computers programmed in the Mayan calendar won't know what piktun it is.
There are a number of fields you might find profitable:
- Nuclear fallout shelters worked well in the 60s. How about a modern variant?
- The survivors will be reverting to an agrarian culture. You could offer courses on sharecropping, animal husbandry (be careful of your audience on that one - you might want to pick a different title for the class like "raising animals for food"), etc.
- Guns and ammo will be big sellers to this audience. Also preserved food.
No, refer them to one of the dogsitting services Atheists are starting to offer. "When you get called up for the Rapture, we'll take care of your pets while you're gone!"
I'm sorry, you're concerned about the PLOT of a disaster movie? The plot. Of a disaster movie. Stay where you are, the people who are arriving shortly are there to help you. They are bringing you shiny things.
Complete spoiler: Something scientifically impossible happens. Lots of people die and the laws of physics are apparently among the first casualties. Lots more people die. A few people suffer terrible injuries but somehow recover miraculously and are therefore immunized against death for the remainder of the film. Someone who is not in a position of authority overcomes great obstacles from clueless authority figures and breaks the laws of physics to come up with an impossible solution that, despite incredible odds, kills most of the people who disagreed with his/her theory in spectacularly ironic and/or morally righteous ways, and then works. Life immediately goes back to normal for all concerned, except those who are actually dead. The sun rises on happy people whose only complaint is that most of the people they know and love have been wiped out, but otherwise they are just so happy to be part of the small group of survivors who will soon be competing for what food is left before they descend into chaos and kill each other for stale crusts. But that can wait until the sequel.
The plot is a thin device over which special effects are generously smeared. Go watch the trailer again, and eagerly anticipate the FXfest.
Personally, the number of sheer coincidences and complete disregard for the laws of physics presented in the trailer I watched was enough to make me wonder about the state of science. Then I use my usual tactic... "just repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax'".
The trouble is, you're looking at the issue short-term. If they are gullible enough to fall for this one, they'll fall for something else in the near future, and probably mess up their kids too.
We can help limit this to one generation. It's money well-spent.
Plus, you'll never, EVER convince them they are wrong. If you deny the rumor, they'll just assume you're covering it up because you want to quell a panic. If you refuse to answer, they'll assume that the lack of denial means that whatever is said is true (a very successful tactic in TV pundetry, though it predates TV asshats by a significant margin). The only way to handle it is to confirm the rumor but direct them somewhere so you can get their kids out of harm's way before the parent's willful ignorance does any further harm.
Which means, of course, that in the interest of science we must find the people who thought of it and think of some suitable punishment. Keelhauling, drawn-and-quartered? Hmm, I've always admired the Vikings for their inventive punishments. Blood Eagle it is, then.
I'd say that NASA is trying to SAVE money by doing this.
NASA has received many, many questions about 2012, the Mayan calendar, and the latest asshat disaster movie. Similar, no doubt, to the panic and subsequent derision of science caused in the minds of some by the same level of pseudoscience demonstrated by "The Day After Tomorrow", which some people actually treated as a straw man for climate change theory.
So, NASA gets tons of emails, calls, etc. Some of them from people who are apparently suicidal. The cheapest and most efficient way is, of course, to confirm the rumors to those people and give them maps to their nearest pharmacy, along with detailed instructions on what colorful bottles contain stuff that will do the deed quickly and hopefully painlessly (because we don't want to be cruel). But the bodies would start to rot and stink, and it might attract Zombies as we all know from a recent documentary on the subject.
So, what's a governmental agency to do? Bail out a large institution? OK, yes, of course, but after that fails again? And again? And again? And again?
Easy! Put up a FAQ!
Because you just know the kind of people who are concerned enough not to do the slightest bit of research before they contemplate suicide are going to head immediately toward a FAQ that disagrees with their preconceived notions.
But, at least, you have to give NASA credit for trying. They've put out a clear, concise, level-headed, fact-filled document that really covers the major rumors well and attempts to debunk a few of the weirdest of the weird for-fun-and-profit rumormongers. In other words, it won't hold up to any argument that the people asking the questions will buy.
What they really should have put up was "We are safe. Baby Jeebus told me so".
Our global temperature is affected by three factors:
1. Amount of energy input. 2. Amount of energy stored or released. 3. Amount of energy radiated.
The amount of energy entering the Earth's atmosphere is, for all intents and purposes, a constant. The Sun is almost completely responsible for all of that.
If I have a black roof on my house, my roof will absorb the sunlight shining on it and turn it into heat. If I interrupt that with a solar collector, ~90% of it will still become heat, and ~10% of it will become electricity. As I use the electricity to do stuff, it generates heat. Including the losses over the wires, etc.
Net result: There isn't a significant difference in the actual amount of heat, only how we use the potential energy in sunlight before it turns into heat. Entropy is like that.
As far as the other two factors, we stored a crapload of solar energy and sequestered a crapload of carbon dioxide a long time ago in the form of dead plants and critters. That matter decayed and turned into what we now call "coal" and "oil". Burning those releases both that energy and CO2. CO2 is an insulator and therefore reduces heat radiation.
So if you use solar (or one if its indirect factors, like biofuel or wind) you get three wins - you're using heat that would be there anyway, you're not adding more heat, and you're not releasing sequestered material that may help the earth retain heat.
You do, however, get one loss. We've already built a HUGE infrastructure for using sequestered energy and built our demand around it. Direct and indirect solar has a long way to go before it can replace all of our wants, if it ever can. At some point, mankind is going to have to face "want" versus "need".
Frankly, it's an $2000 upgrade to checking the little ticky-boxes or whatever where you state your preferences.
Note the important phrases: "upgrade" and "$2000".
But then again people have been charging for decades now to wave colored crystals over other people in the belief that it somehow aligns their chia pets or something.
I'm sure such a disclaimer already exists. These are dating companies, remember. They will go for any gimmick that makes their customers think there is a higher chance of getting lai... err, finding that perfect someone.
From the summary: "he idea is that people tend to be attracted to those who have immune system genes that are dissimilar from their own"
If you cloned yourself, you would have a near 100% chance of not meeting your clone through this dating service, since your immune system would not be genetically dissimilar to that of your clone. Quite the opposite - unless there was an error in the cloning you'd be very, very similar. You and your clone would be lowest on the list of matches since there is no dissimilarity between your immune system genes. Slightly higher up, but still very low, on the list would be immediate blood relatives. Tending highest on the list would be people with a vastly different genetic background (different ethnicity). Though they are only going for immune system genetics, so those don't follow ethnic lines strictly to my knowledge (which is admittedly minimal).
The evolutionary force you are referring to is called hybridization and the result is called hybrid vigor - the mixing of dissimilar genomes tends to reduce the chances of activating an undesirable recessive trait. This is particularly true in very similar genomes, such as immediate blood relatives. Any recessive traits are going to show up in a BIG damned hurry, quite often in the first generation. That's why we have laws (and societal values) against marrying or even bonking immediate family members.
This specific genetic test does not cover enough of the genome to be useful, but if it did the decision would be generally desirable (you are choosing dissimilar genetics).
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but Sales Tax is not something Wal-Mary, McDonalds, Shell, etc pay. It's something they collect and forward.
There's a very important distinction here. Please bear with me for a minute.
You, as the buyer of an item, incur Sales Tax on every taxable item you buy. That tax is something you pay, and since you are a user of your state's infrastructure that's all well and good.
Amazon/WallyWorld/MickeyDs/Etc, as the seller of an item, do not incur Sales Tax. If they have a physical presence in your state, they are subject to the laws of your state, and a common law to many states is that they must collect Sales Tax on your behalf and forward it to the State for you. They are, of course, liable for Sales Tax on anything they as a corporation purchase for their own use (office supplies, etc), but they don't "pay" Sales Tax on the stuff you buy from them. You do.
The reason this distinction is important is simple - a company that does not have a presence in your State is not subject to your State's laws, they are subject to Federal law and the laws of their own State. My home state of Maine cannot tell Amazon (a Washington company) how to do business, and that includes making them collect tax for my state. If Amazon put a store in Maine, then they are now subject to Maine law, and would start collecting and forwarding Sales Tax like a good Maine company should.
So, if you as a buyer are purchasing something from a company that is not collecting Sales Tax for you, that doesn't mean the tax isn't still due. It just means the company you are buying from isn't helping you pay it. YOU still owe that tax to YOUR state. Most states refer to this as "Use Tax" and collect it when they collect your income taxes.
Sales Tax is not a liability of the seller, it is a liability of the purchaser/buyer/user.
True, many states require companies with a physical business presence within their borders to collect the amount and forward it to the state, but the company is not "paying" Sales Tax, they are collecting it. The buyer is ultimately responsible for paying Sales Tax. If the buyer chooses a business that does not collect Sales Tax for their state, they are still responsible for determining and paying the appropriate Sales Tax to their state. This is commonly referred to as "Use Tax" and the fact that it's largely ignored does not make Amazon liable for their customers breaking the tax laws of their home states.
Amazon pays their share of "state-provided infrastructure" through property and municipal business taxes, and "national defense" through federal business taxes. If they have no presence in a state, they don't owe that state squat. Some of their customers might.
Wrong on the Wrong.
But I understand your confusion - there are two "Use Taxes", metaomni was referring to the "Use Tax" used to reclaim lost "Sales Tax".
Maine, for example, has a "Use Tax". It is a "Sales Tax" that the BUYER pays the State if they have purchased something from a company that does not collect "Sales Tax" (usually meaning a SELLER that is not in Maine). Technically, it applies to any item "Used" in the state that was purchased without paying "Sales" Taxes.
http://www.maine.gov/revenue/salesuse/usetax.pdf
This is paid with your State Income Tax, and appears on the form. There are two ways to pay it:
1. You can keep all the receipts from all the crap you bought out of state and attach them to your form, paying 5%, 7%, or 10% of each receipt based on what kind of item it is. If you ate out at a restaurant and rented a car, that would be 7% and 10%, for example, respectively.
2. You can check a box for "Alternative Minimum Use Tax" and some small percentage of your total taxable income will be levied as a tax, and you can skip the paperwork. This covers all purchases under a given amount, individual purchases over that amount must still be documented and paid as "Use Tax" in addition to the Alternative Minimum.
Then determine what you are selling and if it is taxable at that time under that tax jurisdiction's individual rules, which is frequently dependent upon the sales price of the item, the overall total of the order, and what sort of business you are.
Somehow my post got chopped a bit. The "My Favorite" bit referred to the difference between the brief and deeply incomplete summary on Wikipedia regarding Maine's taxes and the actual rules surrounding which of the four rates (0%, 5%, 7%, 10%) to apply.
http://www.maine.gov/revenue/salesuse/reference-03.htm
No offense, but you've obviously never done sales tax. If you were to put all the RATES (not rules, just RATES) on a sheet of paper, you'd need a large sheet of paper, a plotter and a very small font. Many states have a statewide sales tax, while allowing their counties to set their own taxes, and in some states even municipalities (cities, towns, parishes) can set their own taxes. Some towns charge different rates for different things based on where in town you are located. And almost all of the above have different rates based on what you are buying. There may be a few states that have only one rate (example: New Hampshire = 0%), but they are precious few.
Even in those states where there is a "uniform" sales tax rate sheet throughout the state (no County/Local taxes allowed), there are often multiple rates for different types of product, exemptions or inclusions for different services at the same or different rates, exemptions for "necessities" (food), exceptions to the exceptions (snack food), addons for purchases over certain amounts ("luxury tax") which varies by what you are buying, tax holidays (either for certain classes of goods or as a blanket statement or within given limits), reclamation of partial value of expired gift certificates, and lots of other rules. Never mind states that have county, city, and even "zone within city" based taxes. And, of course, a lot of businesses like to try and use tax exempt / reseller certificates for office supplies and things they don't intend to resell, which is illegal and the seller is partly liable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States http://www.maine.gov/revenue/salesuse/reference-03.htm
My favorite is the thousands of words to describe the difference between "grocery staples" (nontaxable), normal items (taxable at 5%), and a "prepared food" (taxable at 7%). A bottle of soda is taxable at 5% in a convenience store and at 7% in a restaurant. A bottle of milk is nontaxable at a convenience store and is taxable at 7% in a restaurant. Donuts are taxable at both, unless it's a package of 6 or more, then it's considered a "food staple" and is nontaxable. A sandwich is taxable depending on whether it needed to be heated or not prior to sale.
Most honest businesses try to follow "Nexus" rules. In other words, if you have a valid physical presence in a specific state, you charge sales tax in that state. That presence could be a store, a call center, a warehouse, or whatever. Very few charge sales tax in all 50 states.
But if you don't have a presence in a given state, most businesses leave it up to the purchaser to pay Use Taxes.
Actually, I think the Kansas fear was of people knocking on the door and mumbling "Candygram". Different kind of shark.
There is no calendar that predicted the end of the world in 2012. There's nothing to "believe", even if you are of the stripe that likes to believe in ghosts, spirits, boogeymen, faeries, magical trolls, or Gods.
Oh, you mean the Mayan Calendar ending? Or, more accurately, the Mesoamerican calendar that the Mayans adopted reaching the same point at which the Mayans believed the 4th Earth was created (the one that finally worked) the last time around on the Long Count?
So the Mayan calendar will change from 12.19.19.79 to 13.0.0.0. Then about 400 years later, it'll be 14.0.0.0. Those among you good in math will see a pattern developing. The Mayans would probably see this as a cause for mass celebration, much like us celebrating the new year in 2000 differently from, say, 1990. It's a big change in numbers. It's a whole new b'ak'tun, baby! And there are 16 of them.
But the Mayans/Mesoamericans did not have a destruction myth surrounding 13.0.0.0. That was a recent addition by a few New Age cults, and is being marketed by Hollywierd to sell asses in seats.
But, beware! We start a new Long Count cycle on Oct 12 4772! Then the implied leading zero will change to a one, and the year will be 1.0.0.0.0. Now THAT'S going to be an awesome party! Or, more likely, it'll just be 0.0.0.0 again. Then any computers programmed in the Mayan calendar won't know what piktun it is.
So you're saying that Microsoft is in charge of the release date of the Apocalypse, then? Makes perfect sense to me.
Maybe they'll take out some of the nastier features. Then we only have to fear Apocalypse SP1.
You're right! We need to work on this immediately.
I propose giving the moon an atmosphere so crap can burn up in it. That'll stop those stupid craters from forming...
+infinity Insightful.
Actually, given your signature, make that "+infinity funny". Gotta balance out that karma somehow.
There are a number of fields you might find profitable:
- Nuclear fallout shelters worked well in the 60s. How about a modern variant?
- The survivors will be reverting to an agrarian culture. You could offer courses on sharecropping, animal husbandry (be careful of your audience on that one - you might want to pick a different title for the class like "raising animals for food"), etc.
- Guns and ammo will be big sellers to this audience. Also preserved food.
No, refer them to one of the dogsitting services Atheists are starting to offer. "When you get called up for the Rapture, we'll take care of your pets while you're gone!"
I'm thinking about opening a branch office.
I'm sorry, you're concerned about the PLOT of a disaster movie? The plot. Of a disaster movie. Stay where you are, the people who are arriving shortly are there to help you. They are bringing you shiny things.
Complete spoiler: Something scientifically impossible happens. Lots of people die and the laws of physics are apparently among the first casualties. Lots more people die. A few people suffer terrible injuries but somehow recover miraculously and are therefore immunized against death for the remainder of the film. Someone who is not in a position of authority overcomes great obstacles from clueless authority figures and breaks the laws of physics to come up with an impossible solution that, despite incredible odds, kills most of the people who disagreed with his/her theory in spectacularly ironic and/or morally righteous ways, and then works. Life immediately goes back to normal for all concerned, except those who are actually dead. The sun rises on happy people whose only complaint is that most of the people they know and love have been wiped out, but otherwise they are just so happy to be part of the small group of survivors who will soon be competing for what food is left before they descend into chaos and kill each other for stale crusts. But that can wait until the sequel.
The plot is a thin device over which special effects are generously smeared. Go watch the trailer again, and eagerly anticipate the FXfest.
Personally, the number of sheer coincidences and complete disregard for the laws of physics presented in the trailer I watched was enough to make me wonder about the state of science. Then I use my usual tactic... "just repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax'".
The trouble is, you're looking at the issue short-term. If they are gullible enough to fall for this one, they'll fall for something else in the near future, and probably mess up their kids too.
We can help limit this to one generation. It's money well-spent.
Plus, you'll never, EVER convince them they are wrong. If you deny the rumor, they'll just assume you're covering it up because you want to quell a panic. If you refuse to answer, they'll assume that the lack of denial means that whatever is said is true (a very successful tactic in TV pundetry, though it predates TV asshats by a significant margin). The only way to handle it is to confirm the rumor but direct them somewhere so you can get their kids out of harm's way before the parent's willful ignorance does any further harm.
Oh. My. I hadn't thought of that angle.
If so, it's brilliant marketing.
Which means, of course, that in the interest of science we must find the people who thought of it and think of some suitable punishment. Keelhauling, drawn-and-quartered? Hmm, I've always admired the Vikings for their inventive punishments. Blood Eagle it is, then.
I'd say that NASA is trying to SAVE money by doing this.
NASA has received many, many questions about 2012, the Mayan calendar, and the latest asshat disaster movie. Similar, no doubt, to the panic and subsequent derision of science caused in the minds of some by the same level of pseudoscience demonstrated by "The Day After Tomorrow", which some people actually treated as a straw man for climate change theory.
So, NASA gets tons of emails, calls, etc. Some of them from people who are apparently suicidal. The cheapest and most efficient way is, of course, to confirm the rumors to those people and give them maps to their nearest pharmacy, along with detailed instructions on what colorful bottles contain stuff that will do the deed quickly and hopefully painlessly (because we don't want to be cruel). But the bodies would start to rot and stink, and it might attract Zombies as we all know from a recent documentary on the subject.
So, what's a governmental agency to do? Bail out a large institution? OK, yes, of course, but after that fails again? And again? And again? And again?
Easy! Put up a FAQ!
Because you just know the kind of people who are concerned enough not to do the slightest bit of research before they contemplate suicide are going to head immediately toward a FAQ that disagrees with their preconceived notions.
But, at least, you have to give NASA credit for trying. They've put out a clear, concise, level-headed, fact-filled document that really covers the major rumors well and attempts to debunk a few of the weirdest of the weird for-fun-and-profit rumormongers. In other words, it won't hold up to any argument that the people asking the questions will buy.
What they really should have put up was "We are safe. Baby Jeebus told me so".
Just gives me a "head"-start in cryogenic storage. I was a boy scout, I like to be prepared.
...and the portion of hydro that comes from tidal forces. But other than that, yup, no argument here.
Our global temperature is affected by three factors:
1. Amount of energy input.
2. Amount of energy stored or released.
3. Amount of energy radiated.
The amount of energy entering the Earth's atmosphere is, for all intents and purposes, a constant. The Sun is almost completely responsible for all of that.
If I have a black roof on my house, my roof will absorb the sunlight shining on it and turn it into heat. If I interrupt that with a solar collector, ~90% of it will still become heat, and ~10% of it will become electricity. As I use the electricity to do stuff, it generates heat. Including the losses over the wires, etc.
Net result: There isn't a significant difference in the actual amount of heat, only how we use the potential energy in sunlight before it turns into heat. Entropy is like that.
As far as the other two factors, we stored a crapload of solar energy and sequestered a crapload of carbon dioxide a long time ago in the form of dead plants and critters. That matter decayed and turned into what we now call "coal" and "oil". Burning those releases both that energy and CO2. CO2 is an insulator and therefore reduces heat radiation.
So if you use solar (or one if its indirect factors, like biofuel or wind) you get three wins - you're using heat that would be there anyway, you're not adding more heat, and you're not releasing sequestered material that may help the earth retain heat.
You do, however, get one loss. We've already built a HUGE infrastructure for using sequestered energy and built our demand around it. Direct and indirect solar has a long way to go before it can replace all of our wants, if it ever can. At some point, mankind is going to have to face "want" versus "need".
Plus, if you go into the tank, you're now a frozen TV dinner. You won't even get the chance to welcome your new zombie overlords.
Solar power IS nuclear power, we've just offshored the actual reactor. Some loss of energy occurs during transport, though.
If we run out of Sun, running my hairdryer is going to get really low on my list of priorities, really fast.
Frankly, it's an $2000 upgrade to checking the little ticky-boxes or whatever where you state your preferences.
Note the important phrases: "upgrade" and "$2000".
But then again people have been charging for decades now to wave colored crystals over other people in the belief that it somehow aligns their chia pets or something.
I'm sure such a disclaimer already exists. These are dating companies, remember. They will go for any gimmick that makes their customers think there is a higher chance of getting lai... err, finding that perfect someone.
From the summary: "he idea is that people tend to be attracted to those who have immune system genes that are dissimilar from their own"
If you cloned yourself, you would have a near 100% chance of not meeting your clone through this dating service, since your immune system would not be genetically dissimilar to that of your clone. Quite the opposite - unless there was an error in the cloning you'd be very, very similar. You and your clone would be lowest on the list of matches since there is no dissimilarity between your immune system genes. Slightly higher up, but still very low, on the list would be immediate blood relatives. Tending highest on the list would be people with a vastly different genetic background (different ethnicity). Though they are only going for immune system genetics, so those don't follow ethnic lines strictly to my knowledge (which is admittedly minimal).
The evolutionary force you are referring to is called hybridization and the result is called hybrid vigor - the mixing of dissimilar genomes tends to reduce the chances of activating an undesirable recessive trait. This is particularly true in very similar genomes, such as immediate blood relatives. Any recessive traits are going to show up in a BIG damned hurry, quite often in the first generation. That's why we have laws (and societal values) against marrying or even bonking immediate family members.
This specific genetic test does not cover enough of the genome to be useful, but if it did the decision would be generally desirable (you are choosing dissimilar genetics).