Except that the conflict of interest for a scientist being paid (PAID, not funded for) a million dollars by oil companies is direct, unambiguous, and undeniable.
The conflict of interest for a scientist who is being funded (funded, not paid) by the government to investigate the possibility of AGW is much less clear. Any claims that the government has a vested interest in showing that AGW exists are dubious, at best. Indeed, a large portion of the government (e.g. Republicans) believe that AGW does not, in fact, exist.
Again, I'm not saying that uni scientists have no bias; clearly they will want to get funding to continue their research. But I would say that it is essentially a given that an oil company scientist will NEVER publish something which favors AGW. On the other hand, if a Uni scientist came up with data that showed AGW was unlikely, there is a good chance (if not certitude) that they would still publish it.
You can claim that University scientists have some sort of agenda, but to claim that this agenda is even comparable to the agenda forced on a corporate scientist by their corporation is just absurd.
Are you serious? You really think that university scientists are as biased as those working on corporate payroll? I mean, just look at what is being asked of both groups of scientists. The corporation asks their scientists to 'Prove that global warming isn't caused by us', while the government asks theirs 'Is global warming caused by man?'. I'm not saying that university scientists aren't biased, but claiming that they're just as biased as corporate ones is just naive.
I see your point, but actually, there's evidence that marijuana actually reduces your risk of cancer. But the truth is that smoking probably should be banned except on your own property and in designated public areas. I smoke on occasion so it would actually inconvenience me, but I can perfectly understand others not wanting to be exposed to an inhalant that has been proven to cause cancer. How about we just call it even... legalize pot for smoking in private, and make tobacco illegal to smoke in public.
Healthcare is a perfect example. Healthcare violates many of the principles necessary for the free market to work. You do not have the ability to make a rational choice about which health care provider to use when being rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound. You do not have the ability to choose between vendors when only one company sells the drug that will save your life. You do not even have the ability to refuse to purchase something, because sometimes refusing to purchase something means you will die, because a person will always choose massive debt over death. The private sector CAN provide healthcare, sure. But this argument that they can do it BETTER than a public system, simply because they can do it while also making money is ridiculous.
if the government taxes less, then they overspend by a larger percent, increasing the multiplier!
Indeed, that would increase the multiplier. That's exactly what deficit spending is all about. I never said we weren't accountable for it though.
Not saying it's not, but where's the accountability for the government, making such a poor decision? Who's to say the business didn't have friends in the government?
I was merely pointing out that private corporations have far less accountability than the government, and cannot be controlled as easily as public services. Privatization is dangerous because the government is still paying for the service, but no longer has much control over how it is run. It also increases the gap between the rich and the poor, because by and large, executives in government positions get paid far less than their counterparts in the private sector. I don't have a citation to prove that, so it is just based off of things like how much a General gets paid versus a CEO, or Senators and the President vs Wall Street Bankers.
Congratulations to you too, you insulted someone anonymously over the internet without even attempting to make a point or explain why the other person was wrong! You can rest assured that you are, indeed, making the world a better place.
Taxation is good, to a point. It allows the government to provide things that would otherwise be too expensive or non-existent for the average person. It allows individuals, even the poor ones, to have some say in how society is run. I'm sorry if I don't think that the rich should inherit the earth.
You're right, that's the real difference. Conservatives trust corporations more then government. Which is a strange thing, because at least with government the individual has some say in how things are done. Corporations have essentially no accountability to anyone but their shareholders. Also, government isn't out to make a profit, so they don't have to. They can lose money, if it means providing a better service. Corporations can't do that.
1. Indeed, that is how borrowing works. That is what the private sector does too, and that's the 'magic' of the banking system too.
2. Indeed, you do pay for these things, and you also have a say in how that money gets spent thanks to your representative democracy. But that's besides the point. We clearly disagree about the purpose of government.
It sounds like a win to you? In the short term, perhaps, but the government hands over control of how their dollars are managed to a private enterprise, which has essentially no accountability to the taxpayer. So sure, you pay 20% less, but now you have no oversight in how the prison system is managed, or how your money is spent. Why do people think corporations are somehow less evil entities than the government? At least with the government you have some say in how things get run!
How does imposing a tax have a net effect of reducing economic activity? Do you think the money that is taxed leaves the economy?
Look at it this way; the U.S. government currently runs a deficit, so for every dollar it receives in revenue, it spends more then a dollar. In other words, taxation acts as a multiplier, since the government spends all (and more) of the revenue it takes in.
Besides that, taxes are necessary to provide services that the private sector cannot provide well for various reasons; healthcare (lack of ability for consumers to choose when faced with death or buy it), education (children cannot pay for their own education), roads (not profitable), municipal services (not practical to give users choice, cost of entry too high), etc etc...
Then there's the even worse trend of privatizing things, only to keep paying for them with government funds, as is the case with prisons. So great, now you have a company running your prison, but the government is still paying 80% of what they were before, and now they have no control over where that money goes. So the wages of the prison guards drop, and the wages of the prison-company CEOs go up. Hooray! The American system works!
I tried to find a definition of it in the patent, but of the 159 instances of "social network" they used, only one comes anywhere close to defining what a social network is.
Conventionally, a user of a networking website connects with other users by providing information about the user to a social network website for access by the other users. For example, a user may post contact information, background information, current job position, hobbies, and so forth. Information about personal events may also be posted by a user, for example on personal webpages, web logs (BLOGS), etc. Such posts may include information about gifts received, gifts given, purchases made, etc. Other users may contact the user and/or review information about the user based on common interests or for any other reason.
As for MMORPGs, I would say they contain social networks (such as a guild, or a friends list), but are not strictly speaking social networks themselves. Of course this is all a bunch of nonsense anyways.
I said several years ago that software patents would soon reach a level of absurdity that would make it impossible to justify their continued existence. Unfortunately, software patents crashed through that level a while ago, and have never looked back.
I'm not sure, but remember that the volume of space goes up cubicly, so it would take quite a bit of debris to make up for the vastness of GEO compared to LEO.
Even Low-Earth orbit that the ISS flies in isn't safe without it.
Actually, I would guess that LEO is the most dangerous places to be, debris-wise. All debris has to pass through LEO eventually as it enters the atmosphere, and it has the smallest volume of space, so statistically speaking, I'd think the chances of getting hit are by far the highest in LEO.
This is not true. Lack of correlation only refutes causation if you can eliminate all other variables. Just because you are unable to observe an effect does not prove that the effect does not exist. The lack of observed correlation between a and b could be due to some unobserved hidden variable.
Oh please, I served too, and always called subs boats and surface vessels ships. You could call your own ship a boat if you wanted to, but if a visitor came on board your Enterprise and called her a 'boat', I'm pretty damn sure they would be corrected.
No, submarines are boats, large surface going vessels are ships. You could *maybe* refer to a frigate as a boat, but that would only be to piss off those stationed on a frigate. Nobody in the Navy would refer to a destroyer, cruiser, or carrier as a boat, at least not in serious conversation.
Two things, your 4 year old desktop is nowhere near as fast as the new i7s. It just seems that way because you're not doing number crunching on it; for normal applications, you'd probably see a bigger boost by switching to a SSD then a new CPU. Second, these supercomputers are massively parallel, so while the procs themselves do get faster, the real increase in speed seen comes from adding lots more cores.
Unless, of course, you happen to be anything but a white male. In that case things have gotten much better. I'm just saying.... Things haven't ALL gotten worse since the Constitution was written.
You have a point, but I'd venture to say that those two gigantic wars in the first half of the twentieth century really affected the retirement demographic in Germany. I don't know this for sure, but I'd also venture to say that the retirement systems in Germany were probably reset at some (if not several) points between 1900 and 1950.
Slashdot Mirror
The conflict of interest for a scientist who is being funded (funded, not paid) by the government to investigate the possibility of AGW is much less clear. Any claims that the government has a vested interest in showing that AGW exists are dubious, at best. Indeed, a large portion of the government (e.g. Republicans) believe that AGW does not, in fact, exist.
Again, I'm not saying that uni scientists have no bias; clearly they will want to get funding to continue their research. But I would say that it is essentially a given that an oil company scientist will NEVER publish something which favors AGW. On the other hand, if a Uni scientist came up with data that showed AGW was unlikely, there is a good chance (if not certitude) that they would still publish it.
You can claim that University scientists have some sort of agenda, but to claim that this agenda is even comparable to the agenda forced on a corporate scientist by their corporation is just absurd.
Unless of course they've reached annexation of the Sudetenland levels... In which case it's going to be a looooong decade.
The SECOND rule is to never question the consensus =p
Are you serious? You really think that university scientists are as biased as those working on corporate payroll? I mean, just look at what is being asked of both groups of scientists. The corporation asks their scientists to 'Prove that global warming isn't caused by us', while the government asks theirs 'Is global warming caused by man?'. I'm not saying that university scientists aren't biased, but claiming that they're just as biased as corporate ones is just naive.
I see your point, but actually, there's evidence that marijuana actually reduces your risk of cancer. But the truth is that smoking probably should be banned except on your own property and in designated public areas. I smoke on occasion so it would actually inconvenience me, but I can perfectly understand others not wanting to be exposed to an inhalant that has been proven to cause cancer. How about we just call it even... legalize pot for smoking in private, and make tobacco illegal to smoke in public.
Healthcare is a perfect example. Healthcare violates many of the principles necessary for the free market to work. You do not have the ability to make a rational choice about which health care provider to use when being rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound. You do not have the ability to choose between vendors when only one company sells the drug that will save your life. You do not even have the ability to refuse to purchase something, because sometimes refusing to purchase something means you will die, because a person will always choose massive debt over death. The private sector CAN provide healthcare, sure. But this argument that they can do it BETTER than a public system, simply because they can do it while also making money is ridiculous.
Turning a profit isn't everything. Many services should not be about making money, they should be about making society better.
if the government taxes less, then they overspend by a larger percent, increasing the multiplier!
Indeed, that would increase the multiplier. That's exactly what deficit spending is all about. I never said we weren't accountable for it though.
Not saying it's not, but where's the accountability for the government, making such a poor decision? Who's to say the business didn't have friends in the government?
I was merely pointing out that private corporations have far less accountability than the government, and cannot be controlled as easily as public services. Privatization is dangerous because the government is still paying for the service, but no longer has much control over how it is run. It also increases the gap between the rich and the poor, because by and large, executives in government positions get paid far less than their counterparts in the private sector. I don't have a citation to prove that, so it is just based off of things like how much a General gets paid versus a CEO, or Senators and the President vs Wall Street Bankers.
Taxation is good, to a point. It allows the government to provide things that would otherwise be too expensive or non-existent for the average person. It allows individuals, even the poor ones, to have some say in how society is run. I'm sorry if I don't think that the rich should inherit the earth.
You're right, that's the real difference. Conservatives trust corporations more then government. Which is a strange thing, because at least with government the individual has some say in how things are done. Corporations have essentially no accountability to anyone but their shareholders. Also, government isn't out to make a profit, so they don't have to. They can lose money, if it means providing a better service. Corporations can't do that.
2. Indeed, you do pay for these things, and you also have a say in how that money gets spent thanks to your representative democracy. But that's besides the point. We clearly disagree about the purpose of government.
It sounds like a win to you? In the short term, perhaps, but the government hands over control of how their dollars are managed to a private enterprise, which has essentially no accountability to the taxpayer. So sure, you pay 20% less, but now you have no oversight in how the prison system is managed, or how your money is spent. Why do people think corporations are somehow less evil entities than the government? At least with the government you have some say in how things get run!
Get educated? About what exactly? The unproven statement that taxation hurts the economy?
Look at it this way; the U.S. government currently runs a deficit, so for every dollar it receives in revenue, it spends more then a dollar. In other words, taxation acts as a multiplier, since the government spends all (and more) of the revenue it takes in.
Besides that, taxes are necessary to provide services that the private sector cannot provide well for various reasons; healthcare (lack of ability for consumers to choose when faced with death or buy it), education (children cannot pay for their own education), roads (not profitable), municipal services (not practical to give users choice, cost of entry too high), etc etc...
Then there's the even worse trend of privatizing things, only to keep paying for them with government funds, as is the case with prisons. So great, now you have a company running your prison, but the government is still paying 80% of what they were before, and now they have no control over where that money goes. So the wages of the prison guards drop, and the wages of the prison-company CEOs go up. Hooray! The American system works!
Conventionally, a user of a networking website connects with other users by providing information about the user to a social network website for access by the other users. For example, a user may post contact information, background information, current job position, hobbies, and so forth. Information about personal events may also be posted by a user, for example on personal webpages, web logs (BLOGS), etc. Such posts may include information about gifts received, gifts given, purchases made, etc. Other users may contact the user and/or review information about the user based on common interests or for any other reason.
As for MMORPGs, I would say they contain social networks (such as a guild, or a friends list), but are not strictly speaking social networks themselves. Of course this is all a bunch of nonsense anyways.
I said several years ago that software patents would soon reach a level of absurdity that would make it impossible to justify their continued existence. Unfortunately, software patents crashed through that level a while ago, and have never looked back.
"Serious restrictions on freedom of expression"? It would be nice to know WHAT part of Europe you are referring to
Well, for example, the fact that in the U.K. you can place anonymous gagging orders on newspapers so that they can't publish facts about you.
I'm not sure, but remember that the volume of space goes up cubicly, so it would take quite a bit of debris to make up for the vastness of GEO compared to LEO.
Even Low-Earth orbit that the ISS flies in isn't safe without it.
Actually, I would guess that LEO is the most dangerous places to be, debris-wise. All debris has to pass through LEO eventually as it enters the atmosphere, and it has the smallest volume of space, so statistically speaking, I'd think the chances of getting hit are by far the highest in LEO.
This is not true. Lack of correlation only refutes causation if you can eliminate all other variables. Just because you are unable to observe an effect does not prove that the effect does not exist. The lack of observed correlation between a and b could be due to some unobserved hidden variable.
Oh please, I served too, and always called subs boats and surface vessels ships. You could call your own ship a boat if you wanted to, but if a visitor came on board your Enterprise and called her a 'boat', I'm pretty damn sure they would be corrected.
And then Kimbot proceeds to drink high price cognac and starve his people, for though we may wish it, we can never escape the genes of our father.
I've gotten wooshed several times lately, so I'm going to assume you're joking.
No, submarines are boats, large surface going vessels are ships. You could *maybe* refer to a frigate as a boat, but that would only be to piss off those stationed on a frigate. Nobody in the Navy would refer to a destroyer, cruiser, or carrier as a boat, at least not in serious conversation.
Two things, your 4 year old desktop is nowhere near as fast as the new i7s. It just seems that way because you're not doing number crunching on it; for normal applications, you'd probably see a bigger boost by switching to a SSD then a new CPU. Second, these supercomputers are massively parallel, so while the procs themselves do get faster, the real increase in speed seen comes from adding lots more cores.
Unless, of course, you happen to be anything but a white male. In that case things have gotten much better. I'm just saying.... Things haven't ALL gotten worse since the Constitution was written.
You have a point, but I'd venture to say that those two gigantic wars in the first half of the twentieth century really affected the retirement demographic in Germany. I don't know this for sure, but I'd also venture to say that the retirement systems in Germany were probably reset at some (if not several) points between 1900 and 1950.