Well, the first thing I'd point out is that "Crime rates... have been falling since." is *also* true for those barbaric Americans that "beat their children". Gun ownership and prison populations not so much. And FWIW in populations in the US that are comparable to the nearly-homogeneous Scandinavian countries crime rates are pretty much the same.
It's funny, because my reaction to the story (before I read the comments) was that they should just give them the death penalty. This isn't "revenge" - it's utilitarianism. The electronic systems that carry our wealth today are nearly as vital to the modern economy as oxygen; someone attacking that for personal gain has displayed an unacceptable willingness to harm millions of others for their own benefit.
I *don't* believe that every person is a precious snowflake that needs to be protected and preserved. Humans (including myself, by the way) are little more than clever farm animals - generally pretty useful, and can/should be generally left on their own. However, when one of those animals behaves in a way that is deliberately and directly harmful to all of the others, they should just be eradicated as simply and without question as an unplanned pregnancy. Simple as that.
And yes, I believe that I was spanked as a child perhaps once or twice. And yes, I have a concealed-carry permit on principle, although I've never owned a gun as I don't see the value exceeds the absolute increase in danger. (to add a little more correlation for you)
Because your original argument is stupid, that's why.
You say: "First of all: there are no cycles." Then: "Ecept for three things: earth orbit, yielding summer and winter; periodic changes in the orbit on a scale of 24,000 years; fluctuations of the sun, various also overlapping cycles"
So, in fact, you contradict yourself: there ARE cycles.
And your 3 "undeniable" bases for this argument are likewise idiotic: 1) "CO2 is a green house gas" Yes, but not the strongest. The MOST impactful greenhouse gas is water vapor. So while we're arguing about the human impact - 1/4 of 0.4% of the earth's atmosphere - you cheerfully ignore the most ubiquitous substance in the mix.
2) "CO2 levels are increasing rapidly": Yes, they are, so? Whether CO2 is a lead-indicator of warming or a lag-indicator isn't even conclusively proven. By your logic, huge amounts of smoke cause fires? Wet beaches cause the tide to come in? Balding is a primary cause of aging in men?
3) "CO2 is 99% produced by burning fossile fuels, which mankind is doing " - actually, NATURAL sources produce 780 gigatons of CO2 every year. Humans about 30 gigatons. 30/780 isn't "99%" by any math I know.
In short, people are responding to you because you are simply wrong.
"....The barchan will probably continue on its journey past the city site, which in due course will re-emerge from the sand, but it is anticipated that it will not remain unscathed...."
"Last year, after a Utah man's home was raided for having 16 small marijuana plants, nearly 300 bullets in total were fired (most of them by the police) in the ensuing gunfight, the homeowner believing he was a victim of a home invasion by criminals. The U.S. military veteran later hanged himself in his jail cell while the prosecution sought the death sentence for the murder of one officer he believed to be an criminal assailant."
So, a dealer or heavy pot user (16 plants...I don't think the law cares about whether they were "small") believes his home is being broken into. He used deadly force to protect his pot plants. Turns out he killed a cop. Honestly, I'm sorry to hear he was a veteran, but that doesn't exonerate him from a few catastrophically bad decisions, something he finally figured out.
My guess is that we're going to find nanoparticles a VERY common part of our environment, and that just about any process that grinds or sprays is going to generate nanoparticles.
Fortunately, considering that bacteria and viruses are ALSO nanoparticles, our bodies have evolved amazing defenses against them.
Well, I'd say that the BIGGEST problem is that people are starving by the millions when there is in fact plenty of food for them all - it just fails distribution because of governments/politics, etc.
That ended when politicians recognized that building a giant nanny state would require more and more federal control, and about half the US demographic agrees that's the goal of federal government.
Madison nailed it: "It has been said, by way of objection to a bill of rights....that in the Federal Government they are unnecessary, because the powers are enumerated, and it follows, that all that are not granted by the constitution are retained; that the constitution is a bill of powers, the great residuum being the rights of the people; and, therefore, a bill of rights cannot be so necessary as if the residuum was thrown into the hands of the Government. I admit that these arguments are not entirely without foundation, but they are not as conclusive to the extent it has been proposed. It is true the powers of the general government are circumscribed; they are directed to particular objects; but even if government keeps within those limits, it has certain discretionary powers with respect to the means, which may admit of abuse. "
$630k is like pop-machine change in government terms.
$80,000 writing the proposal for funding $170,000 for 17 interns to edit it $60,000 for 3 admins to bang the interns during "late night editing sessions" $3000 for abortions $200,000 the inevitable hush-money to the interns $310,000 for the multimedia presentation of the project to admins.
No, it doesn't add up to $630k. This is GOVERNMENT. Having the numbers match up costs extra.
When a cop says "this is reliable enough to trust my life to it" - then I might consider it.
If I am reaching for my gun, it's already the very, very, very last resort. It may in fact be already too late.
I want it to work when I use it, as close to 100% of the time as humanly possible to manufacture.
Any layer of delay, any layer of doubt, any additional point of failure between me and the function of that tool I've reached for may cost me or a loved on their life.
I've found that people today are generally very dismissive of early cultures, as if 'primitive' was synonymous with stupid.
Personally, in terms of raw horsepower (and conceding that these early people would likely have much more broadly suffered early childhood illnesses, malnutrition, and such that would generally impair higher functions) I suspect early peoples were generally much MORE intelligent than we are today.
Of course, it could be that they weren't so constantly distracted. I'd think about this more, but I think someone just texted me.
"...The report reveals on page 130 that Mapes, one of those fired because of the scandal, had documented information in her possession before the controversial September 8 broadcast that George W. Bush, while in the Texas Air National Guard, âoedid volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots.â..."
Whups. What were you saying again about him not volunteering? He flew interceptors in the Guard. He volunteered, but the military said "you know what, we don't need high-altitude interceptor pilots in Vietnam".
Bush Sr was a Navy pilot in WWII. Bush Jr was a pilot in the Texas National Guard, later the Alabama National Guard.* *Personally, I think it was pretty clear that he joined the Guard not the Air Force to avoid service in Vietnam if he could, but still 'accomplish' being a military pilot (either for his father, his family, or for future political plans). I suspect that if you surveyed the scions of wealthy families in that era, a LOT of them took that route. Not that that exonerates him, but there were also a lot of people who didn't even bother doing that much service, then OR today...
NEVERTHELESS, flying the F102 was, as I said, not a trivial task - it was neither easy nor particularly safe.
"Laughing about people isn't the same as killing them."
Of course it isn't. Those who claim 'words hurt' are insufficiently familiar with sticks and stones.
But it's hard not to catch the faint whiff of Inquisitorial flames when I see a story whose point is essentially: "Look, these guys have faintly shown a tendency to support someone who we wall agree is pure evil since he denies our dogma!"
And dogma it is. There are serious questions about AGW as a causal theory (which is as it should be - SCIENCE is about doubt, testing, and either confirmation or reformulation; DOGMA is about asserting "this" is right, and none shall question), and as convenient and comfortable as it may be to the Faithful to marginalize anyone doubting as a shill for Big Oil or a Crazy, that doesn't ipso facto make it true.
Look, for example, at Patrick Moore; if you don't hear the tenor of 'APOSTATE!' when Greens talk about him, you aren't listening.
1) As I recall skimming in an article, in one city (SFO?) the taxi-drivers unions and lobbyists are fighting this tech tooth and nail. Given our predilection today for legalistically protecting the rights of the 'buggy whip makers' (as long as they donate consistently to the right legal campaigns) I'm not sure that there isn't going to be some Byzantine bizarre legal moratorium placed on such apps.
2) humans are still not "safe". I can quite easily conceive of a system like this being spoofed in order for a predator to defer the arranged pickup, and show up instead to offer a ride to that lovely 19 year old coed that 'just needs a lift down to school this morning' - her brutally-raped and murdered body washing up in some meltwater creek months later. There's a reason we still tell our children to watch out for strangers, and if adults think they're somehow inherently safer at maturity, they're sadly mistaken.
I always love when some random internet wanker posting from his mom's basement posits that a man that: a) flew fighter jets for the National Guard (deprecate it all you like, make smarmy comments about his attendance, whatever - nobody doubts that he flew and qualified in fighter jets, which was neither easy nor particularly safe) b) Graduated Yale, and earned an MBA from Harvard (it's particularly noteworthy that he's the only president ever with an MBA...if he was a Democrat, that would be widely known) c) won an election as Governor of TX over a popular opponent (Ann Richards) d) won election to the Presidency of the United States. Won RE-ELECTION (by an even larger margin)....is an idiot.
This man has actually accomplished a great deal in his life. Maybe he IS an idiot, but doesn't that make his accomplishments all that more impressive. Particularly compared to you - what have you done? (I mean, aside from generating snarky comments nearly-anonymously on an internet message board? I mean, of course that's pretty impressive alone...)
Of course, there's practically a Leftist industry of shat-smearing on Republicans (as opposed to Democrats that make 'journalists' legs tingle), so you can't really be blamed. The script has always been "Democrats brilliant, Republicans stoopid" so, if you cheerfully swallow when someone tells you to, that's the impression you're going to have.
But the sort of self-aggrandizing narcissist fantasyland you exist in to deprecate this man's accomplishments must be...impressive.
1) EVERYONE thinks they need to go to University. It doesn't matter if you barely struggled your way through high school - mom and dad (and you, likely) expect that you *will* get a college degree.
2) The only way for kids to learn that they CAN persevere is to have challenges when younger. Invariably, some will fail. Today's "everyone wins" culture is obvious to most youngsters by the cynical age of 10: if I "try my hardest" I will be granted opportunities as if I succeeded, whether I did or not.
For some reason, there still remains this weird claddistic requirement that "pc's" (ie desktops, I guess?), laptops, and other devices be all conceptualized in separate boxes. Or, it could just be that the companies that are paid to do this sort of info gathering (and sorting) aren't changing as fast as technology...?
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
The laptop was the evolution of the desktop into a more broadly useful form factor.
The smartphone, and the pad device are precisely the same thing - just other points on the spectrum, not a whole different genus of computer.
That said, then, if one were to include the counts of all such devices that have the computing power and utility of a desktop even as short as 10 years ago, I hardly believe that the "PC market" is in decline.
One might even wonder then what the agenda is for such a naked contrivance to present the situation in such a gloomy light might be?
If you think the Feds you knew were there were the only Feds there, you're an idiot.
Personally, were I an FBI wonk, I'd have long-ago made penetrating DEFCON a priority on so many levels and so long ago that I'd have deep-penetration spooks in the leadership today, guiding policy. That's practically Machiavelli 101.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the first thing I'd point out is that "Crime rates... have been falling since." is *also* true for those barbaric Americans that "beat their children". Gun ownership and prison populations not so much. And FWIW in populations in the US that are comparable to the nearly-homogeneous Scandinavian countries crime rates are pretty much the same.
It's funny, because my reaction to the story (before I read the comments) was that they should just give them the death penalty. This isn't "revenge" - it's utilitarianism. The electronic systems that carry our wealth today are nearly as vital to the modern economy as oxygen; someone attacking that for personal gain has displayed an unacceptable willingness to harm millions of others for their own benefit.
I *don't* believe that every person is a precious snowflake that needs to be protected and preserved. Humans (including myself, by the way) are little more than clever farm animals - generally pretty useful, and can/should be generally left on their own. However, when one of those animals behaves in a way that is deliberately and directly harmful to all of the others, they should just be eradicated as simply and without question as an unplanned pregnancy. Simple as that.
And yes, I believe that I was spanked as a child perhaps once or twice.
And yes, I have a concealed-carry permit on principle, although I've never owned a gun as I don't see the value exceeds the absolute increase in danger.
(to add a little more correlation for you)
Because your original argument is stupid, that's why.
You say: "First of all: there are no cycles."
Then: "Ecept for three things: earth orbit, yielding summer and winter; periodic changes in the orbit on a scale of 24,000 years; fluctuations of the sun, various also overlapping cycles"
So, in fact, you contradict yourself: there ARE cycles.
And your 3 "undeniable" bases for this argument are likewise idiotic:
1) "CO2 is a green house gas" Yes, but not the strongest. The MOST impactful greenhouse gas is water vapor. So while we're arguing about the human impact - 1/4 of 0.4% of the earth's atmosphere - you cheerfully ignore the most ubiquitous substance in the mix.
2) "CO2 levels are increasing rapidly": Yes, they are, so? Whether CO2 is a lead-indicator of warming or a lag-indicator isn't even conclusively proven. By your logic, huge amounts of smoke cause fires? Wet beaches cause the tide to come in? Balding is a primary cause of aging in men?
3) "CO2 is 99% produced by burning fossile fuels, which mankind is doing " - actually, NATURAL sources produce 780 gigatons of CO2 every year. Humans about 30 gigatons. 30/780 isn't "99%" by any math I know.
In short, people are responding to you because you are simply wrong.
"Rotting plants produce CO2. They produce exactly the same amount they used up before for growing. They don't produce any extra CO2."
By that same argument, Humans *produce* almost no CO2 either, they merely release the CO2 that previously was sequestered into fossil fuels.
Except, essentially, is what you're saying is that
a) cyclic thing happened many times before, yet
b) THIS time it's "our" fault.
Until you provide substantial proof that THIS cycle is substantially different than all the others, I refuse to panic.
Or, we COULD say "Middle Miocene ice age 15 million years ago drastically lowered temperatures, lowered sea level 20m" as well, couldn't we?
Then it warmed, and melted, and sea levels rose. (The subject of the OP.)
Then it froze again, and sea levels dropped, since the last ice age ended only about 11,000 yrs ago.
It's almost like this shit is cyclic.
From TFA:
"....The barchan will probably continue on its journey past the city site, which in due course will re-emerge from the sand, but it is anticipated that it will not remain unscathed...."
?
"Last year, after a Utah man's home was raided for having 16 small marijuana plants, nearly 300 bullets in total were fired (most of them by the police) in the ensuing gunfight, the homeowner believing he was a victim of a home invasion by criminals. The U.S. military veteran later hanged himself in his jail cell while the prosecution sought the death sentence for the murder of one officer he believed to be an criminal assailant."
So, a dealer or heavy pot user (16 plants...I don't think the law cares about whether they were "small") believes his home is being broken into. He used deadly force to protect his pot plants. Turns out he killed a cop.
Honestly, I'm sorry to hear he was a veteran, but that doesn't exonerate him from a few catastrophically bad decisions, something he finally figured out.
My guess is that we're going to find nanoparticles a VERY common part of our environment, and that just about any process that grinds or sprays is going to generate nanoparticles.
Fortunately, considering that bacteria and viruses are ALSO nanoparticles, our bodies have evolved amazing defenses against them.
I can tell JK Rowling if her success was based on luck or talent after having read her books. Seriously, it's pretty immediately evident.
Oh and I didn't read the last 2? 3?.
That might be a hint at the answer.
(Not to mention she already has the result. If she sold 1500 total copies before she outed herself, then she knows.)
Well, I'd say that the BIGGEST problem is that people are starving by the millions when there is in fact plenty of food for them all - it just fails distribution because of governments/politics, etc.
That ended when politicians recognized that building a giant nanny state would require more and more federal control, and about half the US demographic agrees that's the goal of federal government.
Madison nailed it:
"It has been said, by way of objection to a bill of rights....that in the Federal Government they are unnecessary, because the powers are enumerated, and it follows, that all that are not granted by the constitution are retained; that the constitution is a bill of powers, the great residuum being the rights of the people; and, therefore, a bill of rights cannot be so necessary as if the residuum was thrown into the hands of the Government. I admit that these arguments are not entirely without foundation, but they are not as conclusive to the extent it has been proposed. It is true the powers of the general government are circumscribed; they are directed to particular objects; but even if government keeps within those limits, it has certain discretionary powers with respect to the means, which may admit of abuse. "
$630k is like pop-machine change in government terms.
$80,000 writing the proposal for funding
$170,000 for 17 interns to edit it
$60,000 for 3 admins to bang the interns during "late night editing sessions"
$3000 for abortions
$200,000 the inevitable hush-money to the interns
$310,000 for the multimedia presentation of the project to admins.
No, it doesn't add up to $630k. This is GOVERNMENT. Having the numbers match up costs extra.
When a cop says "this is reliable enough to trust my life to it" - then I might consider it.
If I am reaching for my gun, it's already the very, very, very last resort. It may in fact be already too late.
I want it to work when I use it, as close to 100% of the time as humanly possible to manufacture.
Any layer of delay, any layer of doubt, any additional point of failure between me and the function of that tool I've reached for may cost me or a loved on their life.
I've found that people today are generally very dismissive of early cultures, as if 'primitive' was synonymous with stupid.
Personally, in terms of raw horsepower (and conceding that these early people would likely have much more broadly suffered early childhood illnesses, malnutrition, and such that would generally impair higher functions) I suspect early peoples were generally much MORE intelligent than we are today.
Of course, it could be that they weren't so constantly distracted. I'd think about this more, but I think someone just texted me.
" 'save the Nobel Peace Prize from the disrepute that incurred by the hasty and ill-conceived decision to award U.S. President Barack Obama' "
No, it won't.
You're far, far too late on that one.
...am looking forward to some cheap stereos and other 'grey market' items for the next six months, after the inevitable riots.
"...The report reveals on page 130 that Mapes, one of those fired because of the scandal, had documented information in her possession before the controversial September 8 broadcast that George W. Bush, while in the Texas Air National Guard, âoedid volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots.â ..."
Whups. What were you saying again about him not volunteering?
He flew interceptors in the Guard. He volunteered, but the military said "you know what, we don't need high-altitude interceptor pilots in Vietnam".
From Accuracy in the Media: http://www.aim.org/press-release/report-says-dan-rather-personally-involved-in-cbs-news-campaign-to-destroy-/
Bush Sr was a Navy pilot in WWII.
Bush Jr was a pilot in the Texas National Guard, later the Alabama National Guard.*
*Personally, I think it was pretty clear that he joined the Guard not the Air Force to avoid service in Vietnam if he could, but still 'accomplish' being a military pilot (either for his father, his family, or for future political plans). I suspect that if you surveyed the scions of wealthy families in that era, a LOT of them took that route. Not that that exonerates him, but there were also a lot of people who didn't even bother doing that much service, then OR today...
NEVERTHELESS, flying the F102 was, as I said, not a trivial task - it was neither easy nor particularly safe.
"Laughing about people isn't the same as killing them."
Of course it isn't. Those who claim 'words hurt' are insufficiently familiar with sticks and stones.
But it's hard not to catch the faint whiff of Inquisitorial flames when I see a story whose point is essentially: "Look, these guys have faintly shown a tendency to support someone who we wall agree is pure evil since he denies our dogma!"
And dogma it is.
There are serious questions about AGW as a causal theory (which is as it should be - SCIENCE is about doubt, testing, and either confirmation or reformulation; DOGMA is about asserting "this" is right, and none shall question), and as convenient and comfortable as it may be to the Faithful to marginalize anyone doubting as a shill for Big Oil or a Crazy, that doesn't ipso facto make it true.
Look, for example, at Patrick Moore; if you don't hear the tenor of 'APOSTATE!' when Greens talk about him, you aren't listening.
1) As I recall skimming in an article, in one city (SFO?) the taxi-drivers unions and lobbyists are fighting this tech tooth and nail. Given our predilection today for legalistically protecting the rights of the 'buggy whip makers' (as long as they donate consistently to the right legal campaigns) I'm not sure that there isn't going to be some Byzantine bizarre legal moratorium placed on such apps.
2) humans are still not "safe". I can quite easily conceive of a system like this being spoofed in order for a predator to defer the arranged pickup, and show up instead to offer a ride to that lovely 19 year old coed that 'just needs a lift down to school this morning' - her brutally-raped and murdered body washing up in some meltwater creek months later. There's a reason we still tell our children to watch out for strangers, and if adults think they're somehow inherently safer at maturity, they're sadly mistaken.
The 13th century would like their news back.
"Heretic, burn them!"
So much for freedom of thought.
We're pretty much back to: Follow our religion or we will crucify you the best we can.
Nice to know some things never change.
I always love when some random internet wanker posting from his mom's basement posits that a man that: ...is an idiot.
a) flew fighter jets for the National Guard (deprecate it all you like, make smarmy comments about his attendance, whatever - nobody doubts that he flew and qualified in fighter jets, which was neither easy nor particularly safe)
b) Graduated Yale, and earned an MBA from Harvard (it's particularly noteworthy that he's the only president ever with an MBA...if he was a Democrat, that would be widely known)
c) won an election as Governor of TX over a popular opponent (Ann Richards)
d) won election to the Presidency of the United States. Won RE-ELECTION (by an even larger margin).
This man has actually accomplished a great deal in his life. Maybe he IS an idiot, but doesn't that make his accomplishments all that more impressive. Particularly compared to you - what have you done? (I mean, aside from generating snarky comments nearly-anonymously on an internet message board? I mean, of course that's pretty impressive alone...)
Of course, there's practically a Leftist industry of shat-smearing on Republicans (as opposed to Democrats that make 'journalists' legs tingle), so you can't really be blamed. The script has always been "Democrats brilliant, Republicans stoopid" so, if you cheerfully swallow when someone tells you to, that's the impression you're going to have.
But the sort of self-aggrandizing narcissist fantasyland you exist in to deprecate this man's accomplishments must be...impressive.
Well there's two problems.
1) EVERYONE thinks they need to go to University. It doesn't matter if you barely struggled your way through high school - mom and dad (and you, likely) expect that you *will* get a college degree.
2) The only way for kids to learn that they CAN persevere is to have challenges when younger. Invariably, some will fail. Today's "everyone wins" culture is obvious to most youngsters by the cynical age of 10: if I "try my hardest" I will be granted opportunities as if I succeeded, whether I did or not.
For some reason, there still remains this weird claddistic requirement that "pc's" (ie desktops, I guess?), laptops, and other devices be all conceptualized in separate boxes. Or, it could just be that the companies that are paid to do this sort of info gathering (and sorting) aren't changing as fast as technology...?
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
The laptop was the evolution of the desktop into a more broadly useful form factor.
The smartphone, and the pad device are precisely the same thing - just other points on the spectrum, not a whole different genus of computer.
That said, then, if one were to include the counts of all such devices that have the computing power and utility of a desktop even as short as 10 years ago, I hardly believe that the "PC market" is in decline.
One might even wonder then what the agenda is for such a naked contrivance to present the situation in such a gloomy light might be?
If you think the Feds you knew were there were the only Feds there, you're an idiot.
Personally, were I an FBI wonk, I'd have long-ago made penetrating DEFCON a priority on so many levels and so long ago that I'd have deep-penetration spooks in the leadership today, guiding policy. That's practically Machiavelli 101.
Hell, I'd have even doubled-up, and sent honeypot Feds to BE hacked/cracked/busted, so the Defcon kids would feel like they were winning, ala:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/8581/4puc.jpg
(SFW aside from PG13 language).