I have taken macro/micro econ as well as environmental science and policy as an undergrad. I am pretty sure I could follow your argument so make it.
So have I. But that doesn't make either one of us experts. I already provided an approximate description of why it is so and that doesn't even take into account the "Kyoto Effect" where many industries would just move to Kyoto-exempt developing countries rather than trying to make their processes cleaner.
The problem with it is that you completely disregard factors such as improved efficiency. When a company is forced to reinvest into cleaner technologies, they do not go out willy-nilly and purchase more expensive versions of the same technologies they are using. They usually purchase more efficient technologies. This creates a demand for such technologies and markets open up to satiate that demand.
I'm sorry, that sounds like more "pie in the sky" wishful thinking. Cleaner technologies are solar power, wind, etc. But you're not going to invest in clear technologies and expect to save money because the new process is more efficient. If that were the case the companies would make those investments anyway on a purely economic basis.
No, the reason why you "need" things like Kyoto is because certain people are trying to force businesses to do things that wouldn't otherwise make economic sense.
Consider what has happened in the "Bubble Policy" where the government made it profitable for business to clean themselves up. It has generated new industries to help businesses become more profitable by becoming cleaner.
Anything the government does comes out of our pockets. Just because government makes it "profitable" with tax incentives doesn't mean there was no cost. The companies see it as a profit because instead of charging the customer the price of the "profit" on the sale of products, the additional profit comes out of the taxes collected by all taxpayers (not just their customers).
You can't get something for nothing. Environmental regulations require investment and workforce dedicated to those regulations. That is money and manpower that is not producing anything productive to the economy. Like I said, you can try to make the argument that it's worth it to "save" our environment. But don't pretend it isn't a cost. It most definitely is a cost that will be a drag on our economy just like any other cost--be it taxes, the cost of petroleum, or the cost of manpower.
It is easy to say "Kyoto treaty will cause lost jobs" but much tougher to prove it.
It's only tough for those that don't understand economics and blindly follow the liberal/environmentalist party line.
If anything, initiatives like the Kyoto treaty will create demand for cleaner technologies and upgrades.
This is the old theory that if we demand cleaner technologies it will not hurt the economy because we'll be spending money to invent and deploy those technologies. That's a short-sighted interpretation.
Let's say you have an energy plant that employs 10,000 people and generates power for 100,000 consumers at a cost of $100B (all made up numbers). Now let's say they are subject to certain environmental restrictions to become "cleaner." They are forced to raise the price of their product to, say, $120B and $20B is being spent on cleaner technology which employs, say, 2,000 people.
So how has the economy been improved? Instead of 10,000 people being employed by $100B of electric bills, 12,000 people and $120B are now required. More people and more money is required to produce the same amount of electricity. And the 2,000 people that were added are not doing something else that could have a useful contribution to the economy. The industry and ecomomy have become less efficient and the 2000 additional people to pull it off may have been able to do something that would have materially helped the economy.
Feel free to say "It's worth it to save the environment" but please don't pretend that implementing environmental regulations will help the economy because that is B.S.
The U.S. failed to ratify Kyoto? Do I see a little bias shining through?
Kyoto is a sham and the U.S. didn't fail to do anything. We succeeded at recognizing an unfair treaty that would not be in our interest to ratify. I salute the Senate that in 1998 (I believe) voted 98-0 to dump it like last week's garbage and also salute President Bush for sticking a dagger in its heart, twisting it, and making sure it was dead.
I am 100% behind electronic voting and I think it can be made secure and very tamper-proof. But it has to be open source, with the code verified by both parties before the election. And there has to be a way to audit the votes without giving up secrecy of individual ballots.
This is only true in nations who are governmnet-phobic. Most of the world views their governments as usefull and capable tools of fostering and growing civilization.
Hahahah. You've been "taken" and returned as a programmed government drone, haven't you?
In all seriousness, in my travels and in my business I have occasion to talk with people from literally all over the world. With the exception of a few countries in Africa I believe I've talked with people from every country on earth.
I've heard absolutely no-one praise their government "as usefull and capable tools of fostering and growing civilization". The best you can find is people grudgingly tolerant of their government; an attitude more akin, "Well, the government hasn't made anything worse this year." But I have yet to find anyone on the planet that excitedly says, "Damn, our country was culturally and economically behind but thanks to the work of the government over the last 10 years we're just living in utopia now."
All fine and good. But if you're only one person you quickly run into the same problem where all your time is spent on support and little or none on new product development. The fact that you offer a support contract might make it such that you aren't completely giving your time away, but there are still only 24 hours in a day and every support hour is one less development hour.
The whining bastards will still be filthy-fucking-rich when the day is over, and the poor will still be stressing out and paying the rich for goods and services. I don't see the rich really losing here..
I'm not surprised. Take your liberal glassess off. Also don't forget that the "poor" are not just stressing out paying the "rich" for goods and services... the rich are also giving them jobs so that they have money to start with.
Or how many poor people do you know that are employing others?
Take your class hatred elsewhere... like the 90's.
From what I've read and the sense I get is that people like Arnold and would vote for him for president if he were permitted to run. But the same people would not approve a constitutional amendment making that possible.
It's not going to happen. Arnold is a likeable guy. But if they change the constitution to permit this it'd be with the specific intent of running Arnold. Who else is on the radar that would benefit from such an amendment? No-one.
Arnold is likeable. But no-one's really going to change the Constitution for him.
Who said anything about hybrids? Use more fuel per km = polute more = pay more tax....It has nothing to do with "measured" gas mileage; that's exactly the point.
The gas tax makes more sense then a measured gas mileage. Polluters are punished by having to buy more gas so efficient vehicles are encouraged. Those who drive their vehicles a lot will have to pay more taxes than they would if they drove less so less road use is encouraged.
Eliminating the gas tax and trying to measure miles will cause people to try to drive less but there is no motivation to pollute less when driving the miles you're going to drive. And there is no incentive to drive a small car that pollutes less and does less damage to the road than a heavy mofu car that gets gallons per mile and weighs as much as a truck.
A large percentage of people I work with just could not afford it, and companies like ours faced with losing employees or handing out raises would simply leave California. This kind of tax change would make the exodus from California go through the roof and in the end probably decrease the total amount of taxes the state collects.
You see? Isn't it just amazingly easy to understand how humans will react to taxes? Yet for some reason liberals think they can just keep piling on tax after tax. To them it's an endless well of money to be taxed, ehr, tapped.
Yes, this should never pass. It will cause people and companies to leave California. It will be seen as a restriction of movement in a very large state where people have no choice but to cover large distances. And pity the poor fool that has to drive from Los Angeles to Bishop (or vice versa) each week.
It really depends on what you sell and what your market is. I'm a lone-coder that has a number of software products for sale as well as services and my own consulting services.
My thoughts:
1. Begware or "donations" has to be a lost cause. I have a hard time believing they'd generate more revenue than generous shareware (generous shareware=virtually fully functional programs, hardly limited).
2. "Generous shareware" is essentially "extra income" for me. There's no way I could live off of it. In addition to extra income, my shareware products are "calling cards" and publicity for my software development capabilities.
3. The additional trick is constantly create new products. Over time more and more people will buy them and once you've got a number of them out there the constant combined income flow is going to start adding up to something worthwhile.
4. My main income comes from consulting services. Some of those are directly related to my products but most are only generally related. Those that hire me often find me having stumbled on my software and realizing that to develop the software I developed that I definitely must have the software development skills they need for a similar project.
5. I have the benefit of being in a niche market. I can't imagine trying to do this as a generic Windows programmer writing VB apps or PHP scripts. Anyone and their dog can do that and many of those are unemployed and willing to work for peanuts at this point. Luckily I'm in a niche embedded market (embedded != Windows or Linux running on a small machine but rather writing the firmware for a microcontroller, etc.) which commands higher consulting rates.
Unfortunately a lot of projects can't be done as one-man projects. Complicated projects eventually demand a high level of support and eventually you'll spend all your time supporting your customers and no time developing which is a quick recipe for downward-spiraling income and future innovation.
I should point out that I've seen your user page, and there is a striking paucity of posts there that have won the respect of this community, so I will not waste much more effort in an attempt to further your understanding. As they say, never wrestle with a pig...
I should say that I could care less. It is common knowledge that Slashdot is heavily populated by left-leaning folks and so my political opinions aren't often appreciated here. I have however long since maxed out my karma and my non-political posts routinely get +5 so it's clear that it's not that people here don't respect me or my posts, it's that liberals tend to not appreciate having their idiocy pointed out. Obviously when I do that here it's not appreciated. Not surprising.
That wasn't hypocrisy...it was irony. I suspected that you might not see the humor in this.
No, I don't see the humor in it. There's nothing funny about rediculing others' beliefs and then pulling some of their beliefs into your posts to try to be cute or funny. But as tolerant as liberals often claim to be they are often the ones that are most disrespectful of others' beliefs. Part of the internal contradiction which is the liberal movement.
You seem to have concluded that because I oppose this particular military action that I am somehow an "anti-war activist" who "doesn't really understand global politics". This sort of limited thinking pervades your posts and is a prime example of the sort of truncated consideration that has led the United States to the debacle in which we now find ourselves enmeshed.
This is a result of unwarranted liberal demonization of what could have been a rational debate. Yes, the U.S. is polarized and I'm a conservative in the liberal lair that is Slashdot and I'll be as aggressive as others are towards me. I'd be happy to continue this debate and try to be cooler-headed if you strive to do the same.
While there are many people in this world who believe that violence is never an acceptable response to any situation, I am not one of those people. What I am is a person who understands that violence is a method of last resort, which once undertaken, must be pursed with a supreme resolve so that violence may be ended in as quickly a manner as possible.
I agree with all of the above.
The power to remove the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of another human being should only be invoked when and if all other means of resolving a life-threatening conflict have proven ineffective, and only to prevent subsequent and imminent loss of life. Neither of these cases were true prior to our invasion of Iraq--and as much as the Administration would like you to think otherwise, the evidence supporting this statement was overwhelming.
I personally would not like to think otherwise. I never felt imminently threatend by Iraq. That said I never felt imminently threatened by 19 Arabs with box cutters in airplanes until 9/11. The reality today is that threats may exist even when they don't seem imminent. I fail to see what the benefit of letting the Saddam issue fester another 10 or 20 years before being forced to engage in the exact same invasion under probably-less-optimum conditions. No good could come of that.
Totally off-topic but since someone decided to bring Bush into this...
My understanding of events that led to the war in Iraq is as follows:
Your sequence isn't too bad except for the implication that #5 wasn't justified, that #6 is a very questionable assumption, and that #7 is a liberal spin of reality.
I'd modify your sequence to end with:
4. Saddam very foolishly continues with his threats.
5. USA retaliates against Afghanistan after Afghanistan refuses to cooperate with demands related to shutting down terrorists camps and turning in Bin Laden. As far as I remember no government and very few citizens of the world thought this was inappropriate.
6. The government pushes hard to address the global terrorist threat based on the rather obvious premise that if terrorists are willing to kill themselves they are not going to be deterred by the U.S. retaliating against a country.
7. The U.S., having awoken on 9/11 to realize that even 19 unarmed passengers can attack the U.S., realizes that the ongoing threats of a country that at one time had WMDs, attacked three of its neighbors, and was still under suspicion of WMD should be taken more seriously. Ultimatums are made and ignored including by the U.N. The U.N. is unwilling to act but the U.S., recently stung by what we didn't even consider a threat, decides to take no chances and deal with the problem.
It seems you have the sequence basically correct but your ultimate conclusions are affected by your political ideology.
The Saudi's are anything but an ally. We need their oil. They try to make as much money off of us as they can without killing the goose.
Who doesn't? That's capitalism and completely normal.
While the Saudi government doesn't officially support terrorists, there are plenty of people within that government and the private sector that do. We know it. They know it. They just chose not to do anything about it. At least not until recently when they started getting hit as well. Then they realized that playing with extremists is a bit like playing with fire.
How much do we really do to stop organizations that may obtain money in the U.S. for their causes at home around the world? I'm not talking about Islamic extremists. I'm talking about Colombian rebels, IRA, etc. How much did we really do prior to 9/11?
I think you'll find that most governments are slow to keep their own citizens from doing things that don't directly hurt that government.
Fine. But those are not the arguments that Bush made when he was trying to sell us on the idea of invading Iraq.
They were reasons that the administration made. They just didn't receive as much press as the WMD issue. That may be the administration's fault or it may be a sensationalist media's fault or a combination of the two. But WMDs was definitely not the only reason given by the administration.
I'm just saying that there was no reason to try to connect it to the War on Terror. He was just using the WoT to gain support for going to war against Iraq. All of his reasons that were tied to terrorism turned out to be BS.
I guess I don't care whether something is under the umbrella of the war on terror or not and I'm not going to get all pissed off at the administration for, at worst, mislabeling the war. We all knew (or should have) what was at stake and all the reasons for it. What you want to call it is rather superficial.
I'm just pointing out that the argument that Iraq's violation of UN resolutions is grounds for invasion is garbage. Selective enforcement is a sign of corruption.
Well then there's corruption at the U.N. because the U.N. itself has the double-standards I already mentioned.
It's something that the elder Bush should have finished when he had the chance too.
Maybe. But he only had a mandate to remove Saddam from Kuwait, not to remove him from power. And the threat of WMDs back then probably was much higher than today so there may have been a very real risk of the invading forces being hit my chemcial weapons. It also wouldn't have been necessary to remove Saddam if he had complied with the resolutions and cease-fire he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War.
Now I'm really not sure, given everything that he knew and/or should have known, whether he's a liar or an idiot, or both.
You look at what he knew and wonder whether he is a liar or an idiot. I look at the information he had and say he didn't want to take any chances. At this point we're literally debating opinion. Short of asking Bush what his line of reasoning was and trusting his answer I don't know how either one of us could prove conclusively that we are right.
I'm beginning to think that it should be a requirement for politicians to have their own children in combat units in order to vote on whether to go to war or not.
Sorry, but that's a load of B.S. It's part of liberal-think that suggests that if you're rich you can't understand the poor much less do what's right for them. If you're white you can't possibily understand discrimination and are in no position to opin as to whether quotas are a good idea or not. And if you haven't been in the military or don't have children serving in combat you are incapable of understanding the seriousness of war.
On that, sir, I must say I disagree with you 100% and think it's just silly. Maybe liberals don't know how to empath
Ah, again with the Rovian tactics. Assert enough times that your opponent has not addressed the question, and people will begin to believe that it is true.
No clue what you're talking about sir. You asserted that the Bush administration stated that Iraq/Saddam was somehow responsible for 9/11. You've provided no quote or citation that backs that up. Until you do you are just more Michael Moore-style liberal noise.
"The exact mechanism for this is unclear, but the scientists believe it may have to do with the disruption of the flow of heat from the equator to the poles."
So they made a computer model and they don't know how it works and why it produces the results that it does. That sure fills me with confidence about their model.
"One unexpected finding to the study is that the hotter temperate zone/cooler Arctic effect exists in the simulations if the wind farms are concentrated in a few spots or scattered across the world."
So they have a computer model that produces the same results regardless of inputs. Yet more indication that their model is broken...
"The mechanism for local temperature changes are the vertical eddies that behemoth windmills ? these monsters can be 30 stories tall and have turbines that spin at 400 kilometres an hour ? would generate."
A turbine spins at 400 kilometers per hour? Huh? Rotation is measured in RPM, not KPH. Unless those turbines are in jet engines I seriously doubt they're moving at more than 0 kph. Anyone's guess as to what a turbine spinning at "400 kph" means.
In short, this sounds like alarmist B.S. Quite frankly it's becoming very clear that while it may have sounded silly in the beginning that it looks entirely obvious that the real agenda of "environmentalists" is economic not environmental.
"Wind power"? Causes global warming.
"Solar power"? Can cause climate change if massively deployed and can harm the local ecosystem.
"Nuclear power"? Enough said.
"Ocean current/tidal power"? Disturbs the coast's ecosystem.
There is no solution that the environmentalists like except reducing consumption of industrialized countries. Their goal is not to cure the environment. Their goal is to redistribute wealth in the world. Every potential new source of energy that they shoot down just makes that more and more clear.
Compared to Clinton, yes. Considering that most of the time the party of the sitting president loses seats and this time around Republicans increased their majority in both the House and the Senate. Considering this was in spite of an unprecendented campaign of hate and propaganda by the left (by the likes of Michael Moore), yes, I'd call it a crushing and resounding defeat.
Presumably you're not going to wait 20 years to migrate your digital photos. Obviously it's very hard to copy your old 8-tracks to CD today because 8-tracks have been dead for decades. It would have been possible had you copied your 8-track to a cassette and then copied the cassette to CD when CD writing became available. If you take similar precautions with evolving media and file formats you'll have no problem viewing your images in 2, 3, or 5 decades (subject to your own personal expiration, of course).
If you have digital pictures that you really only look at once every 2 decades I have a hard time believing it really matters if you won't be able to see them another 2 or 3 times in your entire life.
You know, you almost had a glimmer of understanding there...since you clearly didn't get the reference, my original comment was meant to convey a sense of irony toward Mr. Bush's repeated confession of his "moral convictions". Oddly, you yourself did an even better job of this than I.
Hey, I have no problem recognizing that someone can have a moral conviction about something and be wrong. Perhaps Bush's moral convictions are wrong or perhaps the anti-Bush/anti-war people's convictions are wrong. I would argue that the latter is the case given the balance of facts.
Any sentence that refers to Hussein as a "brutal dictator" should be tempered with the fact that the United States was instrumental in Hussein's rise to and continuance in power.
Irrelevant. You've never had a friend that betrayed you? Actually, I haven't, luckily. But I know it happens. And I do know people change over time. We had no way of knowing that what seemed to be in our best interest in the 70's and 80's would come back to haunt us in the 90's and 2000's.
Yes, we have removed a "brutal dictator" and "eliminated a threat to regional stability", only to replace him with the chaos of an inept occupation and resulting insurgency that has killed over 1,000 US troops and countless Iraqis so far.
As unfortunate as the current situation is we have eliminated a regional threat and made it a local threat that is the result mostly of anarchy and only threatens those that are within its borders. In the context of international stability things are better today.
And as Colonel Thomas Hammes stated earlier today on NPR, an optimistic estimate of our withdrawal from Iraq is ten years from today, and a pessimistic estimate is twenty years. You might want to check into Col. Hammes' credentials.
I truly find that hard to believe even if he has great military credentials. How are his political credentials? How long we have to be there and at what troop levels depends on the success of the elected Iraqi government, interest in developing Iraq from other countries (which given its oil reserves is bound to be high once those opposed to the war get over their hissy fit), and the ongoing success of the overall war on terror.
Woo hoo, millions of people who longer suffer under crippling sanctions can now suffer under the fear of their very lives thanks to the United States of America.
Oh, you think they didn't suffer under that fear with Saddam in power?:)
Benefit? What benefit? For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
So now you, who were quick to renounce any need for spiritual guidance in determining right/wrong, is invoking Christian passages? I know consistency isn't necessarily your strong point but come on, that's just folly.
Is the United States safer because we invaded Iraq, a country which never directly harmed the United States, instead of hunting down the people who actually did attack us?
Iraq fired on American patrol craft enforcing the U.N. no-fly zone almost daily. And Saddam's rhetoric left no question that we were considered the enemy. Being considered the enemy of a rogue leader that has attacked three of his neighbors and killed hundreds of thousands and not being cooperative with U.N.-authorized inspections to verify that he wasn't developing WMDs is good enough reason to me to take action. This idea that we have to wait until someone we know hates us actually gets the means to attack us is rediculous.
The implication that our actions in Iraq are instead of chasing the ones that attacked us is also unfounded.
Is it a benefit that we have lost the respect of nearly the entire world?
Do I care? Did we really ever have their respect? They tolerated us. And after 9/11 they "felt" for us. That's about it.
Me: Better they flock to Iraq then flock to the U.S.
You: That's one way to look at it, but you implied that Iraq was a hotbed of terrorist activity, which is complete BS.
Well it is now. I didn't mean to imply it was a hotbed of terrorist activity. I did imply it was in a geographically central location in the terrorist-producing world which is probably why it's so full of them now. Luckily it's easier for the terrorists to get to Iraq than to the U.S.
Again, Saudi Arabia would have been a much more logical target if you're trying to stamp out terrorism.
Saudi Arabia is very different than Iraq was. Saudi's government was not hostile to the United States. It's the closest thing we have to a major ally in the area, not to mention its oil production (no, I won't pretend that's not a factor... it's been a factor for every administration in recent memory). Plus invading what the Muslim's consider their holy land would certainly be far more chaotic than even Iraq.
So the best argument they have is that Saddam is still a threat to Kuwait? That's why we invaded? You guys are REALLY grasping at straws, aren't you? You combine several bullshit reasons and call it a strong legal basis for invading another country. Unbelievable.
The legal basis is there. They violated the terms of the cease-fire and multiple U.N. resolutions regarding arms inspectors. They fired almost daily on aircraft patrolling the U.N.-authorized no-fly zone: That's an act of war right there. And it's not that Iraq was an imminent threat against Kuwait, it's that Saddam had proven himself to be an ongoing destabilizing player in the region. Of Iraq's 5 neighbors, Saddam had attacked 2 and lobbed SCUDs over a third to try to provoke Israel.
Who has Saudi Arabia attacked lately?
Well, you said that Iraq's violations of UN resolutions was grounds for invasion. I'm simply saying that the US has violating quite a few as well. And if you want an even better example, Israel has violated more UN resolutions than anyone, yet we aren't invading them. So your argument was completely bogus.
Hmm, you seem to be applying a black and white test to reality--something liberals often accuse conservatives of.:) Please understand that world politics is not black and white and not consistent. I already provided examples of that (somewhere in this thread, maybe not discussing it with you)... Why are some countries allowed to have nukes but others prohibitted by the non-proliferation treaty? Why can some countries have nuclear power and others can't? Why are some countries supposed to be bound by Kyoto while others get a free pass even though they'll probably be the most significant polluters in 50 years?
I understand that there are double-standards in the world. That's reality. Don't try to blame that on Bush.
Yep, because it's what he wanted to do.
It's something that Clinton should have done in 1998 if he had any balls. It was a pending issue and it was time to finish the game.
He didn't tell us about the fact that there was other evidence that didn't support his position, or that there was a lot of disagreement about the evidence he was presenting. He made it seem like it was an open and shut case. No doubts at all.
That's not a politician's job. Every politician is going to make the case for what he thinks is the best course of action. It is the responsibility of the opposition and the press to question the case that is made. A leader leads by instilling confidence, not by creating doubt. There is doubt in everything but no leader is ever going to get anything done if he publically questions his own decisions before he even makes them. Please...
Me: So we should attack every country from which people who commit crimes against the U.S. come? Should we attack Mexico because dozens of Mexicans have killed dozens of Ameri
Slashdot Mirror
So have I. But that doesn't make either one of us experts. I already provided an approximate description of why it is so and that doesn't even take into account the "Kyoto Effect" where many industries would just move to Kyoto-exempt developing countries rather than trying to make their processes cleaner.
The problem with it is that you completely disregard factors such as improved efficiency. When a company is forced to reinvest into cleaner technologies, they do not go out willy-nilly and purchase more expensive versions of the same technologies they are using. They usually purchase more efficient technologies. This creates a demand for such technologies and markets open up to satiate that demand.
I'm sorry, that sounds like more "pie in the sky" wishful thinking. Cleaner technologies are solar power, wind, etc. But you're not going to invest in clear technologies and expect to save money because the new process is more efficient. If that were the case the companies would make those investments anyway on a purely economic basis.
No, the reason why you "need" things like Kyoto is because certain people are trying to force businesses to do things that wouldn't otherwise make economic sense.
Consider what has happened in the "Bubble Policy" where the government made it profitable for business to clean themselves up. It has generated new industries to help businesses become more profitable by becoming cleaner.
Anything the government does comes out of our pockets. Just because government makes it "profitable" with tax incentives doesn't mean there was no cost. The companies see it as a profit because instead of charging the customer the price of the "profit" on the sale of products, the additional profit comes out of the taxes collected by all taxpayers (not just their customers).
You can't get something for nothing. Environmental regulations require investment and workforce dedicated to those regulations. That is money and manpower that is not producing anything productive to the economy. Like I said, you can try to make the argument that it's worth it to "save" our environment. But don't pretend it isn't a cost. It most definitely is a cost that will be a drag on our economy just like any other cost--be it taxes, the cost of petroleum, or the cost of manpower.
It's only tough for those that don't understand economics and blindly follow the liberal/environmentalist party line.
If anything, initiatives like the Kyoto treaty will create demand for cleaner technologies and upgrades.
This is the old theory that if we demand cleaner technologies it will not hurt the economy because we'll be spending money to invent and deploy those technologies. That's a short-sighted interpretation.
Let's say you have an energy plant that employs 10,000 people and generates power for 100,000 consumers at a cost of $100B (all made up numbers). Now let's say they are subject to certain environmental restrictions to become "cleaner." They are forced to raise the price of their product to, say, $120B and $20B is being spent on cleaner technology which employs, say, 2,000 people.
So how has the economy been improved? Instead of 10,000 people being employed by $100B of electric bills, 12,000 people and $120B are now required. More people and more money is required to produce the same amount of electricity. And the 2,000 people that were added are not doing something else that could have a useful contribution to the economy. The industry and ecomomy have become less efficient and the 2000 additional people to pull it off may have been able to do something that would have materially helped the economy.
Feel free to say "It's worth it to save the environment" but please don't pretend that implementing environmental regulations will help the economy because that is B.S.
Kyoto is a sham and the U.S. didn't fail to do anything. We succeeded at recognizing an unfair treaty that would not be in our interest to ratify. I salute the Senate that in 1998 (I believe) voted 98-0 to dump it like last week's garbage and also salute President Bush for sticking a dagger in its heart, twisting it, and making sure it was dead.
Hahahah. You've been "taken" and returned as a programmed government drone, haven't you?
In all seriousness, in my travels and in my business I have occasion to talk with people from literally all over the world. With the exception of a few countries in Africa I believe I've talked with people from every country on earth.
I've heard absolutely no-one praise their government "as usefull and capable tools of fostering and growing civilization". The best you can find is people grudgingly tolerant of their government; an attitude more akin, "Well, the government hasn't made anything worse this year." But I have yet to find anyone on the planet that excitedly says, "Damn, our country was culturally and economically behind but thanks to the work of the government over the last 10 years we're just living in utopia now."
I'm not surprised. Take your liberal glassess off. Also don't forget that the "poor" are not just stressing out paying the "rich" for goods and services... the rich are also giving them jobs so that they have money to start with.
Or how many poor people do you know that are employing others?
Take your class hatred elsewhere... like the 90's.
They already do, pretty much. The amazing thing is that you apparently believe otherwise.
It's not going to happen. Arnold is a likeable guy. But if they change the constitution to permit this it'd be with the specific intent of running Arnold. Who else is on the radar that would benefit from such an amendment? No-one.
Arnold is likeable. But no-one's really going to change the Constitution for him.
Which, ironically, is most of California.
The gas tax makes more sense then a measured gas mileage. Polluters are punished by having to buy more gas so efficient vehicles are encouraged. Those who drive their vehicles a lot will have to pay more taxes than they would if they drove less so less road use is encouraged.
Eliminating the gas tax and trying to measure miles will cause people to try to drive less but there is no motivation to pollute less when driving the miles you're going to drive. And there is no incentive to drive a small car that pollutes less and does less damage to the road than a heavy mofu car that gets gallons per mile and weighs as much as a truck.
Personally I'd like to see $5/ride mass transit and free gas.
You see? Isn't it just amazingly easy to understand how humans will react to taxes? Yet for some reason liberals think they can just keep piling on tax after tax. To them it's an endless well of money to be taxed, ehr, tapped.
Yes, this should never pass. It will cause people and companies to leave California. It will be seen as a restriction of movement in a very large state where people have no choice but to cover large distances. And pity the poor fool that has to drive from Los Angeles to Bishop (or vice versa) each week.
My thoughts:
1. Begware or "donations" has to be a lost cause. I have a hard time believing they'd generate more revenue than generous shareware (generous shareware=virtually fully functional programs, hardly limited).
2. "Generous shareware" is essentially "extra income" for me. There's no way I could live off of it. In addition to extra income, my shareware products are "calling cards" and publicity for my software development capabilities.
3. The additional trick is constantly create new products. Over time more and more people will buy them and once you've got a number of them out there the constant combined income flow is going to start adding up to something worthwhile.
4. My main income comes from consulting services. Some of those are directly related to my products but most are only generally related. Those that hire me often find me having stumbled on my software and realizing that to develop the software I developed that I definitely must have the software development skills they need for a similar project.
5. I have the benefit of being in a niche market. I can't imagine trying to do this as a generic Windows programmer writing VB apps or PHP scripts. Anyone and their dog can do that and many of those are unemployed and willing to work for peanuts at this point. Luckily I'm in a niche embedded market (embedded != Windows or Linux running on a small machine but rather writing the firmware for a microcontroller, etc.) which commands higher consulting rates.
Unfortunately a lot of projects can't be done as one-man projects. Complicated projects eventually demand a high level of support and eventually you'll spend all your time supporting your customers and no time developing which is a quick recipe for downward-spiraling income and future innovation.
I should say that I could care less. It is common knowledge that Slashdot is heavily populated by left-leaning folks and so my political opinions aren't often appreciated here. I have however long since maxed out my karma and my non-political posts routinely get +5 so it's clear that it's not that people here don't respect me or my posts, it's that liberals tend to not appreciate having their idiocy pointed out. Obviously when I do that here it's not appreciated. Not surprising.
That wasn't hypocrisy...it was irony. I suspected that you might not see the humor in this.
No, I don't see the humor in it. There's nothing funny about rediculing others' beliefs and then pulling some of their beliefs into your posts to try to be cute or funny. But as tolerant as liberals often claim to be they are often the ones that are most disrespectful of others' beliefs. Part of the internal contradiction which is the liberal movement.
You seem to have concluded that because I oppose this particular military action that I am somehow an "anti-war activist" who "doesn't really understand global politics". This sort of limited thinking pervades your posts and is a prime example of the sort of truncated consideration that has led the United States to the debacle in which we now find ourselves enmeshed.
This is a result of unwarranted liberal demonization of what could have been a rational debate. Yes, the U.S. is polarized and I'm a conservative in the liberal lair that is Slashdot and I'll be as aggressive as others are towards me. I'd be happy to continue this debate and try to be cooler-headed if you strive to do the same.
While there are many people in this world who believe that violence is never an acceptable response to any situation, I am not one of those people. What I am is a person who understands that violence is a method of last resort, which once undertaken, must be pursed with a supreme resolve so that violence may be ended in as quickly a manner as possible.
I agree with all of the above.
The power to remove the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of another human being should only be invoked when and if all other means of resolving a life-threatening conflict have proven ineffective, and only to prevent subsequent and imminent loss of life. Neither of these cases were true prior to our invasion of Iraq--and as much as the Administration would like you to think otherwise, the evidence supporting this statement was overwhelming.
I personally would not like to think otherwise. I never felt imminently threatend by Iraq. That said I never felt imminently threatened by 19 Arabs with box cutters in airplanes until 9/11. The reality today is that threats may exist even when they don't seem imminent. I fail to see what the benefit of letting the Saddam issue fester another 10 or 20 years before being forced to engage in the exact same invasion under probably-less-optimum conditions. No good could come of that.
My understanding of events that led to the war in Iraq is as follows:
Your sequence isn't too bad except for the implication that #5 wasn't justified, that #6 is a very questionable assumption, and that #7 is a liberal spin of reality.
I'd modify your sequence to end with:
4. Saddam very foolishly continues with his threats.
5. USA retaliates against Afghanistan after Afghanistan refuses to cooperate with demands related to shutting down terrorists camps and turning in Bin Laden. As far as I remember no government and very few citizens of the world thought this was inappropriate.
6. The government pushes hard to address the global terrorist threat based on the rather obvious premise that if terrorists are willing to kill themselves they are not going to be deterred by the U.S. retaliating against a country.
7. The U.S., having awoken on 9/11 to realize that even 19 unarmed passengers can attack the U.S., realizes that the ongoing threats of a country that at one time had WMDs, attacked three of its neighbors, and was still under suspicion of WMD should be taken more seriously. Ultimatums are made and ignored including by the U.N. The U.N. is unwilling to act but the U.S., recently stung by what we didn't even consider a threat, decides to take no chances and deal with the problem.
It seems you have the sequence basically correct but your ultimate conclusions are affected by your political ideology.
Who doesn't? That's capitalism and completely normal.
While the Saudi government doesn't officially support terrorists, there are plenty of people within that government and the private sector that do. We know it. They know it. They just chose not to do anything about it. At least not until recently when they started getting hit as well. Then they realized that playing with extremists is a bit like playing with fire.
How much do we really do to stop organizations that may obtain money in the U.S. for their causes at home around the world? I'm not talking about Islamic extremists. I'm talking about Colombian rebels, IRA, etc. How much did we really do prior to 9/11?
I think you'll find that most governments are slow to keep their own citizens from doing things that don't directly hurt that government.
Fine. But those are not the arguments that Bush made when he was trying to sell us on the idea of invading Iraq.
They were reasons that the administration made. They just didn't receive as much press as the WMD issue. That may be the administration's fault or it may be a sensationalist media's fault or a combination of the two. But WMDs was definitely not the only reason given by the administration.
I'm just saying that there was no reason to try to connect it to the War on Terror. He was just using the WoT to gain support for going to war against Iraq. All of his reasons that were tied to terrorism turned out to be BS.
I guess I don't care whether something is under the umbrella of the war on terror or not and I'm not going to get all pissed off at the administration for, at worst, mislabeling the war. We all knew (or should have) what was at stake and all the reasons for it. What you want to call it is rather superficial.
I'm just pointing out that the argument that Iraq's violation of UN resolutions is grounds for invasion is garbage. Selective enforcement is a sign of corruption.
Well then there's corruption at the U.N. because the U.N. itself has the double-standards I already mentioned.
It's something that the elder Bush should have finished when he had the chance too.
Maybe. But he only had a mandate to remove Saddam from Kuwait, not to remove him from power. And the threat of WMDs back then probably was much higher than today so there may have been a very real risk of the invading forces being hit my chemcial weapons. It also wouldn't have been necessary to remove Saddam if he had complied with the resolutions and cease-fire he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War.
Now I'm really not sure, given everything that he knew and/or should have known, whether he's a liar or an idiot, or both.
You look at what he knew and wonder whether he is a liar or an idiot. I look at the information he had and say he didn't want to take any chances. At this point we're literally debating opinion. Short of asking Bush what his line of reasoning was and trusting his answer I don't know how either one of us could prove conclusively that we are right.
I'm beginning to think that it should be a requirement for politicians to have their own children in combat units in order to vote on whether to go to war or not.
Sorry, but that's a load of B.S. It's part of liberal-think that suggests that if you're rich you can't understand the poor much less do what's right for them. If you're white you can't possibily understand discrimination and are in no position to opin as to whether quotas are a good idea or not. And if you haven't been in the military or don't have children serving in combat you are incapable of understanding the seriousness of war.
On that, sir, I must say I disagree with you 100% and think it's just silly. Maybe liberals don't know how to empath
No clue what you're talking about sir. You asserted that the Bush administration stated that Iraq/Saddam was somehow responsible for 9/11. You've provided no quote or citation that backs that up. Until you do you are just more Michael Moore-style liberal noise.
From the study:
"The exact mechanism for this is unclear, but the scientists believe it may have to do with the disruption of the flow of heat from the equator to the poles."
So they made a computer model and they don't know how it works and why it produces the results that it does. That sure fills me with confidence about their model.
"One unexpected finding to the study is that the hotter temperate zone/cooler Arctic effect exists in the simulations if the wind farms are concentrated in a few spots or scattered across the world."
So they have a computer model that produces the same results regardless of inputs. Yet more indication that their model is broken...
"The mechanism for local temperature changes are the vertical eddies that behemoth windmills ? these monsters can be 30 stories tall and have turbines that spin at 400 kilometres an hour ? would generate."
A turbine spins at 400 kilometers per hour? Huh? Rotation is measured in RPM, not KPH. Unless those turbines are in jet engines I seriously doubt they're moving at more than 0 kph. Anyone's guess as to what a turbine spinning at "400 kph" means.
In short, this sounds like alarmist B.S. Quite frankly it's becoming very clear that while it may have sounded silly in the beginning that it looks entirely obvious that the real agenda of "environmentalists" is economic not environmental.
"Wind power"? Causes global warming.
"Solar power"? Can cause climate change if massively deployed and can harm the local ecosystem.
"Nuclear power"? Enough said.
"Ocean current/tidal power"? Disturbs the coast's ecosystem.
There is no solution that the environmentalists like except reducing consumption of industrialized countries. Their goal is not to cure the environment. Their goal is to redistribute wealth in the world. Every potential new source of energy that they shoot down just makes that more and more clear.
Compared to Clinton, yes. Considering that most of the time the party of the sitting president loses seats and this time around Republicans increased their majority in both the House and the Senate. Considering this was in spite of an unprecendented campaign of hate and propaganda by the left (by the likes of Michael Moore), yes, I'd call it a crushing and resounding defeat.
If you have digital pictures that you really only look at once every 2 decades I have a hard time believing it really matters if you won't be able to see them another 2 or 3 times in your entire life.
Hey, I have no problem recognizing that someone can have a moral conviction about something and be wrong. Perhaps Bush's moral convictions are wrong or perhaps the anti-Bush/anti-war people's convictions are wrong. I would argue that the latter is the case given the balance of facts.
Any sentence that refers to Hussein as a "brutal dictator" should be tempered with the fact that the United States was instrumental in Hussein's rise to and continuance in power.
Irrelevant. You've never had a friend that betrayed you? Actually, I haven't, luckily. But I know it happens. And I do know people change over time. We had no way of knowing that what seemed to be in our best interest in the 70's and 80's would come back to haunt us in the 90's and 2000's.
Yes, we have removed a "brutal dictator" and "eliminated a threat to regional stability", only to replace him with the chaos of an inept occupation and resulting insurgency that has killed over 1,000 US troops and countless Iraqis so far.
As unfortunate as the current situation is we have eliminated a regional threat and made it a local threat that is the result mostly of anarchy and only threatens those that are within its borders. In the context of international stability things are better today.
And as Colonel Thomas Hammes stated earlier today on NPR, an optimistic estimate of our withdrawal from Iraq is ten years from today, and a pessimistic estimate is twenty years. You might want to check into Col. Hammes' credentials.
I truly find that hard to believe even if he has great military credentials. How are his political credentials? How long we have to be there and at what troop levels depends on the success of the elected Iraqi government, interest in developing Iraq from other countries (which given its oil reserves is bound to be high once those opposed to the war get over their hissy fit), and the ongoing success of the overall war on terror.
Woo hoo, millions of people who longer suffer under crippling sanctions can now suffer under the fear of their very lives thanks to the United States of America.
Oh, you think they didn't suffer under that fear with Saddam in power? :)
Benefit? What benefit? For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
So now you, who were quick to renounce any need for spiritual guidance in determining right/wrong, is invoking Christian passages? I know consistency isn't necessarily your strong point but come on, that's just folly.
Is the United States safer because we invaded Iraq, a country which never directly harmed the United States, instead of hunting down the people who actually did attack us?
Iraq fired on American patrol craft enforcing the U.N. no-fly zone almost daily. And Saddam's rhetoric left no question that we were considered the enemy. Being considered the enemy of a rogue leader that has attacked three of his neighbors and killed hundreds of thousands and not being cooperative with U.N.-authorized inspections to verify that he wasn't developing WMDs is good enough reason to me to take action. This idea that we have to wait until someone we know hates us actually gets the means to attack us is rediculous.
The implication that our actions in Iraq are instead of chasing the ones that attacked us is also unfounded.
Is it a benefit that we have lost the respect of nearly the entire world?
Do I care? Did we really ever have their respect? They tolerated us. And after 9/11 they "felt" for us. That's about it.
Oh, wait..I forgot Poland again.
You: That's one way to look at it, but you implied that Iraq was a hotbed of terrorist activity, which is complete BS.
Well it is now. I didn't mean to imply it was a hotbed of terrorist activity. I did imply it was in a geographically central location in the terrorist-producing world which is probably why it's so full of them now. Luckily it's easier for the terrorists to get to Iraq than to the U.S.
Again, Saudi Arabia would have been a much more logical target if you're trying to stamp out terrorism.
Saudi Arabia is very different than Iraq was. Saudi's government was not hostile to the United States. It's the closest thing we have to a major ally in the area, not to mention its oil production (no, I won't pretend that's not a factor... it's been a factor for every administration in recent memory). Plus invading what the Muslim's consider their holy land would certainly be far more chaotic than even Iraq.
So the best argument they have is that Saddam is still a threat to Kuwait? That's why we invaded? You guys are REALLY grasping at straws, aren't you? You combine several bullshit reasons and call it a strong legal basis for invading another country. Unbelievable.
The legal basis is there. They violated the terms of the cease-fire and multiple U.N. resolutions regarding arms inspectors. They fired almost daily on aircraft patrolling the U.N.-authorized no-fly zone: That's an act of war right there. And it's not that Iraq was an imminent threat against Kuwait, it's that Saddam had proven himself to be an ongoing destabilizing player in the region. Of Iraq's 5 neighbors, Saddam had attacked 2 and lobbed SCUDs over a third to try to provoke Israel.
Who has Saudi Arabia attacked lately?
Well, you said that Iraq's violations of UN resolutions was grounds for invasion. I'm simply saying that the US has violating quite a few as well. And if you want an even better example, Israel has violated more UN resolutions than anyone, yet we aren't invading them. So your argument was completely bogus.
Hmm, you seem to be applying a black and white test to reality--something liberals often accuse conservatives of. :) Please understand that world politics is not black and white and not consistent. I already provided examples of that (somewhere in this thread, maybe not discussing it with you)... Why are some countries allowed to have nukes but others prohibitted by the non-proliferation treaty? Why can some countries have nuclear power and others can't? Why are some countries supposed to be bound by Kyoto while others get a free pass even though they'll probably be the most significant polluters in 50 years?
I understand that there are double-standards in the world. That's reality. Don't try to blame that on Bush.
Yep, because it's what he wanted to do.
It's something that Clinton should have done in 1998 if he had any balls. It was a pending issue and it was time to finish the game.
He didn't tell us about the fact that there was other evidence that didn't support his position, or that there was a lot of disagreement about the evidence he was presenting. He made it seem like it was an open and shut case. No doubts at all.
That's not a politician's job. Every politician is going to make the case for what he thinks is the best course of action. It is the responsibility of the opposition and the press to question the case that is made. A leader leads by instilling confidence, not by creating doubt. There is doubt in everything but no leader is ever going to get anything done if he publically questions his own decisions before he even makes them. Please...
Me: So we should attack every country from which people who commit crimes against the U.S. come? Should we attack Mexico because dozens of Mexicans have killed dozens of Ameri