Renewables (not enough to supply the entire country even using rather optimistic estimates).
Citation needed.
Germany already had a day where all their power came from renewables. We have plenty of renewable power to tap into. The issues revolve more around political will and overcoming entrenched power players than any environmental resource limits or technical limits.
And I think you'd know that if you spent any time at all researching it.
Not treason. But I thought the CIA was forbidden by law to spy domestically. So yeah, very bad felonies.
I would rather see the actual employees and their bosses tossed in jail then some random figurehead that was probably lied to by his own staff. Check out how long CIA heads stay in power. It is about an average of 3 years. They are basically just punching bags that get replaced every so often when something bad comes out.
The real power in the CIA are the long term bosses and employees, that have obviously decided they can do what ever they want. Why would you do otherwise when your figurehead boss will just take the blame and resign "in shame" every few years.
The head of the CIA seems to change pretty often as the political winds shift. I'd rather see the actual CIA employees, and their immediate bosses go to jail, then some random figurehead that will be gone in 2-4 years.
Unless, of course, you can prove that the head of the CIA knew about the domestic spying, which I doubt he did. It seems much more likely to me that a "we can do anything we want" culture has developed inside the CIA, because of lack of strong, long term and consistent leadership.
I always thought that the CIA was legally forbidden from spying on US citizens inside the country. That their area of operation was exclusively external non-us threats. At least that is what countless Hollywood shows tell you.
If that is true, I don't see why those involved shouldn't be charged with crimes.
Not exactly sure why everyone is acting like this is some kind of revelation or anything new, other than its kind of amazing Brennan was foolish enough to admit to it
I think most people and politicians assumed that the CIA ran loose all over the world with little to no real oversight. However, spying inside the US on US citizens is a fricken huge No No. NSA/FBI etc... may have laws allowing them to investigate citizens inside the country, but the CIA cannot.
That the CIA cannot do any local spying has been a theme in countless TV shows. It was one of those things everyone "just knew". CIA=external threats, FBI = internal threats.
I think most firewalls handle that dynamic re-assignment of connections to higher ports automatically. None of the oracle server's I have access to show firewalls open to wide ranges of ports.
Maybe it is a windows firewall issue? (I'm all linux solaris)
Almost every bank has free or low cost bill pay services. So even if your cable company or electric company doesn't offer auto-pay (all of them do I've ever worked with) the bank can auto-pay any company for you.
just like Israel does not strike Palestinians in the West Bank precisely because Palestinians there have learnt that non-violent opposition is a far better starting point for improving your situation.
Have any of the West Bank Palestinian People's demands (serious ones) been met? Nope.
As much as I also despise random terror acts on civilians like indiscriminate rocket attacks, it seems like violent vs non-violent protest is having the exact same outcome in terms of progress towards permanent solutions.
The UK did not resort to carpet shelling Northern Ireland to remove the IRA
The IRA didn't resort to shooting rockets from civilian rooftops though. Blame the civilian deaths on Hamas for their tactics. (Strictly speaking about the military engagement and tactics... not any right/wrong treatment or history leading up to this)
I don't see how Israel could respond better. If a rocket was launched from a rooftop, I think it is justified to surgically bomb that roof. Hamas is intentionally doing that to garner higher casualties, and therefore support. Hamas is lucky the US hasn't ever decided to step in and "help" defend Israel from the rockets.
That said, I totally agree that the settlements (especially the systematic takeover of water sources), treatment of Palestinians (blockades, cutting off supplies like food and concrete, etc..), and the general attitude of Israel toward a peaceful solution has been horrible.
But I don't fault a country for responding to being attacked. And I doubly don't fault the Israeli military for striking at spots that rockets were fired from earlier. Correct me if I'm wrong if that isn't what is happening.
Your example doesn't provide evidence that Israel is fascist.
I suppose you wanted to provide evidence that Israel's policies to Palestinians are suppressive, often illegal, and injust. But that isn't fascism.
For an example of state sponsored injustice (rather than just 1 random act of a soldier), check out the systematic ways in which the Israeli settlers, with the full backing of the government, are taking over water sources.
I was just listening to NPR.. maybe Science Friday, and the 'expert' made the point that we don't know how much water is going into aquifers, and we certainly are not recording how much is being pulled out. At least in California (what the show was about). I suppose other states may have some way to record private well use... but there is no way that I know of to accurately determine how much water is going back into an aquifer.
I know many women who have stopped using trains/subways because of constant harassment from random guys. I have yet to meet a man that stopped using the subway because he was harassed every day by random people.
And even outside the gaming world. I know several women that have stopped using trains/subways because of the constant sexual harassment. I have yet to meet a man that stopped using the subway/train for any type of harassment.
Even if you can make the case that men and women get equal quantities of insults/threats/harassment in a certain environment, for some reason, the insults/threats against women are usually more intense, and always seem to be more personal, to the point that those threats begin to feel actually threatening. Like... "I think this guy might actually do X to me... this is creeping me out".
Oh come on... you have to realize that women deal with unwanted sexual crap orders of magnitude above what men deal with.
As a matter of fact, most women I know say that the vast majority of online insults they receive have some sexual tone to them. The insults are phrased in much more invasive language than most insults that men deal with.
It is actually a fairly low bar. TPB rarely has older and/or obscure stuff. Material with enough seeds to actually get a good download is usually newer, and more 'main stream'. And very often in long TV series' there are episodes missing. Quality control / complete'ness checking is non-existent.
In today's world of cheap storage, I would put the bar way way higher.
Or Netflix may be deciding that the future isn't purchasing as much content, but instead creating their own. Orange is the New Black, etc...
If Neflix isn't dependent on the big studio's for content as much, the big studio's have less bargaining power. And if more and more people are content paying 7-10 dollars a month for Netflix, and stop going to movies, cut cable, etc.. we may find that Netflix, as a distribution channel, becomes way more important to the big studios than the other way around.
Netflix has announced a total of 27.15 million US streaming subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2012, with revenue of $945 million and a surprise profit of $8 million, rather than the loss that was expected.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/ (are those numbers gross or profit?)
Netflix is already a billion+ revenue company. That put's it in the running for top spot over all Studio's right now. If they keep increasing income, I would not be surprised to see them produce a summer blockbuster movie, and skip paying a big studio for the right. Next summer, 2 movies. Next summer, 4 movies, etc..
TV, refrigeration, air conditioning, gaming consoles, and a cheap junker car (although I'd argue most poor people do not have a car) are insignificant amounts of money when compared to food/shelter/medical and the other necessary components of survival.
What is required to barely scrape by in a city, wouldn't work in a frontier cabin. And the reverse holds as well: the person skills, tools, and possessions required to scrape by in a cabin in the woods would not help them survive in a city.
By 1800s standards, we are post-scarcity.
So I disagree with that statement. The environment that people are expected to survive in has changed, but scarcity in the new environment still exists.
But I would agree with your statement if poor people in the US cities could take the modern advances, yet use them in an 1800's environment. In the 1800's you were given free land to settle. And you were free to hunt for as much food as you wanted, year round. And the market for the products you could grow on your land was lucrative (no big commercial farms yet).
So yeah, if the modern poor were given free land, and could get all the deer/fish they wanted for free, could grow crops that returned a good income (or trapped unlimited fur), plus had all the modern bonuses of refrigeration, TV's, cars, etc.. yeah... that would be a pretty sweet life.
Unfortunately, you can't have the best of both time periods.
I don't know about other states, but if your starting point is already one of the highest minimum wages in the country, then tying it to inflation is just a way of making sure it stays high over time.
Every farmer I know is politically conservative. None of them would knowingly hire undocumented workers. The problem is that the workers do indeed have the documentation. They are technically legal as far as the farmer and the e-verify system can tell. They pay taxes, get a W2... even get an income tax refund from the IRS at the end of the year.
The problem isn't employers. It is the entire immigration / identity / tax system in the US is messed up. We really need immigration reform, and an overhaul of how identify and tax information is done in the US.
And that isn't even counting all the odd state things. Like in Minnesota at a point in the past, you could get a State ID with your Mexican birth certificate...
Some illegal immigrants do not even need the green card. Until the late 1990's, Mexican illegal immigrants typically arrived in Minnesota with their birth certificate and Mexican voting card, which could be used to obtain a legal Minnesota state ID.
But getting a Social Security number could be a little more complicated in the old days. Lily, 38, another janitor cleaning a building downtown, knew no one in Minneapolis when she arrived illegally from Guatemala 14 years ago. So when a neighbor said she needed papers, she called the smuggler who brought her across the border at his home in Mexico.
He asked her to make up a nine-digit number, which she did by combining the date she left Guatemala and the date she arrived in the United States two months later. She sent him some photos and $75 and received her fake papers by return mail.
You all know that the vast majority of undocumented/illegal labor in this country is technically legal, right? As in, the worker actually does have enough supporting documentation to get a job. The worker has taxes taken from their check, gets a W2 at the end of the year, the whole works.
I know a ton of farmers, and none of them would knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Most farmer's tend to be on the tea party side of debates to begin with.
If you want stop undocumented / illegal labor, going after employers is the wrong way to do it. Start with something like the failure/success rate of systems like http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify . Look at how easy it is to get a Tax ID number.... get one online right now with a stolen SSN. https://irs-tax-id.com/application/?form=soleproprietor .
Here's an article that talks a lot more about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/business/19illegals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Now, if employers actually had the right tools to check if someone was illegal, then sure, you could crack down on employers. But they don't.
There's a whole show called Mad Men that 'documents' just how twisted advertising was way back when, and before that, say in the 1920's, I recall hearing things like 'snake oil salesmen'.
In a commercial / capitalistic market, advertising has always been an arms race to manipulative the most people into customers.
CNN's in-your-face, your-video-will-play-in-00:25-seconds approach, once unthinkable, has become the norm.
Why unthinkable? Why should free video be so very different from free TV?
Well, TV you don't change the channel, and before the channel is allowed to change, you have to watch a 30 second ad. The implementation of advertising is what is so bad on the internet, not necessarily the advertising itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Renewables (not enough to supply the entire country even using rather optimistic estimates).
Citation needed.
Germany already had a day where all their power came from renewables. We have plenty of renewable power to tap into. The issues revolve more around political will and overcoming entrenched power players than any environmental resource limits or technical limits.
And I think you'd know that if you spent any time at all researching it.
Not treason. But I thought the CIA was forbidden by law to spy domestically. So yeah, very bad felonies.
I would rather see the actual employees and their bosses tossed in jail then some random figurehead that was probably lied to by his own staff. Check out how long CIA heads stay in power. It is about an average of 3 years. They are basically just punching bags that get replaced every so often when something bad comes out.
The real power in the CIA are the long term bosses and employees, that have obviously decided they can do what ever they want. Why would you do otherwise when your figurehead boss will just take the blame and resign "in shame" every few years.
The head of the CIA seems to change pretty often as the political winds shift. I'd rather see the actual CIA employees, and their immediate bosses go to jail, then some random figurehead that will be gone in 2-4 years.
Unless, of course, you can prove that the head of the CIA knew about the domestic spying, which I doubt he did. It seems much more likely to me that a "we can do anything we want" culture has developed inside the CIA, because of lack of strong, long term and consistent leadership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_Central_Intelligence
I always thought that the CIA was legally forbidden from spying on US citizens inside the country. That their area of operation was exclusively external non-us threats. At least that is what countless Hollywood shows tell you.
If that is true, I don't see why those involved shouldn't be charged with crimes.
Not exactly sure why everyone is acting like this is some kind of revelation or anything new, other than its kind of amazing Brennan was foolish enough to admit to it
I think most people and politicians assumed that the CIA ran loose all over the world with little to no real oversight. However, spying inside the US on US citizens is a fricken huge No No. NSA/FBI etc... may have laws allowing them to investigate citizens inside the country, but the CIA cannot.
That the CIA cannot do any local spying has been a theme in countless TV shows. It was one of those things everyone "just knew". CIA=external threats, FBI = internal threats.
I think most firewalls handle that dynamic re-assignment of connections to higher ports automatically. None of the oracle server's I have access to show firewalls open to wide ranges of ports.
Maybe it is a windows firewall issue? (I'm all linux solaris)
Almost every bank has free or low cost bill pay services. So even if your cable company or electric company doesn't offer auto-pay (all of them do I've ever worked with) the bank can auto-pay any company for you.
just like Israel does not strike Palestinians in the West Bank precisely because Palestinians there have learnt that non-violent opposition is a far better starting point for improving your situation.
Have any of the West Bank Palestinian People's demands (serious ones) been met? Nope.
As much as I also despise random terror acts on civilians like indiscriminate rocket attacks, it seems like violent vs non-violent protest is having the exact same outcome in terms of progress towards permanent solutions.
The UK did not resort to carpet shelling Northern Ireland to remove the IRA
The IRA didn't resort to shooting rockets from civilian rooftops though. Blame the civilian deaths on Hamas for their tactics. (Strictly speaking about the military engagement and tactics... not any right/wrong treatment or history leading up to this)
I don't see how Israel could respond better. If a rocket was launched from a rooftop, I think it is justified to surgically bomb that roof. Hamas is intentionally doing that to garner higher casualties, and therefore support. Hamas is lucky the US hasn't ever decided to step in and "help" defend Israel from the rockets.
That said, I totally agree that the settlements (especially the systematic takeover of water sources), treatment of Palestinians (blockades, cutting off supplies like food and concrete, etc..), and the general attitude of Israel toward a peaceful solution has been horrible.
But I don't fault a country for responding to being attacked. And I doubly don't fault the Israeli military for striking at spots that rockets were fired from earlier. Correct me if I'm wrong if that isn't what is happening.
Your example doesn't provide evidence that Israel is fascist.
I suppose you wanted to provide evidence that Israel's policies to Palestinians are suppressive, often illegal, and injust. But that isn't fascism.
For an example of state sponsored injustice (rather than just 1 random act of a soldier), check out the systematic ways in which the Israeli settlers, with the full backing of the government, are taking over water sources.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2329259/water_apartheid_in_palestine_a_crime_against_humanity.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settler_violence#Well_contamination_and_water_access
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwMheIqs_M
sustainable aquifer
I was just listening to NPR.. maybe Science Friday, and the 'expert' made the point that we don't know how much water is going into aquifers, and we certainly are not recording how much is being pulled out. At least in California (what the show was about). I suppose other states may have some way to record private well use... but there is no way that I know of to accurately determine how much water is going back into an aquifer.
I know many women who have stopped using trains/subways because of constant harassment from random guys.
I have yet to meet a man that stopped using the subway because he was harassed every day by random people.
And even outside the gaming world. I know several women that have stopped using trains/subways because of the constant sexual harassment. I have yet to meet a man that stopped using the subway/train for any type of harassment.
Even if you can make the case that men and women get equal quantities of insults/threats/harassment in a certain environment, for some reason, the insults/threats against women are usually more intense, and always seem to be more personal, to the point that those threats begin to feel actually threatening. Like... "I think this guy might actually do X to me... this is creeping me out".
Oh come on... you have to realize that women deal with unwanted sexual crap orders of magnitude above what men deal with.
As a matter of fact, most women I know say that the vast majority of online insults they receive have some sexual tone to them. The insults are phrased in much more invasive language than most insults that men deal with.
It is actually a fairly low bar. TPB rarely has older and/or obscure stuff. Material with enough seeds to actually get a good download is usually newer, and more 'main stream'. And very often in long TV series' there are episodes missing. Quality control / complete'ness checking is non-existent.
In today's world of cheap storage, I would put the bar way way higher.
Or Netflix may be deciding that the future isn't purchasing as much content, but instead creating their own. Orange is the New Black, etc...
If Neflix isn't dependent on the big studio's for content as much, the big studio's have less bargaining power. And if more and more people are content paying 7-10 dollars a month for Netflix, and stop going to movies, cut cable, etc.. we may find that Netflix, as a distribution channel, becomes way more important to the big studios than the other way around.
Netflix has announced a total of 27.15 million US streaming subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2012, with revenue of $945 million and a surprise profit of $8 million, rather than the loss that was expected.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/ (are those numbers gross or profit?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/business/media/growth-of-netflix-subscribers-surpasses-analysts-expectations.html?_r=0
Netflix is already a billion+ revenue company. That put's it in the running for top spot over all Studio's right now. If they keep increasing income, I would not be surprised to see them produce a summer blockbuster movie, and skip paying a big studio for the right. Next summer, 2 movies. Next summer, 4 movies, etc..
TV, refrigeration, air conditioning, gaming consoles, and a cheap junker car (although I'd argue most poor people do not have a car) are insignificant amounts of money when compared to food/shelter/medical and the other necessary components of survival.
What is required to barely scrape by in a city, wouldn't work in a frontier cabin. And the reverse holds as well: the person skills, tools, and possessions required to scrape by in a cabin in the woods would not help them survive in a city.
By 1800s standards, we are post-scarcity.
So I disagree with that statement. The environment that people are expected to survive in has changed, but scarcity in the new environment still exists.
But I would agree with your statement if poor people in the US cities could take the modern advances, yet use them in an 1800's environment. In the 1800's you were given free land to settle. And you were free to hunt for as much food as you wanted, year round. And the market for the products you could grow on your land was lucrative (no big commercial farms yet).
So yeah, if the modern poor were given free land, and could get all the deer/fish they wanted for free, could grow crops that returned a good income (or trapped unlimited fur), plus had all the modern bonuses of refrigeration, TV's, cars, etc.. yeah... that would be a pretty sweet life.
Unfortunately, you can't have the best of both time periods.
I don't know about other states, but if your starting point is already one of the highest minimum wages in the country, then tying it to inflation is just a way of making sure it stays high over time.
http://www.qualityinfo.org/olmisj/ArticleReader?itemid=00007830
So if you want to compare the trend of job growth increasing or decreasing, it looks like raising the minimum wage does hurt significantly.
There is no evidence indicating causation from that correlation though. (or have you found some?)
Every farmer I know is politically conservative. None of them would knowingly hire undocumented workers. The problem is that the workers do indeed have the documentation. They are technically legal as far as the farmer and the e-verify system can tell. They pay taxes, get a W2... even get an income tax refund from the IRS at the end of the year.
The problem isn't employers. It is the entire immigration / identity / tax system in the US is messed up. We really need immigration reform, and an overhaul of how identify and tax information is done in the US.
And that isn't even counting all the odd state things. Like in Minnesota at a point in the past, you could get a State ID with your Mexican birth certificate...
Some illegal immigrants do not even need the green card. Until the late 1990's, Mexican illegal immigrants typically arrived in Minnesota with their birth certificate and Mexican voting card, which could be used to obtain a legal Minnesota state ID.
But getting a Social Security number could be a little more complicated in the old days. Lily, 38, another janitor cleaning a building downtown, knew no one in Minneapolis when she arrived illegally from Guatemala 14 years ago. So when a neighbor said she needed papers, she called the smuggler who brought her across the border at his home in Mexico.
He asked her to make up a nine-digit number, which she did by combining the date she left Guatemala and the date she arrived in the United States two months later. She sent him some photos and $75 and received her fake papers by return mail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/business/19illegals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
You all know that the vast majority of undocumented/illegal labor in this country is technically legal, right? As in, the worker actually does have enough supporting documentation to get a job. The worker has taxes taken from their check, gets a W2 at the end of the year, the whole works.
I know a ton of farmers, and none of them would knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Most farmer's tend to be on the tea party side of debates to begin with.
If you want stop undocumented / illegal labor, going after employers is the wrong way to do it. Start with something like the failure/success rate of systems like http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify . Look at how easy it is to get a Tax ID number.... get one online right now with a stolen SSN. https://irs-tax-id.com/application/?form=soleproprietor .
Here's an article that talks a lot more about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/business/19illegals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Now, if employers actually had the right tools to check if someone was illegal, then sure, you could crack down on employers. But they don't.
For another thing, the TV doesn't display an ad for 30 seconds when I try to change the channel.
The implementation of advertising on the internet is bad. Not the concept of advertising for free content itself.
"hey, try this! It's good"
When was that? Like 1578 AD?
There's a whole show called Mad Men that 'documents' just how twisted advertising was way back when, and before that, say in the 1920's, I recall hearing things like 'snake oil salesmen'.
In a commercial / capitalistic market, advertising has always been an arms race to manipulative the most people into customers.
CNN's in-your-face, your-video-will-play-in-00:25-seconds approach, once unthinkable, has become the norm.
Why unthinkable? Why should free video be so very different from free TV?
Well, TV you don't change the channel, and before the channel is allowed to change, you have to watch a 30 second ad. The implementation of advertising is what is so bad on the internet, not necessarily the advertising itself.