Spin-doctoring? Please... if you don't think they do this, you don't listen too carefully to the types of language they use on our major national broadcaster. Often times it isn't even that the slant they take is itself problematic, it is the choice of language that they use that brings with it hidden assumptions and various logical fallacies embedded within.
I am aware of this. And I agree completely.
Canadians have been singularly impolite to our neighbours over the last few years and that many have a singularly vitriolic attitude with very little experience
Frankly, why shouldnt we be? Their border guards are slowing goods in as a redneck-economic-warfare tactic. They slammed our lumber industry AGAIN for a temporary gain to their own. They INVADE AND OCCUPY foriegn lands (do *you* want to be Poland to their Germany?) They demand all manner of foreign and domestic policy which we disagree with (pull out of kyoto and pressure us to do same/demand the same idiotic marijuana prohibition they enforce). They maintain a trade embargo against Cuba. They supply more money to isreal than any other recipient of foriegn aid (which they use to buy american arms and enforce their neo-apartheid on palestine). They train right-wing death squads for Columbia. They spray defoliant on ancient jungles in their "Plan Columbia". They have troops in 135 countries. They demand unchained capital without the corresponding unchained people. Their president and ambassador (the fucker negroponte) got off scott-free in Iran-Contra. They systematically abuse prisoners of war. They arbitrarily detain, abuse and interogate foreign and domestic citizens as enemies of the state. They spend more than the rest of the world combined on killing machines. They are jingoistic (generally)*. They are violent (generally)*. They are ignorant (generally)*.
Why the hell shouldnt we tell them to stuff it? They need us more than we need them. They are more trouble than their worth.
*These are not ad hominum attacks. Fact: Americans, when polled, show very strong nationalist tendancies. Fact: They have incredible rates of voilence domestically. Fact: The have an abismal understanding of currrent world issues, geography and history. I wont do a google for some data to back this up... havnt the time, but Im sure I dont need to.
This is a wonderfull development. Seeing as what a massive source of pollution Fireworks are. The blackpowder used to launch the shells will no longer release carcinogenic sulfur-coal compounds into the air directly ONTOP of our population centers.
Everytime you watch a fireworks display, you are watching tonnes of heavy-metal and radioactive materials being peppered on your community. Making the evening not as wonderfull as Id like.
But, tell me, how is a prudent environmentalist to come out against fireworks? What will the public think about the environmentalists who want to take something generally considered joyfull and request its abolition?
on a more practical note, people need to be aware... we are capable of putting *some* amount of 'pollution' into our environment, but a wise person would not want to see so much that it adversly affects our (and nature's) health. If everyone decided "yes, we will release x,y and z of quatities a,b and c for this display and instead will stop buying/making/behaving in manner T" The trouble is we are not near this level of organization/understanding in the will of the public. Like most environmental issues that the public is directly connected to (consumption) they dont A) care or B) recognize their very real contribution to our looming problems.
So, who wants to martyr themeselves on the Anti-Fireworks Brigade?
This kind of immense subsidy of the destructive Oil-based economy must end.
The Green Party proposes a (modest IMHO) $0.10 per L (phased-in over 3yrs(again, very modest) to help ease canada away from an Oil-based economy to something more sustainable. Wind. Solar. Other(?) --- OR --- keep paying to subsidise the oil industry in THIS and MANY other ways... for instance, Hibernia and TerraNova were financed by the feds, how much do we spend a year on roads, hospitals treating road injuries, insurance, insurance litigation, air pollutin, sprawl, obesity, mining etc etc etc the auto industry and its partner oil industry require that we spend billions of dollars a year (in canada alon) of public money -- not to mention what you, the citizen spends on this behaviour -- for what? ultra convenient personal transport? un-f-ing real.
The Oil/Auto Industries running our culture to make irresponsible/unsustainable/expensive/stupid decisions must end.
The first step: Making people recognize the unbelievable REAL costs of these two industries. Support the Greens, vote to RAISE gas prices.
Diamonds are note really rare. Diamonds can be manufactured indistinguishable from mined diamonds (arguably better, the environmental impact of diamond mines is presently offloaded to the commons (yes, i know making diamonds require energy etc)
Diamonds are a scam in every way... mostly, I feel sorry for people who spend money thinking its an investment, when really, it is the ultimate testiment to consumer culture and shallowness. The more you spend on diamonds, the more empty headed you are.
If by 'sovereignty' you mean "US control of a puppet government, who will rule from the largest embassy on the planet, run an independant military, support/write and enforce laws and dictate domestic and foreign policy/law through said puppet-government".
Look, this 'sovereign' government is not fooling anyone. Youve invaded. Now youve created a 'government'. Now you will rule from behind a not-so-effective of half-truths and flowery langauge about democracy, independance and freedom. Give me a fucking break.
Youve just made his point. Kerry is not left at all, but a righ-centrist. In the USA, who's real Left was destroyed by jinogist mccarthyism, religion and plutocratic domination, a putz like Kerry has to pass as Left.
All these other nations may be truely left. They also enjoy a higher standard of living. The only saving feature that dosnt keep ameirca a backwater of starvation and disease is the fact theyve never hosted a modern war, are still cutting virgin territory (ie. killed the original inhabitants). It is easier to build something new and cheap than lasting cities like Tokyo, Paris, Moscow and Lisbon. If any American thinks that its current Right-leaning will last (and avoid A) Facism or B) The Agressor role in WWIII) ive youve got another thing coming. It is serve-the-self selfishness that really fuels the right (not libertarianism-bootstrap-religion nonsense that the jingos like to hear from the corporate media) -- and that fuel will run out in time... its all about history here folks. History. The USA may well be wealthy now, but it is by no means an example of success. The world knows it, I know it, the REAL American Left knows it -- but the Plutocracy is so entrenched in the USA that we are going to have an incredibly hard time unseating them without causing them to start WWIII.
seen on TV or presented in Canadian (opinionated, spin-doctoring, discontent-formenting) media.
Ahem, Well really. Is that so? According to Reporters without Borders Canada has one of the most free presses in the world. The Canadian Broadcasting Company being one of the main reasons -- it is able to present a forum for journalists to work...
The Bias or "spindoctoring" you percieve is probably in relation to YOUR preconcieved notions.
On the contrary, I don't trust the gov't because they are responsible for setting their own salaries, and for raising the taxes that pay those salaries
Whatever -- this is totally unrelated.
Lots of power has little to do with high taxes. Im sorry. It is your PUBLIC that is being manipulated into allowing wars of aggression and giving up progressive social rights. No money is required to educate yourselves and reject these would-be-fascists. Yet somehow, Shrub's support is NOT down around 10% where it should be...
Instead of voting based on your OWN SELFISHNESS (yes, this is the concern with the anti-tax crowd -- they think they will PERSONALLY have more if they are taxed less, with no consideration to the REAL implications of paying fewer taxes (ie. taxes are the sole reason a middle-class exists)) why dont you stand up and vote for a governmnet that WONT enact a neo-fascist state in America.
. Increased gas tax? Penalizing petrolium companies
Burning gas has costs that are presently externalized to the Community. Pollution, subsidy, dangerous-public-rights-of-way, sprawl (etc)... all rely on an absurdly low Gas Tax.
I am the president of a Windsor-Area EDA. I can tell you, with honesty, that $0.10 tax per litre is a goal of our Party. This tax will be used to treat the medical ills created by our addiction to Cheap Gas (burning it willy-nilly in guzzling autos). A $0.10 L gas tax can also help fund the transition to a sustainable transportation system that includes more infrastructure for Bikes and capable Mass-Transit systems (Buses, Trams, Subways).
Futher, the big-box-store, highway, bedroom suburbs, highway-freeway-byway development that has gone on for 50 years in Canada must stop. It is expensive (both privately and on all 3 levels of government). It is causing unsustainable communities to creap ever outward on our precious Farmland. It is causing us to mow over and pave areas that life depends on (including ourselves).
For fuck's sake, do we really need to ignore the ills of gas culture -- and cry when gas gets 'expensive'... even when its cheaper than fucking carbonated-sugar beverages?
Sooner or later we are going to need to leave without cheap oil. Cheap oil has us building a culture that A) relies on cheap oil and B) is directly unhealthy to us and our planet... lets start thinking a little more long-term please.
If they thought they would get a profit from it, you can bet they would have produced it. All they want is money.
GM would not want to risk the other 99.999% of their sales by making a product that makes the REST useless would they?
An analogy would be Cuba. The USA is really opposed to Cuba not because they are a threat, but because they are a threat of a good example. ie. See how well Cuba does without A,B and C? A,B and C were sold as 100% absolute necessities to the 'sucess' of USA -- how can someone be successfull without a laisse-faire markets and more than one (two in the case of the USA) parties?
A) I dont understand -- is there no wind at night? also, wind power generation would be Distributed.... no wind here, but look -- wind over there....
B) Electric cars did just fine, they were a new product in a new field. GM had one that went 200m on a single charge at highway speeds (that was the FirstGen batts, SecondGen batts (demonstrated but not sold) would have gone further). Electric cars *do* work -- I would buy a EV1 today if they were for sale (after all, they would have had time to work out the bugs, refine them, ramp-up production). Again, the problem isnt with the technology, but with the barriers to entry in such a massive market -- their are 1st tier auto mfgs offering electrics in Japan, Asia and Europe TODAY(!) Renault, Mitsubishi, Honda, Toyota all have electric cars for sale today. GM stopped the EV1 for political/capital reasons.
3) No Green claims that windmills harm birds. Any person, who claims this is wrong -- no matter who they are.
Only an idiot would choose the very REAL ills of air/water pollution associated with Oil/Coal/Gas vs. the ??? issues with Wind.
If you calculate add all the REAL costs of Coil / Oil fired plants to include the cost of River-damage, air pollution, health-care-costs, habitat loss and the like, you'll find that Wind is actually MUCH less costly.
The trouble is Oil/Coal are entrenched capital... if someone proposed switching from Wind to Oil/Coal TODAY, people would laugh "you expect us to LIVE near this crap?!".
The trouble isnt that Wind is more costly, just that we allow the Plutocrats to keep polluting our communities.
Whole Cost accounting and a Green Tax shift are a good first step to making Oil/Coal really bear their complete burden...
I personally quite enjoy sitting out on the deck on top of my 3-flat and using my laptop. Or sitting at an outdoor cafe, and using my laptop
If your laptop has sub-3hr bat. life you have a sub-par laptop. And, do you spend DAY after DAY out there? This is what I imagine people's 'issue' w/ battery life is... ive never had a device, taken fully charged, run-dead during a single day's use.
I dont know about you all, but Ive never really had that much of a problem with the life of my charges -- im rarly away from a 110v plug for more than a few hours (unfortunatley).
What we really need is a standard induction charging scheme. Where I can carry my gadgets around, and not worry 'bout carrying one-wall-wart per device around all the time. If Im at *your* house, I put my device on your charger for a few minutes while we have a tea... if im at work, i set it on my desk (as i do now, sans the specific wall-wart ive left at home).
Putting the devices on an induction-charging station would make the duration of the charge moot... it would CERTAINLY be much longer than time spent between these pads....
It's good for the economy when things like steel and coal and fabric gets cheaper, because it means a better standard of living for consumers.
Except that cheap coal and cheap steel cause alot of un-captured expenses. Coal and Steel production / use are very high energy endevours, this energy is usually associated with a massive amount of uncontained pollution. This pollution causes sickness, plant/animal habitat loss, loss of food-supplies (fish-in-stream etc), human-habitat loss (areas rendered uninhabitable)... etc etc.
while I do understand your point -- and I essentially agree -- it is incorrect to consider low-cost-everything being good. Low cost organic-hemp-cloth and low-cost-regionally-appropriate-organic-foods are VERY good, low cost Imported Nylon cloth and low-cost-Imported-GM-heavily-manufactured-food-thi ng is *not* as desirable....
No market is free. FOSS and Closed Source software rely on IP Law to 'create and regulate' their markets. Auto Co.s rely on Government created infrastructure. Even in-house plumbers rely on the standards-compliant governmnet-created infrastrucutre....
I guess my point is simple, that be carefull to not underestimate what the Market will do to EXTERNALIZE very real COSTS associated with a product. These costs are then abandoned onto the citizens of a community. No markets will ever be free of this reality. And a truely free-market (one where the market works to create 'low prices that benefit citizens') is an absolute myth -- it cannot be created.
Taxes are always harmful (at least directly) to an economy, because it's wasted money...profit that didn't get reinvested.
Well, except that taxes are spent to create every conceivable infrastructure. It is your taxes that create social infrastrucutre (schools, libraries, administration), production infrastructure (roads, rails, trades), market infrastructure (services, law/courts, research) -- all necessary to create a TRULY elevated standard of living for a community. The fictional free market (where *all* these things are for-profit, and no taxes exist of any kind) will only serve to destroy civilization -- a 'community' with unreal amounts of wealth held by the market-kings, slaves, chaos, danger, disease and uncertainty.
A Well Regulated market will (and has) created the opportunity for the greatest number to have an increased Standard of Living.
Listen, People "involved in saving the planet" by definition are rational.
People refusing to back high efficiency auto standards, legislate deposits on packaging, walk/bike to work, end sprawl, buy wasteful junk from Walmart from the big-box on at the end of the super-highway are BY DEFINTION irrational. They refuse to acknowledge/own the *real* damage they do because they think with like television-addicted sheeple, unwilling to make the smallest sacrifice.
For all the talk of nuclear's safety, Im not buying it. The *results* of an accident are far to great. The waste storage is a problem... all for what? Why assume this risk at all? Why not CONSERVE and organize ourselves in a way that DOES NOT REQUIRE massive amounts of nuclear energy?
Wind power is safe, plentiful, cheap, reliable and easy to implement. Nuclear requires massive investment, and is dangerous (please, dont bother with the 'its not that dangerous'... you wont live near a reactor and neither will I... and Im not going to bother with the BS)
Isaac Newton to fellow scientist Robert Hooke on 5th. February 1676; "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
This wise adage is why Intellectual Property, if implemented in the visage of Capitalists, will lead us to another Dark Age, a Totalitarian State or both.....
Legolas surfing on that shield almost ruined the movies. that, and the tossing gimli nonsense... actually, using gimli as a comic-device the WHOLE trilogy was pretty cheap.
Slashdot Mirror
Ive been thinking, I wonder how hard it would be to take an old laptop's LCD panel out of the laptop and make it into a Digital Picture Frame?
I hear its easy...
Spin-doctoring? Please... if you don't think they do this, you don't listen too carefully to the types of language they use on our major national broadcaster. Often times it isn't even that the slant they take is itself problematic, it is the choice of language that they use that brings with it hidden assumptions and various logical fallacies embedded within.
I am aware of this. And I agree completely.
Canadians have been singularly impolite to our neighbours over the last few years and that many have a singularly vitriolic attitude with very little experience
Frankly, why shouldnt we be? Their border guards are slowing goods in as a redneck-economic-warfare tactic. They slammed our lumber industry AGAIN for a temporary gain to their own. They INVADE AND OCCUPY foriegn lands (do *you* want to be Poland to their Germany?) They demand all manner of foreign and domestic policy which we disagree with (pull out of kyoto and pressure us to do same/demand the same idiotic marijuana prohibition they enforce). They maintain a trade embargo against Cuba. They supply more money to isreal than any other recipient of foriegn aid (which they use to buy american arms and enforce their neo-apartheid on palestine). They train right-wing death squads for Columbia. They spray defoliant on ancient jungles in their "Plan Columbia". They have troops in 135 countries. They demand unchained capital without the corresponding unchained people. Their president and ambassador (the fucker negroponte) got off scott-free in Iran-Contra. They systematically abuse prisoners of war. They arbitrarily detain, abuse and interogate foreign and domestic citizens as enemies of the state. They spend more than the rest of the world combined on killing machines. They are jingoistic (generally)*. They are violent (generally)*. They are ignorant (generally)*.
Why the hell shouldnt we tell them to stuff it? They need us more than we need them. They are more trouble than their worth.
*These are not ad hominum attacks. Fact: Americans, when polled, show very strong nationalist tendancies. Fact: They have incredible rates of voilence domestically. Fact: The have an abismal understanding of currrent world issues, geography and history. I wont do a google for some data to back this up... havnt the time, but Im sure I dont need to.
This is a wonderfull development. Seeing as what a massive source of pollution Fireworks are. The blackpowder used to launch the shells will no longer release carcinogenic sulfur-coal compounds into the air directly ONTOP of our population centers.
Everytime you watch a fireworks display, you are watching tonnes of heavy-metal and radioactive materials being peppered on your community. Making the evening not as wonderfull as Id like.
But, tell me, how is a prudent environmentalist to come out against fireworks? What will the public think about the environmentalists who want to take something generally considered joyfull and request its abolition?
on a more practical note, people need to be aware... we are capable of putting *some* amount of 'pollution' into our environment, but a wise person would not want to see so much that it adversly affects our (and nature's) health. If everyone decided "yes, we will release x,y and z of quatities a,b and c for this display and instead will stop buying/making/behaving in manner T" The trouble is we are not near this level of organization/understanding in the will of the public. Like most environmental issues that the public is directly connected to (consumption) they dont A) care or B) recognize their very real contribution to our looming problems.
So, who wants to martyr themeselves on the Anti-Fireworks Brigade?
This is why I will ask you to VOTE GREEN TODAY.
This kind of immense subsidy of the destructive Oil-based economy must end.
The Green Party proposes a (modest IMHO) $0.10 per L (phased-in over 3yrs(again, very modest) to help ease canada away from an Oil-based economy to something more sustainable. Wind. Solar. Other(?) --- OR --- keep paying to subsidise the oil industry in THIS and MANY other ways... for instance, Hibernia and TerraNova were financed by the feds, how much do we spend a year on roads, hospitals treating road injuries, insurance, insurance litigation, air pollutin, sprawl, obesity, mining etc etc etc the auto industry and its partner oil industry require that we spend billions of dollars a year (in canada alon) of public money -- not to mention what you, the citizen spends on this behaviour -- for what? ultra convenient personal transport? un-f-ing real.
The Oil/Auto Industries running our culture to make irresponsible/unsustainable/expensive/stupid decisions must end.
The first step: Making people recognize the unbelievable REAL costs of these two industries. Support the Greens, vote to RAISE gas prices.
Diamonds are note really rare. Diamonds can be manufactured indistinguishable from mined diamonds (arguably better, the environmental impact of diamond mines is presently offloaded to the commons (yes, i know making diamonds require energy etc)
Diamonds are a scam in every way... mostly, I feel sorry for people who spend money thinking its an investment, when really, it is the ultimate testiment to consumer culture and shallowness. The more you spend on diamonds, the more empty headed you are.
If by 'sovereignty' you mean "US control of a puppet government, who will rule from the largest embassy on the planet, run an independant military, support/write and enforce laws and dictate domestic and foreign policy/law through said puppet-government".
Look, this 'sovereign' government is not fooling anyone. Youve invaded. Now youve created a 'government'. Now you will rule from behind a not-so-effective of half-truths and flowery langauge about democracy, independance and freedom. Give me a fucking break.
I wonder how much the US-Overlords will appreciate it if the new Iraqi "Government" decides to switch their oil-trade to Euros...
Youve just made his point. Kerry is not left at all, but a righ-centrist. In the USA, who's real Left was destroyed by jinogist mccarthyism, religion and plutocratic domination, a putz like Kerry has to pass as Left.
All these other nations may be truely left. They also enjoy a higher standard of living. The only saving feature that dosnt keep ameirca a backwater of starvation and disease is the fact theyve never hosted a modern war, are still cutting virgin territory (ie. killed the original inhabitants). It is easier to build something new and cheap than lasting cities like Tokyo, Paris, Moscow and Lisbon. If any American thinks that its current Right-leaning will last (and avoid A) Facism or B) The Agressor role in WWIII) ive youve got another thing coming. It is serve-the-self selfishness that really fuels the right (not libertarianism-bootstrap-religion nonsense that the jingos like to hear from the corporate media) -- and that fuel will run out in time... its all about history here folks. History. The USA may well be wealthy now, but it is by no means an example of success. The world knows it, I know it, the REAL American Left knows it -- but the Plutocracy is so entrenched in the USA that we are going to have an incredibly hard time unseating them without causing them to start WWIII.
seen on TV or presented in Canadian (opinionated, spin-doctoring, discontent-formenting) media.
Ahem, Well really. Is that so? According to Reporters without Borders Canada has one of the most free presses in the world.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company being one of the main reasons -- it is able to present a forum for journalists to work...
The Bias or "spindoctoring" you percieve is probably in relation to YOUR preconcieved notions.
On the contrary, I don't trust the gov't because they are responsible for setting their own salaries, and for raising the taxes that pay those salaries
Whatever -- this is totally unrelated.
Lots of power has little to do with high taxes. Im sorry. It is your PUBLIC that is being manipulated into allowing wars of aggression and giving up progressive social rights. No money is required to educate yourselves and reject these would-be-fascists. Yet somehow, Shrub's support is NOT down around 10% where it should be...
Instead of voting based on your OWN SELFISHNESS (yes, this is the concern with the anti-tax crowd -- they think they will PERSONALLY have more if they are taxed less, with no consideration to the REAL implications of paying fewer taxes (ie. taxes are the sole reason a middle-class exists)) why dont you stand up and vote for a governmnet that WONT enact a neo-fascist state in America.
What about documenting its decay?
Let is lay, rusting in that field. Lets spend our interest on documenting its decay.
Watch our fleeting focus on expanse slip away, get ruined by moss and tears.
Whats the hurry? Think this is all we have to achieve?
Take pictures of the dustpile. Our great-great-great-great...great grandchildren will find our travels -- and our sense of accomplishment -- amusing.
History is a long time.
. Increased gas tax? Penalizing petrolium companies
Burning gas has costs that are presently externalized to the Community. Pollution, subsidy, dangerous-public-rights-of-way, sprawl (etc)... all rely on an absurdly low Gas Tax.
I am the president of a Windsor-Area EDA. I can tell you, with honesty, that $0.10 tax per litre is a goal of our Party. This tax will be used to treat the medical ills created by our addiction to Cheap Gas (burning it willy-nilly in guzzling autos). A $0.10 L gas tax can also help fund the transition to a sustainable transportation system that includes more infrastructure for Bikes and capable Mass-Transit systems (Buses, Trams, Subways).
Futher, the big-box-store, highway, bedroom suburbs, highway-freeway-byway development that has gone on for 50 years in Canada must stop. It is expensive (both privately and on all 3 levels of government). It is causing unsustainable communities to creap ever outward on our precious Farmland. It is causing us to mow over and pave areas that life depends on (including ourselves).
For fuck's sake, do we really need to ignore the ills of gas culture -- and cry when gas gets 'expensive'... even when its cheaper than fucking carbonated-sugar beverages?
Sooner or later we are going to need to leave without cheap oil. Cheap oil has us building a culture that A) relies on cheap oil and B) is directly unhealthy to us and our planet... lets start thinking a little more long-term please.
If they thought they would get a profit from it, you can bet they would have produced it. All they want is money.
GM would not want to risk the other 99.999% of their sales by making a product that makes the REST useless would they?
An analogy would be Cuba. The USA is really opposed to Cuba not because they are a threat, but because they are a threat of a good example. ie. See how well Cuba does without A,B and C? A,B and C were sold as 100% absolute necessities to the 'sucess' of USA -- how can someone be successfull without a laisse-faire markets and more than one (two in the case of the USA) parties?
A) I dont understand -- is there no wind at night? also, wind power generation would be Distributed.... no wind here, but look -- wind over there....
B) Electric cars did just fine, they were a new product in a new field. GM had one that went 200m on a single charge at highway speeds (that was the FirstGen batts, SecondGen batts (demonstrated but not sold) would have gone further). Electric cars *do* work -- I would buy a EV1 today if they were for sale (after all, they would have had time to work out the bugs, refine them, ramp-up production). Again, the problem isnt with the technology, but with the barriers to entry in such a massive market -- their are 1st tier auto mfgs offering electrics in Japan, Asia and Europe TODAY(!) Renault, Mitsubishi, Honda, Toyota all have electric cars for sale today. GM stopped the EV1 for political/capital reasons.
3) No Green claims that windmills harm birds. Any person, who claims this is wrong -- no matter who they are.
Only an idiot would choose the very REAL ills of air/water pollution associated with Oil/Coal/Gas vs. the ??? issues with Wind.
Wind is the answer.
If you calculate add all the REAL costs of Coil / Oil fired plants to include the cost of River-damage, air pollution, health-care-costs, habitat loss and the like, you'll find that Wind is actually MUCH less costly.
The trouble is Oil/Coal are entrenched capital... if someone proposed switching from Wind to Oil/Coal TODAY, people would laugh "you expect us to LIVE near this crap?!".
The trouble isnt that Wind is more costly, just that we allow the Plutocrats to keep polluting our communities.
Whole Cost accounting and a Green Tax shift are a good first step to making Oil/Coal really bear their complete burden...
Ha, nice. What relevance would your view have on a battery-charging discussion?
Do you also drive a Hummer big-dick-guy?
The Hancock and Sears towers are abominations. And Chicago is a hole. My cat's breath smells like catfood, which is also not relevant.
Shhhhh
Keep that stuff quiet. Bush might get Blair to send in the Real Bombers....
I personally quite enjoy sitting out on the deck on top of my 3-flat and using my laptop. Or sitting at an outdoor cafe, and using my laptop
If your laptop has sub-3hr bat. life you have a sub-par laptop. And, do you spend DAY after DAY out there? This is what I imagine people's 'issue' w/ battery life is... ive never had a device, taken fully charged, run-dead during a single day's use.
I dont know about you all, but Ive never really had that much of a problem with the life of my charges -- im rarly away from a 110v plug for more than a few hours (unfortunatley).
What we really need is a standard induction charging scheme. Where I can carry my gadgets around, and not worry 'bout carrying one-wall-wart per device around all the time. If Im at *your* house, I put my device on your charger for a few minutes while we have a tea... if im at work, i set it on my desk (as i do now, sans the specific wall-wart ive left at home).
Putting the devices on an induction-charging station would make the duration of the charge moot... it would CERTAINLY be much longer than time spent between these pads....
It's good for the economy when things like steel and coal and fabric gets cheaper, because it means a better standard of living for consumers.
i ng is *not* as desirable....
Except that cheap coal and cheap steel cause alot of un-captured expenses. Coal and Steel production / use are very high energy endevours, this energy is usually associated with a massive amount of uncontained pollution. This pollution causes sickness, plant/animal habitat loss, loss of food-supplies (fish-in-stream etc), human-habitat loss (areas rendered uninhabitable)... etc etc.
while I do understand your point -- and I essentially agree -- it is incorrect to consider low-cost-everything being good. Low cost organic-hemp-cloth and low-cost-regionally-appropriate-organic-foods are VERY good, low cost Imported Nylon cloth and low-cost-Imported-GM-heavily-manufactured-food-th
No market is free. FOSS and Closed Source software rely on IP Law to 'create and regulate' their markets. Auto Co.s rely on Government created infrastructure. Even in-house plumbers rely on the standards-compliant governmnet-created infrastrucutre....
I guess my point is simple, that be carefull to not underestimate what the Market will do to EXTERNALIZE very real COSTS associated with a product. These costs are then abandoned onto the citizens of a community. No markets will ever be free of this reality. And a truely free-market (one where the market works to create 'low prices that benefit citizens') is an absolute myth -- it cannot be created.
Taxes are always harmful (at least directly) to an economy, because it's wasted money...profit that didn't get reinvested.
Well, except that taxes are spent to create every conceivable infrastructure. It is your taxes that create social infrastrucutre (schools, libraries, administration), production infrastructure (roads, rails, trades), market infrastructure (services, law/courts, research) -- all necessary to create a TRULY elevated standard of living for a community. The fictional free market (where *all* these things are for-profit, and no taxes exist of any kind) will only serve to destroy civilization -- a 'community' with unreal amounts of wealth held by the market-kings, slaves, chaos, danger, disease and uncertainty.
A Well Regulated market will (and has) created the opportunity for the greatest number to have an increased Standard of Living.
Listen, People "involved in saving the planet" by definition are rational.
People refusing to back high efficiency auto standards, legislate deposits on packaging, walk/bike to work, end sprawl, buy wasteful junk from Walmart from the big-box on at the end of the super-highway are BY DEFINTION irrational. They refuse to acknowledge/own the *real* damage they do because they think with like television-addicted sheeple, unwilling to make the smallest sacrifice.
For all the talk of nuclear's safety, Im not buying it. The *results* of an accident are far to great. The waste storage is a problem... all for what? Why assume this risk at all? Why not CONSERVE and organize ourselves in a way that DOES NOT REQUIRE massive amounts of nuclear energy?
Wind power is safe, plentiful, cheap, reliable and easy to implement. Nuclear requires massive investment, and is dangerous (please, dont bother with the 'its not that dangerous'... you wont live near a reactor and neither will I... and Im not going to bother with the BS)
Isaac Newton to fellow scientist Robert Hooke on 5th. February 1676; "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
This wise adage is why Intellectual Property, if implemented in the visage of Capitalists, will lead us to another Dark Age, a Totalitarian State or both.....
THANK-you!
Legolas surfing on that shield almost ruined the movies. that, and the tossing gimli nonsense... actually, using gimli as a comic-device the WHOLE trilogy was pretty cheap.
Yes, using the Anti-gravity hoverboards that mothers-groups had banned, because they were unsafe... you know, like they showed in Back to The Future.
Geography is irrelevant. Our struggle for happiness is only about Class.
Makes up for the insanely high gasoline prices.
Gas in canada is CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. Have a look at the *Real* costs of gasoline, sprawl, pollution, roads, wars, disease etc etc...
Gas in canada is the second cheapest on the planet (guess who's is the cheapest...)