"Do we know that reducing the CO2 level in the atmosphere - by whatever means necessary - will reverse or start to reverse climate change?"
If we're driving towards a cliff, do we know whether braking will prevent a crash? If we don't know, does that mean we shouldn't brake?
We know that accelerating our greenhouse gas emissions will kill us all.
James Lovelock takes the view that we've missed our chance to reverse or slow down global warming. He says that efforts to reduce CO2 output are diverting resource that could be used instead to adapt to the changed world. That is, instead of spending $1 billion moving to a CO2 neutral energy source, spend the $1B on flood defences, agriculture suitable for a warmer climate, relocating population centres as the sea level rises.
With your car/cliff analogy - since we don't know whether braking will stop the car before it reaches the cliff, don't waste effort on braking, use the time to open the door and jump out.
Of course, you should probably keep the brake pedal down while you're messing around with the seatbelt and the door handle. The analogy probably stretches that far too.
Maybe your aware that ideas like that have been, um, floated.
Basically farm massive cultures of floating algae, which would fix CO2 and then be either used as biofuel (sequestering the CO2 produced from burning, or just saying it's a renewable fuel source) or just buried in some form in which the CO2 is fixed. I think there was something about it also cooling the earth by reflecting heat that the ocean would otherwise absorb.
There is another aspect of this. People talk all the time about there being a cult following of climate change believers and how this is nearly a religion. Religious fevor has through the ages produced some very dedicated individuals willing to go to incredible lengths in pursuit of their beliefs.
...
So where are the extraordinary acts?
I think you have things backwards. Climate change caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions is the mainstream, evidence-based consensus. It's the deniers who are like a religion. Just like "creation science", they have people who cherry-pick evidence, mash figures, and come up with conclusions that are counter to the mainstream. Just like "creation science", they have cheerleaders who repeat arguments that have been refuted time and time again (e.g. "volcanoes").
Oh, and of course, there's those with a vested interest in the fossil fuel industry, who'll back the denialist message, whether they believe it or not.
So perhaps the absence of "extraordinary acts" like blowing up coal fired power stations, is because the people keenest on reducing CO2 emissions, are sane, level headed people.
This wasn't a totally indie artist. They're Misty's Big Adventure, and they're on the Sunday Best label. I can imagine it's a label that doesn't have arsey contracts, but it's a label that makes proper mass-produced CDs distributed to conventional record shops.
They're just allowed to buy stock of their own CDs at wholesale prices, to sell on as they wish.
I'd seen a band at a festival, and decided to buy some of their stuff. I could have just gone to Amazon, and usually I would have done. But on a whim, I posted on their facebook page -- "hey, if I want some of your CDs, which online shop gives you the biggest cut of the profit?" They replied "buy it direct from us".
I ended up sending a cheque in the post to a residential address -- and the CDs arrived a few days later, and I have warm and fuzzy feelings from supporting the artist. They also had "tour exclusive" CDs which weren't available any other way.
Of course if I'd had my wits about me, I could have bought those CDs from them at the gig.
It might be harder work with World Music, but it's surely worth investigating.
RTFA. They want to sell to customers in countries where banks/paypal/etc. don't serve.
But WordPress wrote on its blog that PayPal doesn't serve more than 60 countries, and credit card companies have restrictions due to political, fraud and other reasons.
"Whatever the reason, we don't think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can't control," WordPress said. "Our goal is to enable people, not block them."
They're using BitPay. Assuming BitPay's charges are reasonable, it seems like a bit of a no-brainer.
Wordpress makes some simple API calls to BitPay. If someone pays in BitCoin, BitPay converts it to dollars, takes a processing fee, and adds it to Wordpress's balance. Wordpress can treat it as dollars from that point on, so tricky tax/accounting issues.
On that basis, why would you *not* accept BitCoin, if you think there are customers keen to spend them?
BitPay has to deal with tax/accounting/legality issues, but that's their business.
The formal order of things is:
- arrest: police empowered to hold you for questioning, for some short period
- charge: if they have enough evidence, police formally charge you with a criminal offence
- trial: some time later, you appear in front of a magistrate (for minor offences) or a court (for serious offences or appeals).
- verdict: you plead guilty, or the magistrate or jury finds you guilty or not guilty
- sentencing: the magistrate or judge decides on your penalty
- penalty: you get the penalty, be it a fine, community service, a fine, or whatever
So an arrest is LESS THAN a fine.
There is such a thing as a "fixed penalty" which police can issue on the spot. That's a short cut. You can choose not to accept it, and instead go through the process above.
Without condoning the arrest, the poppy is perhaps the single most neutral symbol in British history.
It's not attached to any religion, any race, any sex, any tribe, any faction, even to any individual nation. It's a symbol of remembrance for those that came before.
I'm not sure about this, for a number of reasons. The poppy means different things to different people (which I suppose backs up your "neutral" attribution), but I think for a lot of people it's about "our" soldiers, not "their" soldiers or civilians. And for many it's not just about remembering their loss, but about rationalising those deaths as "sacrifice".
The symbol originates from John McCrae's poem "In Flanders' Fields", who's final verse summons the reader to arms -- to perpetuate the bloodshed:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
... which I find shocking. I prefer the sentiment of Wilfrid Owen:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.
True, but I think that once it had become the norm throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, other powers would have followed suit, not because they were compelled to, but because they wanted to. Britain had its own fascists who could realistically have gained power, given a "successful" Nazi role-model in Europe.
It would have been quite cosy. Britain already had a German monarchy (and still does). I don't think Germany would have invaded the UK if an alliance with Nazi Germany had been made. Of course Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other minorities would have gone to work camps or extermination camps, books would have been burned, all sorts of awful things. But the British ruling classes would have been fine.
the white poppy symbolizes the deaths of civilians during wartime rather than the red poppy which symbolizes deaths of soldiers.
In fact the white poppy symbolises all victims of all wars; civilians and soldiers on all sides.
I've considered wearing a white poppy, but I decided that whatever my intention, it's going to upset people, which I don't want to do. The red poppy means different things to different people. For some it's "Let us honour these noble sacrifices", for others it's "Let's mourn these tragic and avoidable deaths". Unfortunately in wearing the white poppy, you're at least *suggesting* to *all* wearers of red poppies, that you reject *their* reading of the symbolism.
You could wear both, of course. I choose to wear neither, and share my opinions on war in other ways.
I disagree with you. I think its the responsibility of any good citizen to ignore laws that are not just, fair, or in line with the Constitution, the Magna Carta, or etc. In fact, even if its legal within your constitution, it does not mean that it is just for right. If the people of the Civil Rights movement agreed with you, we would still have black people riding in the back of the bus in the US.
Oh we should certainly ignore laws that are unjust. Then the police should arrest us. Then we should go to court. There the law should be exposed as unjust, and overturned.
I don't think it's right to have a load of laws on the statute book which are just informally ignored. As long as they remain on the books, they retain the potential to be abused one day.
Last I checked these men and women fought for our freedoms
Well, that's the narrative. In reality they fought and died because they weren't given a choice (at least, in WWI, which is the origin of the poppy as a symbol).
Quite what it's meaning is, is a bit ambiguous. Is it an expression of pride in our war dead, or an expression of tragic sadness and desire it should never happen again? It means different things to different people.
Astonishingly, British prime minister David Cameron went on a jaunt to the Middle East to promote the British arms industry, while wearing a remembrance poppy. The same politicians who merrily continue to send cannon fodder on various foreign adventures, are seen looking solemn at remembrance day parades every year.
This isn't subjective. It's not a question of what one person considers useful speech and another doesn't, at least unless you're trying to defend the flower-burners.
It's on a continuum, and there must necessarily be a blurry line somewhere along it where the distinction is subjective. So in giving the judiciary the ability to make that subjective decision, you genuinely do create a slippery slope, towards the point where you have "free speech" as long as you stay within boundaries set by the Establishment.
Also, I question the argument that "emotional gestures" aren't "useful". Sometimes a dramatic gesture is what it takes to draw attention to a worthy cause. For example, Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings.
As well as the picture, he published the words "How about that you squadey cunts". (A squaddie being British slang for a low-ranking soldier). This at a time when emotions are heightened with the Remembrance Day.
The Criminal Justice Act says:
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he— (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
So that's the legal justification for arresting him.
I think it's an unjust law -- I believe in free speech -- but it's the police's job to uphold the law as it's written, not how it *should* be written.
Slashdot Mirror
"Do we know that reducing the CO2 level in the atmosphere - by whatever means necessary - will reverse or start to reverse climate change?"
If we're driving towards a cliff, do we know whether braking will prevent a crash? If we don't know, does that mean we shouldn't brake?
We know that accelerating our greenhouse gas emissions will kill us all.
James Lovelock takes the view that we've missed our chance to reverse or slow down global warming. He says that efforts to reduce CO2 output are diverting resource that could be used instead to adapt to the changed world. That is, instead of spending $1 billion moving to a CO2 neutral energy source, spend the $1B on flood defences, agriculture suitable for a warmer climate, relocating population centres as the sea level rises.
With your car/cliff analogy - since we don't know whether braking will stop the car before it reaches the cliff, don't waste effort on braking, use the time to open the door and jump out.
Of course, you should probably keep the brake pedal down while you're messing around with the seatbelt and the door handle. The analogy probably stretches that far too.
Maybe your aware that ideas like that have been, um, floated.
Basically farm massive cultures of floating algae, which would fix CO2 and then be either used as biofuel (sequestering the CO2 produced from burning, or just saying it's a renewable fuel source) or just buried in some form in which the CO2 is fixed. I think there was something about it also cooling the earth by reflecting heat that the ocean would otherwise absorb.
Maybe it has potential. Maybe it's dangerous...
There is another aspect of this. People talk all the time about there being a cult following of climate change believers and how this is nearly a religion. Religious fevor has through the ages produced some very dedicated individuals willing to go to incredible lengths in pursuit of their beliefs.
So where are the extraordinary acts?
I think you have things backwards. Climate change caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions is the mainstream, evidence-based consensus. It's the deniers who are like a religion. Just like "creation science", they have people who cherry-pick evidence, mash figures, and come up with conclusions that are counter to the mainstream. Just like "creation science", they have cheerleaders who repeat arguments that have been refuted time and time again (e.g. "volcanoes").
Oh, and of course, there's those with a vested interest in the fossil fuel industry, who'll back the denialist message, whether they believe it or not.
So perhaps the absence of "extraordinary acts" like blowing up coal fired power stations, is because the people keenest on reducing CO2 emissions, are sane, level headed people.
This wasn't a totally indie artist. They're Misty's Big Adventure, and they're on the Sunday Best label. I can imagine it's a label that doesn't have arsey contracts, but it's a label that makes proper mass-produced CDs distributed to conventional record shops.
They're just allowed to buy stock of their own CDs at wholesale prices, to sell on as they wish.
Yes. This. And it only occurred to me recently.
I'd seen a band at a festival, and decided to buy some of their stuff. I could have just gone to Amazon, and usually I would have done. But on a whim, I posted on their facebook page -- "hey, if I want some of your CDs, which online shop gives you the biggest cut of the profit?" They replied "buy it direct from us".
I ended up sending a cheque in the post to a residential address -- and the CDs arrived a few days later, and I have warm and fuzzy feelings from supporting the artist. They also had "tour exclusive" CDs which weren't available any other way.
Of course if I'd had my wits about me, I could have bought those CDs from them at the gig.
It might be harder work with World Music, but it's surely worth investigating.
That was a fairly fundamental typo on my part. It was meant to be "So no tricky tax/accounting issues".
The point being that if there are any such issues, BitPay take care of them. It's dollars by the time Wordpress have to deal with it.
RTFA. They want to sell to customers in countries where banks/paypal/etc. don't serve.
But WordPress wrote on its blog that PayPal doesn't serve more than 60 countries, and credit card companies have restrictions due to political, fraud and other reasons.
"Whatever the reason, we don't think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can't control," WordPress said. "Our goal is to enable people, not block them."
They're using BitPay. Assuming BitPay's charges are reasonable, it seems like a bit of a no-brainer.
Wordpress makes some simple API calls to BitPay. If someone pays in BitCoin, BitPay converts it to dollars, takes a processing fee, and adds it to Wordpress's balance. Wordpress can treat it as dollars from that point on, so tricky tax/accounting issues.
On that basis, why would you *not* accept BitCoin, if you think there are customers keen to spend them?
BitPay has to deal with tax/accounting/legality issues, but that's their business.
But then racism was always OK as long as it's anti-white.
Is this anti-white because blacks need lower marks, or anti-white because Asians need higher marks?
Or could it be that it's just inherently racist in general?
Yeah, he's failed to account for the 15 minute half time break, and typically 5 minutes of stoppage time.
Then if it's a cup game, there might be extra time, and maybe penalties!
I don't think you understand what an arrest is.
The formal order of things is:
- arrest: police empowered to hold you for questioning, for some short period
- charge: if they have enough evidence, police formally charge you with a criminal offence
- trial: some time later, you appear in front of a magistrate (for minor offences) or a court (for serious offences or appeals).
- verdict: you plead guilty, or the magistrate or jury finds you guilty or not guilty
- sentencing: the magistrate or judge decides on your penalty
- penalty: you get the penalty, be it a fine, community service, a fine, or whatever
So an arrest is LESS THAN a fine.
There is such a thing as a "fixed penalty" which police can issue on the spot. That's a short cut. You can choose not to accept it, and instead go through the process above.
Without condoning the arrest, the poppy is perhaps the single most neutral symbol in British history.
It's not attached to any religion, any race, any sex, any tribe, any faction, even to any individual nation. It's a symbol of remembrance for those that came before.
I'm not sure about this, for a number of reasons. The poppy means different things to different people (which I suppose backs up your "neutral" attribution), but I think for a lot of people it's about "our" soldiers, not "their" soldiers or civilians. And for many it's not just about remembering their loss, but about rationalising those deaths as "sacrifice".
The symbol originates from John McCrae's poem "In Flanders' Fields", who's final verse summons the reader to arms -- to perpetuate the bloodshed:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
... which I find shocking. I prefer the sentiment of Wilfrid Owen:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
SOF?
I think it's Society of Friends - aka the Quakers. Look it up.
True, but I think that once it had become the norm throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, other powers would have followed suit, not because they were compelled to, but because they wanted to. Britain had its own fascists who could realistically have gained power, given a "successful" Nazi role-model in Europe.
Woosh!
It would have been quite cosy. Britain already had a German monarchy (and still does). I don't think Germany would have invaded the UK if an alliance with Nazi Germany had been made. Of course Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other minorities would have gone to work camps or extermination camps, books would have been burned, all sorts of awful things. But the British ruling classes would have been fine.
It's on a par with dancing on an Arlington Cemetery grave.
the white poppy symbolizes the deaths of civilians during wartime rather than the red poppy which symbolizes deaths of soldiers.
In fact the white poppy symbolises all victims of all wars; civilians and soldiers on all sides.
I've considered wearing a white poppy, but I decided that whatever my intention, it's going to upset people, which I don't want to do. The red poppy means different things to different people. For some it's "Let us honour these noble sacrifices", for others it's "Let's mourn these tragic and avoidable deaths". Unfortunately in wearing the white poppy, you're at least *suggesting* to *all* wearers of red poppies, that you reject *their* reading of the symbolism.
You could wear both, of course. I choose to wear neither, and share my opinions on war in other ways.
Buzz Aldrin's proposed Mars Cycler would take about 5 months to shuttle "stuff" to and from Mars' orbit.
I disagree with you. I think its the responsibility of any good citizen to ignore laws that are not just, fair, or in line with the Constitution, the Magna Carta, or etc. In fact, even if its legal within your constitution, it does not mean that it is just for right. If the people of the Civil Rights movement agreed with you, we would still have black people riding in the back of the bus in the US.
Oh we should certainly ignore laws that are unjust. Then the police should arrest us. Then we should go to court. There the law should be exposed as unjust, and overturned.
I don't think it's right to have a load of laws on the statute book which are just informally ignored. As long as they remain on the books, they retain the potential to be abused one day.
those who gave their lives for our freedom.
... or, those who were put in harm's way by our governments for no worthwhile cause, depending on how you look at it.
Last I checked these men and women fought for our freedoms
Well, that's the narrative. In reality they fought and died because they weren't given a choice (at least, in WWI, which is the origin of the poppy as a symbol).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_poppy
Quite what it's meaning is, is a bit ambiguous. Is it an expression of pride in our war dead, or an expression of tragic sadness and desire it should never happen again? It means different things to different people.
Astonishingly, British prime minister David Cameron went on a jaunt to the Middle East to promote the British arms industry, while wearing a remembrance poppy. The same politicians who merrily continue to send cannon fodder on various foreign adventures, are seen looking solemn at remembrance day parades every year.
This isn't subjective. It's not a question of what one person considers useful speech and another doesn't, at least unless you're trying to defend the flower-burners.
It's on a continuum, and there must necessarily be a blurry line somewhere along it where the distinction is subjective. So in giving the judiciary the ability to make that subjective decision, you genuinely do create a slippery slope, towards the point where you have "free speech" as long as you stay within boundaries set by the Establishment.
Also, I question the argument that "emotional gestures" aren't "useful". Sometimes a dramatic gesture is what it takes to draw attention to a worthy cause. For example, Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings.
As well as the picture, he published the words "How about that you squadey cunts". (A squaddie being British slang for a low-ranking soldier). This at a time when emotions are heightened with the Remembrance Day.
The Criminal Justice Act says:
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he— (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
So that's the legal justification for arresting him.
I think it's an unjust law -- I believe in free speech -- but it's the police's job to uphold the law as it's written, not how it *should* be written.