My guess is that we're working our way down the list of diseases. Smallpox killed like 30% of those it infected. Huge amounts of effort went into curing/preventing it. Polio led to a lot of death and lifetime disability(grandfather never could 'walk right' after). You were 'normally' okay with measles, but it was still highly contagious and killed a fair number.
Dangers of Varicella - Before vaccination in the USA, 4M cases per year, leading to 10-13k hospitalizations, and 100-150 deaths. After vaccination - 90% fewer cases(fewer illness absences), 70% fewer hospitalizations, and 90% reduction in death rate under 20. One of the things they look at is total costs - not just deaths. If hitting up 100% of the population with a $20 vaccine will stop a 1% hospitalization rate costing an average of $100k, no deaths, they'll recommend it. Will said $20 vaccine prevent, on average, 4 hours of work lost? (most lose no time, but some are out for 2 weeks...)
As for the longevity of the vaccination - Turns out that, much like herpes, you're never totally clear of the Varicella virus once you've had it - when you're older and your immune system weakens a bit, it can come 'roaring' back, now known as "shingles". Dad got it. Mom might of. I'm at risk, and will need the vaccine when I get older to ensure that I don't get it. Looking at the wiki page, it mentions that 90% of people are still protected(immune) in Japan after 20 years, the current data is shorter in the USA at 10(but studies are ongoing...).
Then again, CDC's adult vaccination page says NOTHING is said there being a 'once a decade' booster. It's a two shot series, but that's not actually all that unusual - one vaccination I have was a serious of six shots, plus annual booster(anthrax). Should we stop giving Tetanus shots? That's the one that I see that is recommended every 10 years. What about Flu? Of course, 'Flu' is actually thousands of related viruses, and the annual 'Flu Shot' is actually a mix of 3 vaccines for 'best guess' at the common strains. Immunity lasts longer - So if strain 123 was predicted last year to be big and is predicted to be big again this year, they might not put it in the mix because the people who get the shot every year would already be immune(lots of extra data and statisticians are used to make this determination).
If there was a real problem with kids who got their CDC recommended second dose at around 6 years losing immunity at 16, there would be a recommended booster. There isn't. There isn't even a recommended booster at 26(if it lasted the 20 years that Japan has confirmed thus far).
It may also turn out that some children are better at dealing with excreting heavy metals and other toxins than others for whatever reasons.
Almost certainly true, however the point remains that the amount of mercury in the thimerosal contained within the vaccines that contained them is insignificant, even if it's not eventually excreted. Elemental Mercury does tend to bio-accumulate, after all. One would look more at the mercury releases from coal power plants in such a case though. Heck, emissions from vehicle tailpipes. Environmental exposure from other sources such as toxic paint.
On vitamin D - Some sun-lamps tuned to allow babies to best produce the vitamin D they might need would be good - reading the wiki page shows that excessive amounts can cause serious problems, but don't point towards any mental conditions traced to it. You can't OD vitamin D on the basis of sunlight, you can with diet - Toxic dose for D is less than 5 times the daily mRDA.
I was required to have a second innoculation in 1972 for school.
I'd say that 40 years is 'quite a while'. It's enough time that most of the parents of kids in school haven't been inoculated against the disease either. I was born in 1976, and I missed the required period by a few years. Mom wanted me to get the shot(given her experience with her father she has a healthy admiration for vaccines), but they wouldn't do it. I didn't get it until I was an adult and 'special circumstances', IE 'unusual career field'.
I still hope we can stop giving the polio vaccine soon - worldwide it's hanging on by it's proverbial fingernails.
I have to ask, where do you live and what's your source on the vaccines? Thermisol has been eliminated from US vaccines for a couple decades at this point, plus there have been no studies showing that the incredibly small dosages in shots actually cause any harm.
When was the last time that they required smallpox vaccination in order to attend school? Heck, when was the last time they even recommended it outside of special circumstances?
Of course, the smallpox vaccine is one of the nastier ones, but even as nasty as it is, it's still incredibly safe compared to the disease - which would kill something like 30% of the infected last time it ran wild. Variolation, an 'early' form of vaccination* which killed 1% of those treated, was considerably better. Then they developed the cowpox technique, which was more like.1% dead, on up to the bifurcated tine poke vaccine, which is more like.00001%.
The medical community is constantly doing risk analysis studies. They've dropped vaccines before, when they're sufficiently eradicated.
If the program was not profitable, the drug companies wouldn't produce the vaccines
I wouldn't say that vaccines aren't profitable. What I will say is that they're closer to computer equipment profit margins(1%), not jewelry store ones(50+%) like designer drugs have.
My grandfather had polio. I'm all for vaccination. While we're at it, I support putting unvaccinated kids together in special schools. That way when a MMR type outbreak happens they all get it and the parents get to experience the consequences of their failure. Oh, and it makes the news in a splashy public way so more parents get their kids their shots.
At the worst you can just turn up with a drill and drill straight through the lock if you're really determined to gain entry.
Really, for most locks, and most doors, it's about providing an approximately equal amount of protection from all points of entry. Allowing a subtle entry is considered worse than an obvious entry.
Locks are already generally to the point that you don't try to physically defeat them - you go after the door instead. If you want in and don't care about being obvious, a small sledge will get you into most hotel doors with one whack, ~5 seconds. If the pins are on the outside, you pop those out and remove the door ~30 seconds. Put the pins back in and you have a covert entry.
$50 worth of parts and technical knowledge required is actually a fairly high bar.
Pretty much what I was trying to say. The effect per individual in the 90% will be hard to notice, on average, but it will be there. Think of it like smoking while living next to a coal power plant. Both increase the risk of lung cancer, but lung cancer happens naturally(rarely). Would the individual have gotten it anyways, was it because of the power plant, or the smoking? Was it something I didn't even list? We don't know, but statistically we'd be able to figure out the coal plant was XX cases.
Economy wise you're looking at more unemployment, lower standard of living, etc... Some people will go from employment to unemployment(big difference). Some will simply make a little less money. Some will make more money. Some will get sick from the increased emissions.
But, on the whole, it'll be hard to notice on an individual level, which is why I said 'a touch'.
That doesn't necessarily stop Google. They could still list the sites as required by the courts, just give them a weight of.00000001, meaning they're on the last page(except for very specific searches), and only listed as a link, no text, so very few people would click on them anyways.
Indeed, panic-driven tends to be the most expensive way to do anything. I'm not against an orderly transition to renewables, heck, look at my 'ideal ratio', it's around 60% renewable.
My point would be that nuclear power plants are about the LAST non-renewable plants you want to shut off - properly operating they produce less pollution than any other. Even natural gas tosses more nasty stuff into the air/water/soil.
I'm going to use the USA as an example, because I know it's numbers better - The basic idea is that you'd want to replace the 40% coal before you replace the 20% nuclear. Due to the age of nuclear plants, we're actually going to want at least 1 more generation of them. From my studies of electrical requirements, we should probably double the number of nuclear plants - from 104 to ~208*. This allows you to really concentrate on the most viable install points for solar and wind(20% of generation, each), and use the last 20% mostly for peaking power(biomass NG, hydro, etc...). I'll note that you CAN use nuclear in a load-following capacity, but most don't because it has the cheapest marginal cost per kwh generated(IE the cost difference between an idling nuclear plant and one running full out is practically a rounding error).
*I'm talking about 1+GwE reactors here. I'm also interested in the 'Microreactors' such as they've proposed putting in small Alaskan towns to replace their current electric source - pretty much 100% diesel. As long as you're at it - the waste heat can also be used to replace much of the fuel oil. Heating buildings/homes essentially for free will gain the attention of any Alaskan. But this is special purpose. Heck, I'd put 2-4 nuclear reactors in next to the coal heating plants located in Eielson, Fort Wainwright, and Fairbanks.
I'm not sure that 150% would cover our need for liquid fuels, because Fischer-trope and related methods aren't that efficient, though 150% sounds about right if we get everybody on electric vehicles(might need to run electrified rail all over to handle cargo movement). I'm more for algae farms located in deserts close to ocean/sea/gulf that make diesel analogs for renewable liquid fuels. Combine that with thermal depolymerization and several other methods such as biomass to avoid the problems with a 'one true fuel source' solution.
We already have processes to refine the algae into acceptable jet fuel as well, and cargo ship diesels will run on pretty much anything.
TEPCO has announced a 9% increase in domestic electricity prices starting in September this year
Pretty much exactly what I said earlier, then Ami had to go and set up a strawman about 'stoneage!!!'. I've never said stoneage, I've mostly gone on about the cost - money and other resources that could have gone towards something more productive. Spreading renewables faster. Putting off energy upgrades until the end of the service life of the less efficient appliance(often the appliance takes more energy to produce than it consumes in it's life) can allow somebody to afford that wind turbine or hybrid a bit quicker. You have to be careful of 'broken window' fallacies; sure, money spent buying more efficient appliances moves the economy some, but the money would likely have been spent anyways, in a more effective fashion without the need.
You're looking at a 2-3% drag on the economy(off the top of my head), not a 90% one. People can adjust, but life will suck just a touch more, with the mostly political plant shutdowns.
The point about Japan is that people were saying we would go back to the stone age without nuclear, but that didn't happen.
I never said that. I didn't know if Japan had enough spare generation capacity and/or construction to build new capacity to avoid the occasional blackout, but even then I figured it'd be a temporary affair.
or even reducing their quality of life in any measurable way.
Maybe not on an individual basis, and it might be hidden for a while(modern society has a LOT of inertia when it comes to QOL), but I'm pretty sure that if this keeps up for sufficient years they'd be able to track an increase in the amount of respiratory illness from the additional burning of fossil fuels, people being slightly poorer due to more expensive power, etc...
about more European countries deciding to go nuclear free. Some comment about them going back to the stone age was modded +5 informative.
Yeah, people are idiots. My comments were more along the line of it hurting their economy, damaging their quest to meet Kyoto Standards, and in some cases giving Russia a good grip on their "short and curlies" due to their shift towards natural gas, most of which is supplied by Russia. A couple years ago Russia shut off their pipeline due to concerns that the country the pipeline transmitted through was stealing gas. Germany was in a bit of a panic as a result.
Now, given a decade or two to slowly reduce dependency and move to non-nuclear sources like other countries are I'd argue that not only will there be little or no pain, there will be huge gains as well.
Now, as I understand it Japan isn't big on burning coal, but here in the USA, I'd be spending the 'decade or two' building more nuclear power as well as solar/wind in order to shut down our huge dependence upon coal. Sure, shut down/remodel the older nuclear plants, but we really need some new ones. Coal is currently 40% of our electric production, and it's relatively the dirtiest. Due to opposition to nuclear power, we've been building more natural gas and coal plants. Natural gas isn't bad, but coal is normally pretty nasty.
Personally, my goal over the 'next couple decades' would be about 200 new nuclear plants, and about 100 plants worth of solar/wind. That would allow us to retire pretty much all of the currently existing coal and nuclear plants. End result would be a lot less pollution(and CO2) being released, cleaner country and world, a power grid that's about 40% nuclear and 20% renewables, new and far safer nuclear plants, and plenty of time to build more renewables to replace the NG burning plants - I'd save the NG for vehicles(replace gasoline) and things like home heating in cold climates.
Japan in particular is blessed with more than enough renewable energy for the entire country, it just needs to be tapped and the nuclear industry is very powerful.
Can you be more specific with what renewable energy sources they're blessed with? Have you calculated what it would cost to replace all the electrical demands with said power sources would be?
I say this because while I agree that 'stone age' is not a consequence of shutting down nuclear plants with any real possibility, I've also had people say 'Solar is viable EVERYWHERE!!!'. Hint: I normally live in Alaska. I'm all for putting solar panels in further south, but from various calcs getting about 20% of our power(in the USA) from solar is a 'sweet spot'.
Indeed; I've had people point out 'Japan's running just fine having shut down ALL their nuclear plants!'. Just recently I read an article* that pointed out that the cost of the oil and natural gas to replace their nuclear plants pushed Japan into a trade deficit for the first time in decades. Now, it didn't have a mention of cost, and the global downturn probably plays a factor, but I found an estimate of $100M/day, 4.5M barrels of oil. Since Oil is pretty price-inflexible, that 4.5M barrels of oil is coming out of the rest of the world - raising the price of our gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products.
LNG imports: increased 18% in volume, 52% in value, to $67B. Cost to the Japanese: $23B USD equivalent.
Not the most impartial site, but it quotes $55B in additional fossil fuel imports. It actually says the shutdowns were a bigger cause than all the damage from the Earthquake & Tsunami.
For those worried about global warming - Green energy isn't ramping up to replace the nuclear power lost anytime soon, and it's led to a substantial increase in Japan's CO2 emissions. Right now Japanese consumers oppose turning the plants back on; but last I heard they're also not seeing an increase in their electric bill yet.
Finally, to DMJC - How well do you think SST Plants will do during an Alaskan Winter? Beware the 'one true power' fallacy. My goal is 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% other(hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, etc...)
*Dead tree publication, Stars & Stripes, Aug 13,2012, 'Fukushima disaster studies call for regulatory reform'.
I think it depends on your internet connection as well; mine isn't that great. Barely good enough for streaming from a dedicated site like netflix. Might try it later, of course. I don't torrent music. Heck, don't really torrent anymore; netflix usually doesn't have what I'm looking for, when I go for something specific, but it's great at suggesting stuff I'd like to watch. So I watch that. I like being legal.
First, I pay for netflix, and normally watch stuff on there. However, I'd say that netflix still has a ways to go on things like subtitling, alternate languages, and seeking. While I don't play entire episodes at 1.5X like Celebi, I have the opposite problem - I fairly frequently have a 'what was that' reaction and want to go back 10-15 seconds, which means I have to wait 10-15 seconds while netflix tosses it's cache and redownloads the past minute or so. With a downloaded movie, that's a button click away.
While I have to wait for a torrent to finish downloading, that can be done in the background. The final product is typically superior to watching it on netflix, and often better than DVD. Blueray - depends on how annoying they made the disc; I've had a few that takes me 5+ minutes to get to what I paid for. Every time I put the disc in. I've heard of some that are more like 15 minutes.
For the record, I don't mind you putting advertising in the free space on the disc. What I mind is you setting it to play automatically before the menu comes up, as unskippably as you can make it, every time the disc goes in. Put it in the extra features. I'll actually look at that stuff on occasion(and that's all you need when it's a purchased disk). I especially love it(sarc) when it's for an older disc and I already own what they're advertising.
For decades, 'social media' sites and their precursors were blocked by the various services under the DoD. Facebook is available today, along with all the attendant problems, because the Secretary of Defense ordered it available, along with youtube and various other sites.
I can't imagine a Dean having much less power to simply declare it an educational tool and tell you to 'make it work'.
An absolutely clean 'looking' bed could be completely infested with fleas/mites/bedbugs.
They probably aren't trying to stop individual sellers who are selling their lightly used mattress because they're moving/bought another. They're after the professional sellers who sow new covers on random unknown mattresses they picked up(sometimes out of dumpsters) while engaging in sanitization/sterilization measures that could optimistically be called 'ineffective'.
I saw a special on this once. A group went around collecting any old mattress they could find, 'sanitized' it, sowed on a new cover, and resold it.
The problem was that their 'sanitization'* wasn't enough to stop bedbugs, and their cover wasn't impermeable to them. Most of the beds picked up were infested, and what ones weren't were often infested by contact with the other mattresses.
I can see a jurisdiction taking a look at the process and banning the business to try to stop the spread of lice/mites/bedbugs. As a moderate libertarian I think it's the wrong move, but I also believe that selling beds very likely to be infested, not warning buyers that they're likely to be infested, and engaging in essentially useless sanitization efforts to be criminal deception. Basically, if you're going to be sanitizing a bed, you'd better sanitize it. Bake it in an 200F oven for 3 days; subject it to a hard vacuum for 48 hours, whatever it takes. But that's expensive, and new mattresses don't cost much more; I could see it killing the business anyways.
*Which actually consisted of spraying it down with some sanitizer intended for hard surfaces that worked more like febreze than a proper bug killer.
Given the feelings of most Americans, somebody with Kiddie porn is 'more deserving' of an early morning SWAT raid than most drug dealers.
Personally, I'm more the type of 'station a camera; visit the house when you go to work' type, if there's concern about possible violence. Then I pick you up at work.
SWAT style invasions will be saved for drug houses* that are effectively never unoccupied, and even then I'd probably wait until it's at 'minimum manning'. SWAT raids on fully occupied dwellings shall be saved for hostage/slave/abuse scenarios where human suffering is highly likely to be reduced if we go in *RIGHT NOW*.
*I'll note that even though I support the legalization of drugs, said legalization would involve moving distribution to legitimate channels, thus a few drug houses would still need to be busted.
That's UP TO 750 million on TOP of the 450 million already ordered.
Nope, don't know where the 750M comes from, since it says right in the contract that the max is 70M rounds per year, and it's a current year +4(IE 5 year) contract. 70M*5=350M. Page 25 of their horrible scanned contract. "The maximum limit for the resultant award(s) is 70 million rounds per year. If more than one (1) contract is awarded, the maximum limit will be split between all awards".
As for the 450M, their 'source' says that that is ANOTHER 'up to' contract. "The order comes under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for HST bullets."
Here's what I'm seeing: The DHS is ordering 'up to' 350M rounds of training ammunition; which would be a 'incredibly unlikely doomsday scenario' level. They MIGHT buy 70M one year and have a good amount of stock for subsequent years if they get a windfall of money. It's what happens in other departments.
The 'up to 450M' rounds order is for OPERATIONAL ammunition, and again, is a 5 year order.
This is not for training rounds.
Page 1-2: "This contract is for commercial leaded training ammunition (CLTA) in accordance with this document" I already addressed how many rounds you can go through to train a single person, such that the quantities requested are actually pretty reasonable. Unless you think that 500 rounds a year, split between rifle and pistol, is unreasonably high? You can go through 60 rounds just sighting in a rifle - 10 groups of 3 for iron sights, 10 groups for scope - Sight picture training makes it practice as well, which is why you don't just have like 3 sets of 3. You have to assume that the firer doesn't fire anytime other than training/qualification, so you have to work the basics a lot.
A quick calc shows that he was 'only' earning $178k/year if he was indeed successful in hiding the 2.5M, instead of actually NOT HAVING IT. Given that he'd have likely gotten at least $1M back(50-50 split, $500k in legal expenses/held property), that's only $107k/year, for a premier lawyer. If he truly lost all the money(possible at this point), he LOST $71k/year. He'd be better off paying the money and just working a few more years.
I figure that one of the reasons they let him go is the increasing probability that he lost the money, and even if he stole it that the 'time served' would exceed the penalty. Heck, you can get a 'mere' 7 years for 3rd degree murder in the state.
Okay, can't watch the youtube video(blocked due to limited bandwidth here), but it let me onto the infowars site.
750M rounds is 2.5 rounds per person in the USA, yes. However: Scare tactics are being used.
First, it's for training ammunition - my training/qualification for the year is at well over 500 rounds between pistol and rifle(~half each). I'm not DHS, but it should be a clue as to how many rounds it takes to train&qualify somebody. It's often an annual requirement.
Second - it's a 'purchase UP TO' order, up to 70M rounds/year, between all winning parties, for a 5 year contract. NOT 'planning to buy 750M rounds of ammo'. Going by the contract, that's a MAX of 350M. The minimum order in a year is 1 lot of 1k rounds. In these sorts of contracts they list the maximum possible they expect for each item - for example, a big purchase of.40S&W handguns, a shift to.357 Sig, whatever..223 is well represented, though I wonder that they aren't shooting NATO 5.56 spec rifles(the difference is about a human hair; doesn't matter much in training I guess). Going by my figure, a max order of 70M rounds would let you dual-qualify ~140k people. Office types trained 'just in case' would use a bit less ammo, SWAT types far more. A quick search shows 160k employees in DHS. Or maybe it's 188k employees AND 200k contractors. Whatever. I doubt they're going to be qualifying EVERYONE anytime soon, and probably don't plan to short of some crazy doomsday scenarios.
Third - "including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls." - just about ANY handgun self defense caliber is fully capable of penetrating a wall while remaining potentially lethal. It's a simple fact that a human body, which self defense rounds generally have to be able to completely penetrate to be considered effective, is more difficult to penetrate than 2 sheets of drywall. You want to go back to yea old days - when the.357 was developed, the standard was actually penetrating a car windscreen with a maximum deflection such that you'd still hit the driver. 9mm, btw, is 'normally' powerful enough for this, though you might need 2 shots(not as big of a deal for a semi), but this was back when we were still issuing revolvers to police. While we're at it, the contract also lists rifle calibers -.223,.30-06, and.308; all far more powerful than.357.
In other words, it's a big hoopla over just about nothing.
You're also taking a risk buying a machine off of ebay to read them; you'd need to test the machine first, preferably with a tape NOT containing your crucial data. Either that or have to pay through the nose for a NEW machine, plus have to set it all up. For that matter, most of the reputable places are 'your data is recovered or your money back' for undamaged tape.
Besides, I didn't say 'mail it', depending on how crucial the data is and where you're at you could always courier it yourself, failing that tapes tend to be light and fairly tough for their size - package well and send via a premium service. I'd go with Fedex/UPS Next Day* or registered mail.
At some point there's also the risk of a fire, flood, vandalism, theft, etc... No action in life is risk free.
*In my area Fedex Ground is seperate from Air, with Air being far better. UPS is combined, Air/Ground is about the same except for speed, though Air wins by a smidge. Post offhttp://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3043863&cid=40972375#ice is slow, but generally just works.
Slashdot Mirror
I stand corrected. One's mind cannot hold everything, and I didn't do a recheck.
Still, you're only 18% of the shots a child of 6 has received having it... (USA, CDC vaccination schedule to age 6)
Then why develop a vaccine for Chicken Pox?
My guess is that we're working our way down the list of diseases. Smallpox killed like 30% of those it infected. Huge amounts of effort went into curing/preventing it. Polio led to a lot of death and lifetime disability(grandfather never could 'walk right' after). You were 'normally' okay with measles, but it was still highly contagious and killed a fair number.
Dangers of Varicella - Before vaccination in the USA, 4M cases per year, leading to 10-13k hospitalizations, and 100-150 deaths. After vaccination - 90% fewer cases(fewer illness absences), 70% fewer hospitalizations, and 90% reduction in death rate under 20. One of the things they look at is total costs - not just deaths. If hitting up 100% of the population with a $20 vaccine will stop a 1% hospitalization rate costing an average of $100k, no deaths, they'll recommend it. Will said $20 vaccine prevent, on average, 4 hours of work lost? (most lose no time, but some are out for 2 weeks...)
As for the longevity of the vaccination - Turns out that, much like herpes, you're never totally clear of the Varicella virus once you've had it - when you're older and your immune system weakens a bit, it can come 'roaring' back, now known as "shingles". Dad got it. Mom might of. I'm at risk, and will need the vaccine when I get older to ensure that I don't get it. Looking at the wiki page, it mentions that 90% of people are still protected(immune) in Japan after 20 years, the current data is shorter in the USA at 10(but studies are ongoing...).
Then again, CDC's adult vaccination page says NOTHING is said there being a 'once a decade' booster. It's a two shot series, but that's not actually all that unusual - one vaccination I have was a serious of six shots, plus annual booster(anthrax). Should we stop giving Tetanus shots? That's the one that I see that is recommended every 10 years. What about Flu? Of course, 'Flu' is actually thousands of related viruses, and the annual 'Flu Shot' is actually a mix of 3 vaccines for 'best guess' at the common strains. Immunity lasts longer - So if strain 123 was predicted last year to be big and is predicted to be big again this year, they might not put it in the mix because the people who get the shot every year would already be immune(lots of extra data and statisticians are used to make this determination).
If there was a real problem with kids who got their CDC recommended second dose at around 6 years losing immunity at 16, there would be a recommended booster. There isn't. There isn't even a recommended booster at 26(if it lasted the 20 years that Japan has confirmed thus far).
It may also turn out that some children are better at dealing with excreting heavy metals and other toxins than others for whatever reasons.
Almost certainly true, however the point remains that the amount of mercury in the thimerosal contained within the vaccines that contained them is insignificant, even if it's not eventually excreted. Elemental Mercury does tend to bio-accumulate, after all. One would look more at the mercury releases from coal power plants in such a case though. Heck, emissions from vehicle tailpipes. Environmental exposure from other sources such as toxic paint.
On vitamin D - Some sun-lamps tuned to allow babies to best produce the vitamin D they might need would be good - reading the wiki page shows that excessive amounts can cause serious problems, but don't point towards any mental conditions traced to it. You can't OD vitamin D on the basis of sunlight, you can with diet - Toxic dose for D is less than 5 times the daily mRDA.
I was required to have a second innoculation in 1972 for school.
I'd say that 40 years is 'quite a while'. It's enough time that most of the parents of kids in school haven't been inoculated against the disease either. I was born in 1976, and I missed the required period by a few years. Mom wanted me to get the shot(given her experience with her father she has a healthy admiration for vaccines), but they wouldn't do it. I didn't get it until I was an adult and 'special circumstances', IE 'unusual career field'.
I still hope we can stop giving the polio vaccine soon - worldwide it's hanging on by it's proverbial fingernails.
I live contain a preservative based on mercury.
I have to ask, where do you live and what's your source on the vaccines? Thermisol has been eliminated from US vaccines for a couple decades at this point, plus there have been no studies showing that the incredibly small dosages in shots actually cause any harm.
When was the last time that they required smallpox vaccination in order to attend school? Heck, when was the last time they even recommended it outside of special circumstances?
Of course, the smallpox vaccine is one of the nastier ones, but even as nasty as it is, it's still incredibly safe compared to the disease - which would kill something like 30% of the infected last time it ran wild. Variolation, an 'early' form of vaccination* which killed 1% of those treated, was considerably better. Then they developed the cowpox technique, which was more like .1% dead, on up to the bifurcated tine poke vaccine, which is more like .00001%.
The medical community is constantly doing risk analysis studies. They've dropped vaccines before, when they're sufficiently eradicated.
If the program was not profitable, the drug companies wouldn't produce the vaccines
I wouldn't say that vaccines aren't profitable. What I will say is that they're closer to computer equipment profit margins(1%), not jewelry store ones(50+%) like designer drugs have.
My grandfather had polio. I'm all for vaccination. While we're at it, I support putting unvaccinated kids together in special schools. That way when a MMR type outbreak happens they all get it and the parents get to experience the consequences of their failure. Oh, and it makes the news in a splashy public way so more parents get their kids their shots.
At the worst you can just turn up with a drill and drill straight through the lock if you're really determined to gain entry.
Really, for most locks, and most doors, it's about providing an approximately equal amount of protection from all points of entry. Allowing a subtle entry is considered worse than an obvious entry.
Locks are already generally to the point that you don't try to physically defeat them - you go after the door instead. If you want in and don't care about being obvious, a small sledge will get you into most hotel doors with one whack, ~5 seconds. If the pins are on the outside, you pop those out and remove the door ~30 seconds. Put the pins back in and you have a covert entry.
$50 worth of parts and technical knowledge required is actually a fairly high bar.
Pretty much what I was trying to say. The effect per individual in the 90% will be hard to notice, on average, but it will be there. Think of it like smoking while living next to a coal power plant. Both increase the risk of lung cancer, but lung cancer happens naturally(rarely). Would the individual have gotten it anyways, was it because of the power plant, or the smoking? Was it something I didn't even list? We don't know, but statistically we'd be able to figure out the coal plant was XX cases.
Economy wise you're looking at more unemployment, lower standard of living, etc... Some people will go from employment to unemployment(big difference). Some will simply make a little less money. Some will make more money. Some will get sick from the increased emissions.
But, on the whole, it'll be hard to notice on an individual level, which is why I said 'a touch'.
That doesn't necessarily stop Google. They could still list the sites as required by the courts, just give them a weight of .00000001, meaning they're on the last page(except for very specific searches), and only listed as a link, no text, so very few people would click on them anyways.
Indeed, panic-driven tends to be the most expensive way to do anything. I'm not against an orderly transition to renewables, heck, look at my 'ideal ratio', it's around 60% renewable.
My point would be that nuclear power plants are about the LAST non-renewable plants you want to shut off - properly operating they produce less pollution than any other. Even natural gas tosses more nasty stuff into the air/water/soil.
I'm going to use the USA as an example, because I know it's numbers better - The basic idea is that you'd want to replace the 40% coal before you replace the 20% nuclear. Due to the age of nuclear plants, we're actually going to want at least 1 more generation of them. From my studies of electrical requirements, we should probably double the number of nuclear plants - from 104 to ~208*. This allows you to really concentrate on the most viable install points for solar and wind(20% of generation, each), and use the last 20% mostly for peaking power(biomass NG, hydro, etc...). I'll note that you CAN use nuclear in a load-following capacity, but most don't because it has the cheapest marginal cost per kwh generated(IE the cost difference between an idling nuclear plant and one running full out is practically a rounding error).
*I'm talking about 1+GwE reactors here. I'm also interested in the 'Microreactors' such as they've proposed putting in small Alaskan towns to replace their current electric source - pretty much 100% diesel. As long as you're at it - the waste heat can also be used to replace much of the fuel oil. Heating buildings/homes essentially for free will gain the attention of any Alaskan. But this is special purpose. Heck, I'd put 2-4 nuclear reactors in next to the coal heating plants located in Eielson, Fort Wainwright, and Fairbanks.
I'm not sure that 150% would cover our need for liquid fuels, because Fischer-trope and related methods aren't that efficient, though 150% sounds about right if we get everybody on electric vehicles(might need to run electrified rail all over to handle cargo movement). I'm more for algae farms located in deserts close to ocean/sea/gulf that make diesel analogs for renewable liquid fuels. Combine that with thermal depolymerization and several other methods such as biomass to avoid the problems with a 'one true fuel source' solution.
We already have processes to refine the algae into acceptable jet fuel as well, and cargo ship diesels will run on pretty much anything.
TEPCO has announced a 9% increase in domestic electricity prices starting in September this year
Youch. People around here scream at 5%.
Pretty much exactly what I said earlier, then Ami had to go and set up a strawman about 'stoneage!!!'. I've never said stoneage, I've mostly gone on about the cost - money and other resources that could have gone towards something more productive. Spreading renewables faster. Putting off energy upgrades until the end of the service life of the less efficient appliance(often the appliance takes more energy to produce than it consumes in it's life) can allow somebody to afford that wind turbine or hybrid a bit quicker. You have to be careful of 'broken window' fallacies; sure, money spent buying more efficient appliances moves the economy some, but the money would likely have been spent anyways, in a more effective fashion without the need.
You're looking at a 2-3% drag on the economy(off the top of my head), not a 90% one. People can adjust, but life will suck just a touch more, with the mostly political plant shutdowns.
The point about Japan is that people were saying we would go back to the stone age without nuclear, but that didn't happen.
I never said that. I didn't know if Japan had enough spare generation capacity and/or construction to build new capacity to avoid the occasional blackout, but even then I figured it'd be a temporary affair.
or even reducing their quality of life in any measurable way.
Maybe not on an individual basis, and it might be hidden for a while(modern society has a LOT of inertia when it comes to QOL), but I'm pretty sure that if this keeps up for sufficient years they'd be able to track an increase in the amount of respiratory illness from the additional burning of fossil fuels, people being slightly poorer due to more expensive power, etc...
about more European countries deciding to go nuclear free. Some comment about them going back to the stone age was modded +5 informative.
Yeah, people are idiots. My comments were more along the line of it hurting their economy, damaging their quest to meet Kyoto Standards, and in some cases giving Russia a good grip on their "short and curlies" due to their shift towards natural gas, most of which is supplied by Russia. A couple years ago Russia shut off their pipeline due to concerns that the country the pipeline transmitted through was stealing gas. Germany was in a bit of a panic as a result.
Now, given a decade or two to slowly reduce dependency and move to non-nuclear sources like other countries are I'd argue that not only will there be little or no pain, there will be huge gains as well.
Now, as I understand it Japan isn't big on burning coal, but here in the USA, I'd be spending the 'decade or two' building more nuclear power as well as solar/wind in order to shut down our huge dependence upon coal. Sure, shut down/remodel the older nuclear plants, but we really need some new ones. Coal is currently 40% of our electric production, and it's relatively the dirtiest. Due to opposition to nuclear power, we've been building more natural gas and coal plants. Natural gas isn't bad, but coal is normally pretty nasty.
Personally, my goal over the 'next couple decades' would be about 200 new nuclear plants, and about 100 plants worth of solar/wind. That would allow us to retire pretty much all of the currently existing coal and nuclear plants. End result would be a lot less pollution(and CO2) being released, cleaner country and world, a power grid that's about 40% nuclear and 20% renewables, new and far safer nuclear plants, and plenty of time to build more renewables to replace the NG burning plants - I'd save the NG for vehicles(replace gasoline) and things like home heating in cold climates.
Japan in particular is blessed with more than enough renewable energy for the entire country, it just needs to be tapped and the nuclear industry is very powerful.
Can you be more specific with what renewable energy sources they're blessed with? Have you calculated what it would cost to replace all the electrical demands with said power sources would be?
I say this because while I agree that 'stone age' is not a consequence of shutting down nuclear plants with any real possibility, I've also had people say 'Solar is viable EVERYWHERE!!!'. Hint: I normally live in Alaska. I'm all for putting solar panels in further south, but from various calcs getting about 20% of our power(in the USA) from solar is a 'sweet spot'.
Indeed; I've had people point out 'Japan's running just fine having shut down ALL their nuclear plants!'. Just recently I read an article* that pointed out that the cost of the oil and natural gas to replace their nuclear plants pushed Japan into a trade deficit for the first time in decades. Now, it didn't have a mention of cost, and the global downturn probably plays a factor, but I found an estimate of $100M/day, 4.5M barrels of oil. Since Oil is pretty price-inflexible, that 4.5M barrels of oil is coming out of the rest of the world - raising the price of our gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products.
LNG imports: increased 18% in volume, 52% in value, to $67B. Cost to the Japanese: $23B USD equivalent.
Not the most impartial site, but it quotes $55B in additional fossil fuel imports. It actually says the shutdowns were a bigger cause than all the damage from the Earthquake & Tsunami.
For those worried about global warming - Green energy isn't ramping up to replace the nuclear power lost anytime soon, and it's led to a substantial increase in Japan's CO2 emissions. Right now Japanese consumers oppose turning the plants back on; but last I heard they're also not seeing an increase in their electric bill yet.
Finally, to DMJC - How well do you think SST Plants will do during an Alaskan Winter? Beware the 'one true power' fallacy. My goal is 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% other(hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, etc...)
*Dead tree publication, Stars & Stripes, Aug 13,2012, 'Fukushima disaster studies call for regulatory reform'.
I think it depends on your internet connection as well; mine isn't that great. Barely good enough for streaming from a dedicated site like netflix. Might try it later, of course. I don't torrent music. Heck, don't really torrent anymore; netflix usually doesn't have what I'm looking for, when I go for something specific, but it's great at suggesting stuff I'd like to watch. So I watch that. I like being legal.
First, I pay for netflix, and normally watch stuff on there. However, I'd say that netflix still has a ways to go on things like subtitling, alternate languages, and seeking. While I don't play entire episodes at 1.5X like Celebi, I have the opposite problem - I fairly frequently have a 'what was that' reaction and want to go back 10-15 seconds, which means I have to wait 10-15 seconds while netflix tosses it's cache and redownloads the past minute or so. With a downloaded movie, that's a button click away.
While I have to wait for a torrent to finish downloading, that can be done in the background. The final product is typically superior to watching it on netflix, and often better than DVD. Blueray - depends on how annoying they made the disc; I've had a few that takes me 5+ minutes to get to what I paid for. Every time I put the disc in. I've heard of some that are more like 15 minutes.
For the record, I don't mind you putting advertising in the free space on the disc. What I mind is you setting it to play automatically before the menu comes up, as unskippably as you can make it, every time the disc goes in. Put it in the extra features. I'll actually look at that stuff on occasion(and that's all you need when it's a purchased disk). I especially love it(sarc) when it's for an older disc and I already own what they're advertising.
For decades, 'social media' sites and their precursors were blocked by the various services under the DoD. Facebook is available today, along with all the attendant problems, because the Secretary of Defense ordered it available, along with youtube and various other sites.
I can't imagine a Dean having much less power to simply declare it an educational tool and tell you to 'make it work'.
but if it looks clean, what's the problem?
An absolutely clean 'looking' bed could be completely infested with fleas/mites/bedbugs.
They probably aren't trying to stop individual sellers who are selling their lightly used mattress because they're moving/bought another. They're after the professional sellers who sow new covers on random unknown mattresses they picked up(sometimes out of dumpsters) while engaging in sanitization/sterilization measures that could optimistically be called 'ineffective'.
I saw a special on this once. A group went around collecting any old mattress they could find, 'sanitized' it, sowed on a new cover, and resold it.
The problem was that their 'sanitization'* wasn't enough to stop bedbugs, and their cover wasn't impermeable to them. Most of the beds picked up were infested, and what ones weren't were often infested by contact with the other mattresses.
I can see a jurisdiction taking a look at the process and banning the business to try to stop the spread of lice/mites/bedbugs. As a moderate libertarian I think it's the wrong move, but I also believe that selling beds very likely to be infested, not warning buyers that they're likely to be infested, and engaging in essentially useless sanitization efforts to be criminal deception. Basically, if you're going to be sanitizing a bed, you'd better sanitize it. Bake it in an 200F oven for 3 days; subject it to a hard vacuum for 48 hours, whatever it takes. But that's expensive, and new mattresses don't cost much more; I could see it killing the business anyways.
*Which actually consisted of spraying it down with some sanitizer intended for hard surfaces that worked more like febreze than a proper bug killer.
Given the feelings of most Americans, somebody with Kiddie porn is 'more deserving' of an early morning SWAT raid than most drug dealers.
Personally, I'm more the type of 'station a camera; visit the house when you go to work' type, if there's concern about possible violence. Then I pick you up at work.
SWAT style invasions will be saved for drug houses* that are effectively never unoccupied, and even then I'd probably wait until it's at 'minimum manning'. SWAT raids on fully occupied dwellings shall be saved for hostage/slave/abuse scenarios where human suffering is highly likely to be reduced if we go in *RIGHT NOW*.
*I'll note that even though I support the legalization of drugs, said legalization would involve moving distribution to legitimate channels, thus a few drug houses would still need to be busted.
That's UP TO 750 million on TOP of the 450 million already ordered.
Nope, don't know where the 750M comes from, since it says right in the contract that the max is 70M rounds per year, and it's a current year +4(IE 5 year) contract. 70M*5=350M. Page 25 of their horrible scanned contract. "The maximum limit for the resultant award(s) is 70 million rounds per year. If more than one (1) contract is awarded, the maximum limit will be split between all awards".
As for the 450M, their 'source' says that that is ANOTHER 'up to' contract. "The order comes under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for HST bullets."
Here's what I'm seeing: The DHS is ordering 'up to' 350M rounds of training ammunition; which would be a 'incredibly unlikely doomsday scenario' level. They MIGHT buy 70M one year and have a good amount of stock for subsequent years if they get a windfall of money. It's what happens in other departments.
The 'up to 450M' rounds order is for OPERATIONAL ammunition, and again, is a 5 year order.
This is not for training rounds.
Page 1-2: "This contract is for commercial leaded training ammunition (CLTA) in accordance with this document"
I already addressed how many rounds you can go through to train a single person, such that the quantities requested are actually pretty reasonable. Unless you think that 500 rounds a year, split between rifle and pistol, is unreasonably high? You can go through 60 rounds just sighting in a rifle - 10 groups of 3 for iron sights, 10 groups for scope - Sight picture training makes it practice as well, which is why you don't just have like 3 sets of 3. You have to assume that the firer doesn't fire anytime other than training/qualification, so you have to work the basics a lot.
A quick calc shows that he was 'only' earning $178k/year if he was indeed successful in hiding the 2.5M, instead of actually NOT HAVING IT. Given that he'd have likely gotten at least $1M back(50-50 split, $500k in legal expenses/held property), that's only $107k/year, for a premier lawyer. If he truly lost all the money(possible at this point), he LOST $71k/year. He'd be better off paying the money and just working a few more years.
I figure that one of the reasons they let him go is the increasing probability that he lost the money, and even if he stole it that the 'time served' would exceed the penalty. Heck, you can get a 'mere' 7 years for 3rd degree murder in the state.
Okay, can't watch the youtube video(blocked due to limited bandwidth here), but it let me onto the infowars site.
750M rounds is 2.5 rounds per person in the USA, yes. However: Scare tactics are being used.
First, it's for training ammunition - my training/qualification for the year is at well over 500 rounds between pistol and rifle(~half each). I'm not DHS, but it should be a clue as to how many rounds it takes to train&qualify somebody. It's often an annual requirement.
Second - it's a 'purchase UP TO' order, up to 70M rounds/year, between all winning parties, for a 5 year contract. NOT 'planning to buy 750M rounds of ammo'. Going by the contract, that's a MAX of 350M. The minimum order in a year is 1 lot of 1k rounds. In these sorts of contracts they list the maximum possible they expect for each item - for example, a big purchase of .40S&W handguns, a shift to .357 Sig, whatever. .223 is well represented, though I wonder that they aren't shooting NATO 5.56 spec rifles(the difference is about a human hair; doesn't matter much in training I guess). Going by my figure, a max order of 70M rounds would let you dual-qualify ~140k people. Office types trained 'just in case' would use a bit less ammo, SWAT types far more. A quick search shows 160k employees in DHS. Or maybe it's 188k employees AND 200k contractors. Whatever. I doubt they're going to be qualifying EVERYONE anytime soon, and probably don't plan to short of some crazy doomsday scenarios.
Third - "including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls." - just about ANY handgun self defense caliber is fully capable of penetrating a wall while remaining potentially lethal. It's a simple fact that a human body, which self defense rounds generally have to be able to completely penetrate to be considered effective, is more difficult to penetrate than 2 sheets of drywall. You want to go back to yea old days - when the .357 was developed, the standard was actually penetrating a car windscreen with a maximum deflection such that you'd still hit the driver. 9mm, btw, is 'normally' powerful enough for this, though you might need 2 shots(not as big of a deal for a semi), but this was back when we were still issuing revolvers to police. While we're at it, the contract also lists rifle calibers - .223, .30-06, and .308; all far more powerful than .357.
In other words, it's a big hoopla over just about nothing.
You're also taking a risk buying a machine off of ebay to read them; you'd need to test the machine first, preferably with a tape NOT containing your crucial data. Either that or have to pay through the nose for a NEW machine, plus have to set it all up. For that matter, most of the reputable places are 'your data is recovered or your money back' for undamaged tape.
Besides, I didn't say 'mail it', depending on how crucial the data is and where you're at you could always courier it yourself, failing that tapes tend to be light and fairly tough for their size - package well and send via a premium service. I'd go with Fedex/UPS Next Day* or registered mail.
At some point there's also the risk of a fire, flood, vandalism, theft, etc... No action in life is risk free.
*In my area Fedex Ground is seperate from Air, with Air being far better. UPS is combined, Air/Ground is about the same except for speed, though Air wins by a smidge. Post offhttp://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3043863&cid=40972375#ice is slow, but generally just works.