Exactly. And because mandating the nude scan would likely have class action elements especially since it's a backscatter xray which could potentially be doing damage to people... at least enough that it convinces a jury... they'll have to do away with them.
In any case, it's not like the nude scanners accomplish anything. The metal scanners were actually more effective.
They do find people that seem to be outspoken on the issue and the provide them the fake means to do something terrible.
I'm sorry but you can't gloss over the fact that these people think they're doing these things. Those guys that tried to blow up a bridge in Ohio for example thought they bought C4 and thought they were going to blow up that bridge. They pushed the detonator.
You can't gloss over that.
The FBI also likes to test the loyality of scientists and engineers at government contractors by pretending to be foreign agents and offering them money for secrets. They'll often pretend to be chinese or even russian agents, give them a few thousand dollars to get them interested, and see what happens.
It's valid because it's exactly what would happen if a hostile foreign agent found them first. By testing these people ourselves we do two things. We find the weak links that are likely to leak and we create a deterrance because everyone is now paranoid about whether the guy trying to bribe them is a real foreign agent or just an FBI agent playing a game.
In a perfect world I wouldn't like these tactics either. We don't live in a perfect world.
The FBI needs to infiltrate hostile hate groups and occasionally offer to sell them enough rope to hang them all.
Well... for politicians. The problem they have is that if another terrorist attack gets through they don't want to be held accountable for it. So the TSA was created and the security was made as annoying as possible without actually making it so annoying that the TSA is scrapped. It's a balancing act.
Anyway, if there is another attack they can point at the TSA and say " do you want it to be any more annoying then that?!" And if they've made it annoying enough everyone will agree it is almost unbearably annoying.
So they'll say "well, you chose not to make it any more annoying so that's on the American people and not your entirely blameless elected official."
And thus they can't be held accountable for anything that could go wrong.
If you scrap the TSA and there is another attack, they'll get blamed for it. That's not acceptable.
If they put in a better system that isn't annoying but is much more effective and there is an attack they could still get blamed even if they gave us a really good system. Why? Because unless it's really annoying someone somewhere will blame the system.
So here we are... and in a lot of ways it's all our faults.
I'm personally going through the pat down process every single time I travel. If more people were like me, the TSA would have disbanded about ten seconds after it stopped because logistically they can't pat everyone down.
Many people have messaged me in the past on this very site to tell me that they shouldn't have to go through that process and so they go through the scanner instead. That's fine. You're making it easy for them and it is because of people like you that the TSA gets away with it.
If you don't like the TSA then get a pat down or stfu.
Ron Paul can't do anything about it. The man has no power. He has one isolated seat in congress. Who votes with him in a block? No one. He's all by himself out there. So whatever you think of his politics, he's not really an effective response to anything. He won't be president and he's isn't even a relevant force in the house.
If you care about the TSA's abuse of the common traveler... never walk through the scanner. Always take the pat down alternative. If enough of us do it. We win.
Stopping the CO2 emissions is not practical so it isn't the only practical option.
If that's all you've got then there are no practical options and we might as well just give up.
I'd rather not do that though so I'd like to consider other options.
Again, adding some chemicals to the atmosphere can increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere. If they're added high enough in the atmosphere then we don't need much of it and it won't have a significant impact on the biosphere.
Other options include increasing cloud cover which can be done by squirting relatively small amounts of salt water into the air. I've seen some calculations that say it would only take a few thousand boats doing this marginally increase cloud cover and thus off set the marginal warming.
I have to say, I am a little shocked and disturbed that so few are willing to consider all options.
How are you going to get China to stop burning coal? How about India? You won't. You can't.
So unless you want to fight a nuclear war with china over CO2 emissions consider other options.
This is an imperitive. Of course, that won't be required unless we do have AGW issues. So if this is just a natural cyclial warming trend then we don't need to do anything.
But if we're convinced that it is AGW, then we really need to put all options on the table. EVEN by the estimations of the IPCC Kyoto would only have a tiny impact on the predicted AGW. Since we can't even do as little as kyoto wanted, you must consider other options.
This is not a choice.
You must.
In the same way you must get out of the way of a speeding freight train. I mean, you could just stand there smiling... but the train isn't stopping.
I'd suggest you move. The idea of stopping the CO2 emissions is akin to putting your hand out in front of the train and asking it nicely to stop. It can't hear you and it doesn't care. CO2 emissions will continue
So you can give up or consider something else.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude here. I don't mean to be rude. I'm just annoyed that you think reducing CO2 emissions is possible or practical. Its neither.
The only way to stop industrial CO2 emissions is to come out with alternative energy that is as cheap as coal. And it has to ACTUALLY be that cheap. It can't just be subsidized or the coal's price inflated with taxes or regulation. We don't have jurisdiction over the whole world so if you make coal cheap in one place it won't be outside of your jurisdiction and if anything you'll probably cause emissions to increase there as companies flee your territory to get cheaper power or conduct business as usual outside your territory. Which also increases unemployment all sorts of other fun stuff in our countries.
Alternative energy has to be a real alternative before it can be considered. It isn't.
The ruins of abandoned solar and wind energy power plants are scattered across my state. We've been building them since the 70s. They operate for two to five years, go bankrupt when the maintenance has to be done, and then are abandoned. There is so little money left after these programs failed that we don't even have the money to tear the plants down. So they sit out there in the desert like monuments to the shortsighted stupidity of their builders.
The coal plants though? They keep operating... decade after decade after decade. No problem with maintenance. No problem with funding. No need for subsidization. They just run.
Do I like it? No. I'd love it if we could get solar power for everyone and have it work. But even most people that buy solar panels for their home don't even begin to power their home completely with solar power. It's often something stupid like heating their pool.
Please understand what I'm saying here. I would love to use alternative energy. I don't like coal etc. But the alternative has to be good enough that it's competitive with coal without subsidy or price inflation. If that can't be done yet then it isn't an alternative ye
I don't mind a third party building the system for them. I do have a problem with a third party administering it.
I'm largely in favor of private companies doing things for governments such as construction, research, physical maintenance, and even things like fire prevention etc.
There are a few issues where it bothers me.
1. Police should be government employees. 2. Military should be government employees. Any situation where someone might shoot at someone else. It's fine for security guards to be private but anything beyond that is troubling. 3. Courts should be public. There are a lot of these private arbitation courts which are okay but they should be restricted to civil cases. Criminal cases really must be public. 4. The actual beurocracy of the government itself must be public/government. I don't mind them outsourcing robocalls, outsourcing mailing, outsourcing distribution, outsourcing inspections, but that actual nuts and bolts of government administration should be public/government.
And what bothers me about this issues is that it sounds to me like they're outsourcing core administration to a third party.
I'd rather the government hire the techs from google and have them just be government employees at that point.
Actual control of the actual databases really shouldn't be something a third party ever has control over in any meaningful way.
That's interesting. Why is there is no break down of spectrum?
I want to know what the spectrum is from the sun, what makes it to the ground (difference being absorbed or reflected) and then I want to compare that with the spectrum of the reflection thus giving us the spectrums being absorbed. Then we relate that to what we know about which chemicals absorb which spectrums and we can tell specifically which chemicals are absorbing how much energy.
They're talking about ocean temperature etc which seems besides the point. I don't really care how much energy is being sinked in various places. My interest is more about which chemicals in the atmosphere are absorbing energy and how much.
If we talk about ocean temperature we're not talking about that anymore.
By the time the energy is sinked in the ground or oceans it's past what I consider relevant to find out how GW is working.
This sort of study seems relatively easy to do given our technology. We must have spectrographs of the sun from satilities. Ideally these should be real time but if we can assume output is fairly predictable then that might not be required. The ground based spectrogram should really be real time. There's no reason for them not to be. And it might be interesting if the characteristics of our atmosphere change depending on seasons or if given parts of the world are more prone to absorb or reflect light.
And then again we need a spectrograph of the earth which needs to be real time.
These three chart should tell us not only the net energy flow but specifically which chemicals are contributing to the reflection and absorption of energy.
For example, lets say chemical A absorbs energy but there is a lot of it and we don't really have a way to get rid of it all anytime in the next 10,000 years. But chemical B reflects light even in tiny quantities and we just released a small amount of it into the upper atmosphere it would bring the system back into balance.
Thing is, we're not going to get china to stop burning coal. And that's assuming we can get anyone else including ourselves to stop burning it.
So we need other options here besides stop the CO2. It's just not practical to do that.
Military contracts have clearance for classified material because more often then not they're created the material in the first place.
Think Lockheed Martin should be restricted from knowing about the stealth technology they invented?
In any case, why bother any sort of government secret what so ever then... just give total control of all the government databases to google and assume everything will be fine.
We tried to build such a structure and it's looking like politically it will get shut down. Which means nuclear isn't an option.
I would like to use nuclear power. But it has political problems.
As to strip mining being a problem, it is a manageable problem. I don't like it either.
I'd much rather use unicorn power. We can have a magic box, blow kisses at it, and it can generate all the power we need. Since that doesn't exist, I'm left considering other options. Coal is on the table because it's cheap. The technology is sustainable (eg maintenance costs do not exceed operational benefits). And as to the coal mines being bad, we probably can mine coal without strip mining.
If we stopped strip mining would you be okay with coal?
We do strip mining because it's safer for miners. Strip mines don't collapse and bury hundreds of miners.
That said, we are starting to use robotic miners. And while that technology is still new, it could mean that we don't care so much about mine collapses since robotic miners don't need air to survive, and might be built to dig themselves out.
In any case, if it's just the strip mining that bothers you... we can do something about that.
First, the video isn't satire. And even if it was, which it isn't, it wouldn't matter.
The EBT program is a mistake. I don't have a problem with foodstamps or a card based food stamp system. But what you can and can't buy with foodstamps should be limited.
I don't mind people buying sandwiches with them. But I'd restrict anything that wasn't essential for their diet. So soda would be off the list. They can have water. And snack foods of any kind would be off the list.
Ideally, they wouldn't be eating out on food stamps in any case. They're for people to go to the grocery store and buy food for their families which is cheaper then buying food at convenience stores or fast food outlets.
Second, everything you're saying right now is how people felt about the war on drugs for years and many still feel that way. They know it isn't enforceable. They know it doesn't work. They know it causes more harm then good a lot of times. But they're so worried about the drug culture that they'll support a system that throws hundreds of thousands of otherwise innocent people into jail for making a personal choice to take a drug.
Employment laws are similar. I'm not saying we have no regulation at all. Some basic safety laws are a good idea. But beyond that, it's between the employer and the employee to work out an arrangement. The amount of paperwork the government requires for this has to be slashed to a bare minimum. The bottom level compensation has to be slashed. And the government has to understand at a base level that employment is something people need. It's like food and water. Everyone needs a job. It is not acceptable for unemployment to be this high and giving people free money or food doesn't even begin to address the issue.
I know you're not going to agree for the same reason the pro drug war people won't agree. You're afraid of the corporations screwing workers more then you're afraid of the obvious consequences of the welfare culture.
Just as I don't know what to say to convince someone to switch on the drug war, I don't know what to say to switch you on this issue. Know that I'm not insulting you. I'm frustrated that we seem to be unable to communicate and I don't hold that against you. It's my fault as much as anyone's.
I sort of think of this as the curse of Babel... not in a super natural sense. But it seems like so often people speaking the same language can't communicate with each other. And this seems most common between political divides.
I don't want to hurt anyone. I love my country and I want it to do well. I believe these laws are killing my country. Destroying it's culture that used to value hard work. Destroying families. Destroying our businesses which are the back bone of our economy.
For this I'd chance a great deal. I think your cure for the problems you're worried about are a great deal worse then the disease. Consider backing off, letting these systems go back to nature to a certain extent and then try different laws or methods of addressing what you think of as a problem. these specific employment laws are a bad idea.
"Use whatever is there and try to do as little damage as possible is all that I'm saying."
Can we use coal then? The newer coal plants burn it cleanly... that is... they only CO2 and water vapor. We have thousands of years of coal... and it's a very cheap energy source that doesn't have the political problems of nuclear power.
The problem with nuclear is sadly that there are just too many people that interfere with it. We needed that dry storage facility in Nevada desert and it looks like that project is getting shut down which means we have no place to put spent fuel. A pity.
coal for all it's problems doesn't require national cooperation to manage waste. It can be dealt with locally.
As to employment laws being enforceable. They're consensual contracts.
It's about as enforceable as regulating sodomy. If the employee wants to work at that price and the employer wants to employ them at that price, you can't stop them.
And if you drive citizens out of the field it just means it will be filled with illegals. Which ironically the democrats seem to like in the country. It's ironic because it undermines all their labor policies and it makes all their entitlement programs unsustainable. I mean, sure... you can probably give everyone in the US free healthcare if you jack up taxes. But can you give everyone free healthcare that walks across the border on the same tax basis? Of course not. To say nothing of free education, subsidized housing, subsidized food, etc... It's just not sustainable.
I'd be okay with open borders if we killed the whole entitlement system. It would then be sustainable if everyone paid for what they got. But since we're subsidizing everything I just don't see how the numbers add up. How do we keep not only our own poor comfortable but all the poor from Mexico comfortable?
Whatever...
As to my theories and what is ad odds with the welfare of the people. My focus is on employment. I believe that if americans are generating value that the our welfare will take care of itself.
I worry that if we're all sitting on couchs, eating potato chips, and collecting a monthly government check that we're doomed.
So I have a great fear of welfare programs because they're addictive and have an opiate like effect on the people. Everyone smiles and goes to sleep... they forget to eat. They forget to bath. No work is done... and the society dies as it's members dream. And one day drugs run out and there is nothing to be done... the system is too crippled even to sustain the illusion.
This is my honest fear on the matter. I would rather my people work hard and generate wealth. If it means they work harder then they'd like or work for less then they'd like then that is the market. Tough it out. But sitting on our asses collecting a check is a very dangerous.
I think you're forgetting that the proposition system came in to control corruption in our past.
In any case, the notion that we'll recover by burning the system down...
How's that working for Detroit? I think california is screwed and won't recover and will keep harassing what little is successful in the state until they all flee the state or country or shrivel into economic irrelevance.
I don't see good things in california's future because I've seen no inkling of reason in the electorate. The high speed rail system was deeply depressing. It was such a stupidly wasteful idea and it doesn't even make sense.
Airplanes are faster, cheaper, lower maintenance, more flexible, more scalable... the only reason to build a high speed rail is because some idiots like the idea of trains.
Why not a high speed Zeppelin? It makes about as much sense. And yet we're blowing tens of billions we don't have on something that we not only don't need but that won't compete with existing transport and will simply be a burden on future taxpayers to maintain.
At some point, it will join the rest of the dead projects that rot in our deserts... the abandoned solar power plants... the abandoned wind farms... the abandoned geothermal stations... we have these things going back to the 70s... they're environmental ghost towns... nothing moves around them but the thumbleweeds.
When these projects run their course there's so little money left that we don't even have the money to tear them down. And so they stand there in the desert as monuments to the foolishness of the california electorate.
As to a thousand cuts... I agree... and they see every drop of blood they draw as necessary and never seem to reject anything.
I don't dispute the records. I dispute the problem of outsourcing the storage of your gold to a vault you don't control.
I'm generally very much in favor of using contractors over government workers. But when it comes to information storage and a few other things I get very uncomfortable with it.
I don't mind google designing the software or consulting on it's administration. I have a big problem with google literally having the keys to the system and literally having the actual data in their server farm. It can't be there.
Hmmm... I don't like the idea of any third party having access to the files. I think that's a recipe for disaster. What if a rogue google admin decides to add his ex wife to the terrorist watch lists?
I think an FBI agent was busted for doing that a couple years ago. But it adds a whole new dimension if private parties suddenly have access to these databases. Even if they don't change anything. Simply being able to read them all is a problem.
I've always thought a more relevant environmental concern is the disposable nature of our products.
Look at the way we build things today. Out of cheap plastic, everything is very hard or impossible to repair, and so rather then fix things we throw them out and buy whole new products.
I have a laser printer that I've used for ten years and it recently started having a paper feed issue. The rubber grippers are old and have become slippery. Most people would throw the whole printer out and buy a new one. I spent 15 dollars to buy new rubber grippers from a specialty printer supply store and then spent ten minutes unscrewing some plastic bits and screwing in new ones.
Think about all the things that break because a 10 dollar part broke and then the whole thing is replaced because the process of repairing it is either too complicated or no one even realizes it's possible.
Think of the land fills piling up with broken stuff that could have been fixed with some nothing little part. My experience is further that most machines have certain parts that are prone to breaking and about 98 percent of the machine never breaks. It's often some motor that burns out, some fixture that cracks, or some plastic/rubber part that melts/corrodes/wears down etc. There's typically a very short list of parts that actually will ever need to be replaced in most products.
Build the machine so that these parts are easily accessible, can be replaced easily, and ideally can be purchased directly from the manufacturer at a reasonable price.
Forget global warming... think about how huge that would be for the economy and the environment if everything lasted longer and our landfills didn't pile up with last years gadgets.
For me, that's the environmental idea I can get behind 100 percent without feeling the priorities are off.
I agree, but we need practical alternatives. None of the PC approved options have sufficient energy at a sustainable price. If we tried to convert the whole US energy grid to solar power for example most of our economy would shut down and not recover.
Something that environmentalists need to understand and accept is that environmentalism is a luxury position. Poor countries don't have environmental policies because they can't afford them. They have bigger problems like surviving the winter, not starving to death, and not having the whole government collapse due to revolution, or social instability.
If your environmental policy impoverishes any country that institutes it, then its cutting it's own throat.
Tell me how to stop using coal, oil, and I'm assuming you have a problem with nuclear?... tell me how to sustain a modern economy without these energy sources and you'll have my support for what that is worth.
But if you can't... I'm going to burn fossil fuels for the same reason the man that survived an airplane wreck on a mountain top is going to eat the dead frozen bodies of the other passengers. I don't want to do it. I'd much rather have an environmentally friendly option. But it has to keep me alive. If I starve and freeze to death your idea doesn't work.
Understand, I'm not your enemy here. Please don't treat me like a political opponent to be dismissed in an US versus THEM mentality. Understand, I'm just telling you that my first priority is keeping my society alive. If I have to club baby seals to do that, I'll do it. I don't want to... but if I have no choice... I must.
Give me real alternatives understanding that lives are on the line if it doesn't work and isn't affordable. Being competitive with the price of coal is a good baseline. You don't have to get exactly there but you do need to get within five or ten percent of that mark.
I think the only rational response is to keep funding research and try to focus research on getting very precise data that CAN demonstrate a causal link.
Here is my idea that I'm going to pull out of my ass.
1. Have a satellite that looks at the sun and measures the amount and spectrum of radiation from the sun in real time. I'm sure we already have this so no extra expense.
2. Point some sort of light sensor at the sky that does the same thing measuring the amount and spectrum of radiation that makes it to the ground. I'm sure again we already have some stations like this but set up a network of these all over the earth. It probably isn't important to have them in every time zone but have enough that you can get pretty comprehensive data on the radiation that is making it through the atmosphere.
3. Point a satellite at the earth and measure the amount and spectrum of radiation being radiated from the earth. Again, I believe we already have this but if not we need one.
Maybe I'm showing my ignorance here, but I believe if you add these three data sets together in real time it will tell us how much energy is being absorbed by the earth's atmosphere and what spectrums are being absorbed. Since CO2 absorbs specific spectrums we should be able to measure fairly accurately how much of that radiation is being absorbed in those spectums and how much is making it all the way to the surface. That should show how much energy CO2 is absorbing in the earth's atmosphere. Also the total energy that strike the earth minus the energy radiated from the earth might give us a better measure of global temperature then any ground based system. That is assuming what I am describing is even possible.
Further, if we keep records of these three data sets over time we can show changes in the absorption of these spectrums. If we relate that information to CO2 concentrations we should have a causal link since we'll have isolated the EM frequencies CO2 absorbs and will not be looking at the whole global temperature but rather only that portion of the system that is specifically effected by CO2.
This would create a falsifiable experiment where an increase in temperature would not necessarily be evidence of CO2 caused global warming. Global warming itself would not be relevant. You would specifically be measuring how much energy the CO2 absorbs in real time. If that increase can be shown to equal the increase in global temperature then we'll have a causal link.
Again, I'm in no way against or for global warming. I think it's inherently wrong to be for or against any scientific principle. I'm not a proponent or opponent of gravity. It's something that shouldn't be politicized. It's either valid or it isn't. I don't care who supports it or who is against it. It has to be experimentally proven or people are just screwing around.
The network device rule is an artificial rule to try and get people that are setting up servers to buy the server edition of windows which doesn't have those restrictions.
That said, if you're a linux man then you've no problem with hacking an OS to add functionality... and there are many registry and driver hacks to remove Workstation restrictions.
One of the more annoying restrictions is the restriction on terminal services. By default, a Windows XP or Windows 7 system will not allow more then ONE concurrent RDP instance on a machine at a time. Again, this is because MS wants you to buy the server edition with terminal services even though the common OS all the capability to do it. There are several free hacks and some inexpensive software packages that will remove the restriction from the Workstation edition of the OS. I've used that a few times to set basic XP and Windows 7 boxes up as terminal servers for remote users. It makes a big difference if 30 users can log into a given machine all at the same time each with their own personalized desktop etc. It's a pain in the ass to do with the server edition because it wants you to jump through all sorts of extra hoops and there is not 1:1 compatibility between the server OS and the workstation OS. So sometimes a program that works perfectly on a workstation system bugs out on the server.
Anyway, Microsoft's decisions often irritate me. I'm a long time windows user. But, I'm blooded and I know how to add or disable practically any feature you could possibly bitch about.
Just for giggles... Try me. I'd actually be interested to know what you find so objectionable about the windows OS. As I said, the network devices issue is a simple hack. You just need to modify a driver. It takes no more then a minute once you know which one.
I find no fault with your post and it is well reasoned.
I would only argue that some locations will have particularly uncompetitive labor policies that will put companies in those locations at a disadvantage.
The point I kept trying to make is that it's important for given locations to be mindful of actions that damage employers in their jurisdiction. It seems like too often people are so focused on "sticking it to the man" that they don't realize they've created a toxic environment where companies can't be profitable. I live in California which is one of those places.
Tax revenue in California fell 22 percent LAST year this is obviously well after and thus on top of the credit crunch damage. We are bleeding employers to the rest of the country and to other countries because my state is more interested in persecuting employers then attracting them. The result is that jobs are fleeing the state and with them the workers that are made unemployable. It's rapidly becoming a state where it's impossible to run a serious business. This is espeically true for manufacturing or anything that might have any environmental concern. Companies that only do office work are fairing better obviously but even then there is a flight of companies out of the state caused by these polices.
I am mostly expressing my frustration at this process which I feel is avoidable if people merely moderate their polices such that they're reasonable.
Why do you trust google more then a military contractor?
Is this based on your political prejudices or do you know about past misdeeds of these organizations that makes you distrust their ability to keep state secrets?
In any case, I don't think the government should outsource data centers to third parties period. It's a bad idea. They should have their own datacenters staffed with government employees.
The only situation where I MIGHT be okay with a third party managing a government database is if the data were encrypted in the way Mozy encrypts data such that the datacenter can't actually read any of the data due to the encryption. If the data can only be read by the government because the third party doesn't have the encryption keys then I can live with it. But it has to be so secure that you could literally staff it with chinese agents doing little more then trying to hack into it and be sure that they never can get any of the data. That is technically possible but difficult. If you can do that, I'm fine with it.
Of course, I would want backups of everything that are not in the physical possession of the datacenter and these really do need to be in a government vault somewhere.
Or we can just have wikileaks all over again until people learn their lesson.
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Exactly. And because mandating the nude scan would likely have class action elements especially since it's a backscatter xray which could potentially be doing damage to people... at least enough that it convinces a jury... they'll have to do away with them.
In any case, it's not like the nude scanners accomplish anything. The metal scanners were actually more effective.
hmmmm they're only sorta self created terrorists.
They do find people that seem to be outspoken on the issue and the provide them the fake means to do something terrible.
I'm sorry but you can't gloss over the fact that these people think they're doing these things. Those guys that tried to blow up a bridge in Ohio for example thought they bought C4 and thought they were going to blow up that bridge. They pushed the detonator.
You can't gloss over that.
The FBI also likes to test the loyality of scientists and engineers at government contractors by pretending to be foreign agents and offering them money for secrets. They'll often pretend to be chinese or even russian agents, give them a few thousand dollars to get them interested, and see what happens.
It's valid because it's exactly what would happen if a hostile foreign agent found them first. By testing these people ourselves we do two things. We find the weak links that are likely to leak and we create a deterrance because everyone is now paranoid about whether the guy trying to bribe them is a real foreign agent or just an FBI agent playing a game.
In a perfect world I wouldn't like these tactics either. We don't live in a perfect world.
The FBI needs to infiltrate hostile hate groups and occasionally offer to sell them enough rope to hang them all.
It's also sustainable... which means they can keep scanning you, your children, and then your grandchildren.
Opt for the pat down and the whole system chokes on it's own vomit.
If too many people opt for the pat down they'll have to stop scanning people to artificially reduce the number of people opting out.
So if you don't like the scanners, get patted down. THey can't pat us all down. So if you force them to do it, they'll stop scanning you.
Well... for politicians. The problem they have is that if another terrorist attack gets through they don't want to be held accountable for it. So the TSA was created and the security was made as annoying as possible without actually making it so annoying that the TSA is scrapped. It's a balancing act.
Anyway, if there is another attack they can point at the TSA and say " do you want it to be any more annoying then that?!" And if they've made it annoying enough everyone will agree it is almost unbearably annoying.
So they'll say "well, you chose not to make it any more annoying so that's on the American people and not your entirely blameless elected official."
And thus they can't be held accountable for anything that could go wrong.
If you scrap the TSA and there is another attack, they'll get blamed for it. That's not acceptable.
If they put in a better system that isn't annoying but is much more effective and there is an attack they could still get blamed even if they gave us a really good system. Why? Because unless it's really annoying someone somewhere will blame the system.
So here we are... and in a lot of ways it's all our faults.
I'm personally going through the pat down process every single time I travel. If more people were like me, the TSA would have disbanded about ten seconds after it stopped because logistically they can't pat everyone down.
Many people have messaged me in the past on this very site to tell me that they shouldn't have to go through that process and so they go through the scanner instead. That's fine. You're making it easy for them and it is because of people like you that the TSA gets away with it.
If you don't like the TSA then get a pat down or stfu.
Ron Paul can't do anything about it. The man has no power. He has one isolated seat in congress. Who votes with him in a block? No one. He's all by himself out there. So whatever you think of his politics, he's not really an effective response to anything. He won't be president and he's isn't even a relevant force in the house.
If you care about the TSA's abuse of the common traveler... never walk through the scanner. Always take the pat down alternative. If enough of us do it. We win.
Stopping the CO2 emissions is not practical so it isn't the only practical option.
If that's all you've got then there are no practical options and we might as well just give up.
I'd rather not do that though so I'd like to consider other options.
Again, adding some chemicals to the atmosphere can increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere. If they're added high enough in the atmosphere then we don't need much of it and it won't have a significant impact on the biosphere.
Other options include increasing cloud cover which can be done by squirting relatively small amounts of salt water into the air. I've seen some calculations that say it would only take a few thousand boats doing this marginally increase cloud cover and thus off set the marginal warming.
I have to say, I am a little shocked and disturbed that so few are willing to consider all options.
How are you going to get China to stop burning coal? How about India? You won't. You can't.
So unless you want to fight a nuclear war with china over CO2 emissions consider other options.
This is an imperitive. Of course, that won't be required unless we do have AGW issues. So if this is just a natural cyclial warming trend then we don't need to do anything.
But if we're convinced that it is AGW, then we really need to put all options on the table. EVEN by the estimations of the IPCC Kyoto would only have a tiny impact on the predicted AGW. Since we can't even do as little as kyoto wanted, you must consider other options.
This is not a choice.
You must.
In the same way you must get out of the way of a speeding freight train. I mean, you could just stand there smiling... but the train isn't stopping.
I'd suggest you move. The idea of stopping the CO2 emissions is akin to putting your hand out in front of the train and asking it nicely to stop. It can't hear you and it doesn't care. CO2 emissions will continue
So you can give up or consider something else.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off as rude here. I don't mean to be rude. I'm just annoyed that you think reducing CO2 emissions is possible or practical. Its neither.
The only way to stop industrial CO2 emissions is to come out with alternative energy that is as cheap as coal. And it has to ACTUALLY be that cheap. It can't just be subsidized or the coal's price inflated with taxes or regulation. We don't have jurisdiction over the whole world so if you make coal cheap in one place it won't be outside of your jurisdiction and if anything you'll probably cause emissions to increase there as companies flee your territory to get cheaper power or conduct business as usual outside your territory. Which also increases unemployment all sorts of other fun stuff in our countries.
Alternative energy has to be a real alternative before it can be considered. It isn't.
The ruins of abandoned solar and wind energy power plants are scattered across my state. We've been building them since the 70s. They operate for two to five years, go bankrupt when the maintenance has to be done, and then are abandoned. There is so little money left after these programs failed that we don't even have the money to tear the plants down. So they sit out there in the desert like monuments to the shortsighted stupidity of their builders.
The coal plants though? They keep operating... decade after decade after decade. No problem with maintenance. No problem with funding. No need for subsidization. They just run.
Do I like it? No. I'd love it if we could get solar power for everyone and have it work. But even most people that buy solar panels for their home don't even begin to power their home completely with solar power. It's often something stupid like heating their pool.
Please understand what I'm saying here. I would love to use alternative energy. I don't like coal etc. But the alternative has to be good enough that it's competitive with coal without subsidy or price inflation. If that can't be done yet then it isn't an alternative ye
I don't mind a third party building the system for them. I do have a problem with a third party administering it.
I'm largely in favor of private companies doing things for governments such as construction, research, physical maintenance, and even things like fire prevention etc.
There are a few issues where it bothers me.
1. Police should be government employees.
2. Military should be government employees. Any situation where someone might shoot at someone else. It's fine for security guards to be private but anything beyond that is troubling.
3. Courts should be public. There are a lot of these private arbitation courts which are okay but they should be restricted to civil cases. Criminal cases really must be public.
4. The actual beurocracy of the government itself must be public/government. I don't mind them outsourcing robocalls, outsourcing mailing, outsourcing distribution, outsourcing inspections, but that actual nuts and bolts of government administration should be public/government.
And what bothers me about this issues is that it sounds to me like they're outsourcing core administration to a third party.
I'd rather the government hire the techs from google and have them just be government employees at that point.
Actual control of the actual databases really shouldn't be something a third party ever has control over in any meaningful way.
That's interesting. Why is there is no break down of spectrum?
I want to know what the spectrum is from the sun, what makes it to the ground (difference being absorbed or reflected) and then I want to compare that with the spectrum of the reflection thus giving us the spectrums being absorbed. Then we relate that to what we know about which chemicals absorb which spectrums and we can tell specifically which chemicals are absorbing how much energy.
They're talking about ocean temperature etc which seems besides the point. I don't really care how much energy is being sinked in various places. My interest is more about which chemicals in the atmosphere are absorbing energy and how much.
If we talk about ocean temperature we're not talking about that anymore.
By the time the energy is sinked in the ground or oceans it's past what I consider relevant to find out how GW is working.
This sort of study seems relatively easy to do given our technology. We must have spectrographs of the sun from satilities. Ideally these should be real time but if we can assume output is fairly predictable then that might not be required. The ground based spectrogram should really be real time. There's no reason for them not to be. And it might be interesting if the characteristics of our atmosphere change depending on seasons or if given parts of the world are more prone to absorb or reflect light.
And then again we need a spectrograph of the earth which needs to be real time.
These three chart should tell us not only the net energy flow but specifically which chemicals are contributing to the reflection and absorption of energy.
For example, lets say chemical A absorbs energy but there is a lot of it and we don't really have a way to get rid of it all anytime in the next 10,000 years. But chemical B reflects light even in tiny quantities and we just released a small amount of it into the upper atmosphere it would bring the system back into balance.
Thing is, we're not going to get china to stop burning coal. And that's assuming we can get anyone else including ourselves to stop burning it.
So we need other options here besides stop the CO2. It's just not practical to do that.
Military contracts have clearance for classified material because more often then not they're created the material in the first place.
Think Lockheed Martin should be restricted from knowing about the stealth technology they invented?
In any case, why bother any sort of government secret what so ever then... just give total control of all the government databases to google and assume everything will be fine.
What could possibly go wrong. /s
I have trust issues when it comes to large government organizations "just doing the right thing."
Look at the last few years... I think we're seeing too many fundamental mistakes to assume everything will be alright.
We tried to build such a structure and it's looking like politically it will get shut down. Which means nuclear isn't an option.
I would like to use nuclear power. But it has political problems.
As to strip mining being a problem, it is a manageable problem. I don't like it either.
I'd much rather use unicorn power. We can have a magic box, blow kisses at it, and it can generate all the power we need. Since that doesn't exist, I'm left considering other options. Coal is on the table because it's cheap. The technology is sustainable (eg maintenance costs do not exceed operational benefits). And as to the coal mines being bad, we probably can mine coal without strip mining.
If we stopped strip mining would you be okay with coal?
We do strip mining because it's safer for miners. Strip mines don't collapse and bury hundreds of miners.
That said, we are starting to use robotic miners. And while that technology is still new, it could mean that we don't care so much about mine collapses since robotic miners don't need air to survive, and might be built to dig themselves out.
In any case, if it's just the strip mining that bothers you... we can do something about that.
First, the video isn't satire. And even if it was, which it isn't, it wouldn't matter.
The EBT program is a mistake. I don't have a problem with foodstamps or a card based food stamp system. But what you can and can't buy with foodstamps should be limited.
I don't mind people buying sandwiches with them. But I'd restrict anything that wasn't essential for their diet. So soda would be off the list. They can have water. And snack foods of any kind would be off the list.
Ideally, they wouldn't be eating out on food stamps in any case. They're for people to go to the grocery store and buy food for their families which is cheaper then buying food at convenience stores or fast food outlets.
Second, everything you're saying right now is how people felt about the war on drugs for years and many still feel that way. They know it isn't enforceable. They know it doesn't work. They know it causes more harm then good a lot of times. But they're so worried about the drug culture that they'll support a system that throws hundreds of thousands of otherwise innocent people into jail for making a personal choice to take a drug.
Employment laws are similar. I'm not saying we have no regulation at all. Some basic safety laws are a good idea. But beyond that, it's between the employer and the employee to work out an arrangement. The amount of paperwork the government requires for this has to be slashed to a bare minimum. The bottom level compensation has to be slashed. And the government has to understand at a base level that employment is something people need. It's like food and water. Everyone needs a job. It is not acceptable for unemployment to be this high and giving people free money or food doesn't even begin to address the issue.
I know you're not going to agree for the same reason the pro drug war people won't agree. You're afraid of the corporations screwing workers more then you're afraid of the obvious consequences of the welfare culture.
Just as I don't know what to say to convince someone to switch on the drug war, I don't know what to say to switch you on this issue. Know that I'm not insulting you. I'm frustrated that we seem to be unable to communicate and I don't hold that against you. It's my fault as much as anyone's.
I sort of think of this as the curse of Babel... not in a super natural sense. But it seems like so often people speaking the same language can't communicate with each other. And this seems most common between political divides.
I don't want to hurt anyone. I love my country and I want it to do well. I believe these laws are killing my country. Destroying it's culture that used to value hard work. Destroying families. Destroying our businesses which are the back bone of our economy.
For this I'd chance a great deal. I think your cure for the problems you're worried about are a great deal worse then the disease. Consider backing off, letting these systems go back to nature to a certain extent and then try different laws or methods of addressing what you think of as a problem. these specific employment laws are a bad idea.
So someone is doing this research? Because I haven't seen the results of it.
"Use whatever is there and try to do as little damage as possible is all that I'm saying."
Can we use coal then? The newer coal plants burn it cleanly... that is... they only CO2 and water vapor. We have thousands of years of coal... and it's a very cheap energy source that doesn't have the political problems of nuclear power.
The problem with nuclear is sadly that there are just too many people that interfere with it. We needed that dry storage facility in Nevada desert and it looks like that project is getting shut down which means we have no place to put spent fuel. A pity.
coal for all it's problems doesn't require national cooperation to manage waste. It can be dealt with locally.
At least you understand why this idea poses special challenges that can't be glossed over.
That's amazing...
As to employment laws being enforceable. They're consensual contracts.
It's about as enforceable as regulating sodomy. If the employee wants to work at that price and the employer wants to employ them at that price, you can't stop them.
And if you drive citizens out of the field it just means it will be filled with illegals. Which ironically the democrats seem to like in the country. It's ironic because it undermines all their labor policies and it makes all their entitlement programs unsustainable. I mean, sure... you can probably give everyone in the US free healthcare if you jack up taxes. But can you give everyone free healthcare that walks across the border on the same tax basis? Of course not. To say nothing of free education, subsidized housing, subsidized food, etc... It's just not sustainable.
I'd be okay with open borders if we killed the whole entitlement system. It would then be sustainable if everyone paid for what they got. But since we're subsidizing everything I just don't see how the numbers add up. How do we keep not only our own poor comfortable but all the poor from Mexico comfortable?
Whatever...
As to my theories and what is ad odds with the welfare of the people. My focus is on employment. I believe that if americans are generating value that the our welfare will take care of itself.
I worry that if we're all sitting on couchs, eating potato chips, and collecting a monthly government check that we're doomed.
So I have a great fear of welfare programs because they're addictive and have an opiate like effect on the people. Everyone smiles and goes to sleep... they forget to eat. They forget to bath. No work is done... and the society dies as it's members dream. And one day drugs run out and there is nothing to be done... the system is too crippled even to sustain the illusion.
This is my honest fear on the matter. I would rather my people work hard and generate wealth. If it means they work harder then they'd like or work for less then they'd like then that is the market. Tough it out. But sitting on our asses collecting a check is a very dangerous.
This worries me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o64Fz-KW1Dk
I think you're forgetting that the proposition system came in to control corruption in our past.
In any case, the notion that we'll recover by burning the system down...
How's that working for Detroit? I think california is screwed and won't recover and will keep harassing what little is successful in the state until they all flee the state or country or shrivel into economic irrelevance.
I don't see good things in california's future because I've seen no inkling of reason in the electorate. The high speed rail system was deeply depressing. It was such a stupidly wasteful idea and it doesn't even make sense.
Airplanes are faster, cheaper, lower maintenance, more flexible, more scalable... the only reason to build a high speed rail is because some idiots like the idea of trains.
Why not a high speed Zeppelin? It makes about as much sense. And yet we're blowing tens of billions we don't have on something that we not only don't need but that won't compete with existing transport and will simply be a burden on future taxpayers to maintain.
At some point, it will join the rest of the dead projects that rot in our deserts... the abandoned solar power plants... the abandoned wind farms... the abandoned geothermal stations... we have these things going back to the 70s... they're environmental ghost towns... nothing moves around them but the thumbleweeds.
When these projects run their course there's so little money left that we don't even have the money to tear them down. And so they stand there in the desert as monuments to the foolishness of the california electorate.
As to a thousand cuts... I agree... and they see every drop of blood they draw as necessary and never seem to reject anything.
I don't dispute the records. I dispute the problem of outsourcing the storage of your gold to a vault you don't control.
I'm generally very much in favor of using contractors over government workers. But when it comes to information storage and a few other things I get very uncomfortable with it.
I don't mind google designing the software or consulting on it's administration. I have a big problem with google literally having the keys to the system and literally having the actual data in their server farm. It can't be there.
Hmmm... I don't like the idea of any third party having access to the files. I think that's a recipe for disaster. What if a rogue google admin decides to add his ex wife to the terrorist watch lists?
I think an FBI agent was busted for doing that a couple years ago. But it adds a whole new dimension if private parties suddenly have access to these databases. Even if they don't change anything. Simply being able to read them all is a problem.
I've always thought a more relevant environmental concern is the disposable nature of our products.
Look at the way we build things today. Out of cheap plastic, everything is very hard or impossible to repair, and so rather then fix things we throw them out and buy whole new products.
I have a laser printer that I've used for ten years and it recently started having a paper feed issue. The rubber grippers are old and have become slippery. Most people would throw the whole printer out and buy a new one. I spent 15 dollars to buy new rubber grippers from a specialty printer supply store and then spent ten minutes unscrewing some plastic bits and screwing in new ones.
Think about all the things that break because a 10 dollar part broke and then the whole thing is replaced because the process of repairing it is either too complicated or no one even realizes it's possible.
Think of the land fills piling up with broken stuff that could have been fixed with some nothing little part. My experience is further that most machines have certain parts that are prone to breaking and about 98 percent of the machine never breaks. It's often some motor that burns out, some fixture that cracks, or some plastic/rubber part that melts/corrodes/wears down etc. There's typically a very short list of parts that actually will ever need to be replaced in most products.
Build the machine so that these parts are easily accessible, can be replaced easily, and ideally can be purchased directly from the manufacturer at a reasonable price.
Forget global warming... think about how huge that would be for the economy and the environment if everything lasted longer and our landfills didn't pile up with last years gadgets.
For me, that's the environmental idea I can get behind 100 percent without feeling the priorities are off.
I agree, but we need practical alternatives. None of the PC approved options have sufficient energy at a sustainable price. If we tried to convert the whole US energy grid to solar power for example most of our economy would shut down and not recover.
Something that environmentalists need to understand and accept is that environmentalism is a luxury position. Poor countries don't have environmental policies because they can't afford them. They have bigger problems like surviving the winter, not starving to death, and not having the whole government collapse due to revolution, or social instability.
If your environmental policy impoverishes any country that institutes it, then its cutting it's own throat.
Tell me how to stop using coal, oil, and I'm assuming you have a problem with nuclear?... tell me how to sustain a modern economy without these energy sources and you'll have my support for what that is worth.
But if you can't... I'm going to burn fossil fuels for the same reason the man that survived an airplane wreck on a mountain top is going to eat the dead frozen bodies of the other passengers. I don't want to do it. I'd much rather have an environmentally friendly option. But it has to keep me alive. If I starve and freeze to death your idea doesn't work.
Understand, I'm not your enemy here. Please don't treat me like a political opponent to be dismissed in an US versus THEM mentality. Understand, I'm just telling you that my first priority is keeping my society alive. If I have to club baby seals to do that, I'll do it. I don't want to... but if I have no choice... I must.
Give me real alternatives understanding that lives are on the line if it doesn't work and isn't affordable. Being competitive with the price of coal is a good baseline. You don't have to get exactly there but you do need to get within five or ten percent of that mark.
I think the only rational response is to keep funding research and try to focus research on getting very precise data that CAN demonstrate a causal link.
Here is my idea that I'm going to pull out of my ass.
1.
Have a satellite that looks at the sun and measures the amount and spectrum of radiation from the sun in real time. I'm sure we already have this so no extra expense.
2.
Point some sort of light sensor at the sky that does the same thing measuring the amount and spectrum of radiation that makes it to the ground. I'm sure again we already have some stations like this but set up a network of these all over the earth. It probably isn't important to have them in every time zone but have enough that you can get pretty comprehensive data on the radiation that is making it through the atmosphere.
3.
Point a satellite at the earth and measure the amount and spectrum of radiation being radiated from the earth. Again, I believe we already have this but if not we need one.
Maybe I'm showing my ignorance here, but I believe if you add these three data sets together in real time it will tell us how much energy is being absorbed by the earth's atmosphere and what spectrums are being absorbed. Since CO2 absorbs specific spectrums we should be able to measure fairly accurately how much of that radiation is being absorbed in those spectums and how much is making it all the way to the surface. That should show how much energy CO2 is absorbing in the earth's atmosphere. Also the total energy that strike the earth minus the energy radiated from the earth might give us a better measure of global temperature then any ground based system. That is assuming what I am describing is even possible.
Further, if we keep records of these three data sets over time we can show changes in the absorption of these spectrums. If we relate that information to CO2 concentrations we should have a causal link since we'll have isolated the EM frequencies CO2 absorbs and will not be looking at the whole global temperature but rather only that portion of the system that is specifically effected by CO2.
This would create a falsifiable experiment where an increase in temperature would not necessarily be evidence of CO2 caused global warming. Global warming itself would not be relevant. You would specifically be measuring how much energy the CO2 absorbs in real time. If that increase can be shown to equal the increase in global temperature then we'll have a causal link.
Again, I'm in no way against or for global warming. I think it's inherently wrong to be for or against any scientific principle. I'm not a proponent or opponent of gravity. It's something that shouldn't be politicized. It's either valid or it isn't. I don't care who supports it or who is against it. It has to be experimentally proven or people are just screwing around.
The network device rule is an artificial rule to try and get people that are setting up servers to buy the server edition of windows which doesn't have those restrictions.
That said, if you're a linux man then you've no problem with hacking an OS to add functionality... and there are many registry and driver hacks to remove Workstation restrictions.
One of the more annoying restrictions is the restriction on terminal services. By default, a Windows XP or Windows 7 system will not allow more then ONE concurrent RDP instance on a machine at a time. Again, this is because MS wants you to buy the server edition with terminal services even though the common OS all the capability to do it. There are several free hacks and some inexpensive software packages that will remove the restriction from the Workstation edition of the OS. I've used that a few times to set basic XP and Windows 7 boxes up as terminal servers for remote users. It makes a big difference if 30 users can log into a given machine all at the same time each with their own personalized desktop etc. It's a pain in the ass to do with the server edition because it wants you to jump through all sorts of extra hoops and there is not 1:1 compatibility between the server OS and the workstation OS. So sometimes a program that works perfectly on a workstation system bugs out on the server.
Anyway, Microsoft's decisions often irritate me. I'm a long time windows user. But, I'm blooded and I know how to add or disable practically any feature you could possibly bitch about.
Just for giggles... Try me. I'd actually be interested to know what you find so objectionable about the windows OS. As I said, the network devices issue is a simple hack. You just need to modify a driver. It takes no more then a minute once you know which one.
I find no fault with your post and it is well reasoned.
I would only argue that some locations will have particularly uncompetitive labor policies that will put companies in those locations at a disadvantage.
The point I kept trying to make is that it's important for given locations to be mindful of actions that damage employers in their jurisdiction. It seems like too often people are so focused on "sticking it to the man" that they don't realize they've created a toxic environment where companies can't be profitable. I live in California which is one of those places.
Tax revenue in California fell 22 percent LAST year this is obviously well after and thus on top of the credit crunch damage. We are bleeding employers to the rest of the country and to other countries because my state is more interested in persecuting employers then attracting them. The result is that jobs are fleeing the state and with them the workers that are made unemployable. It's rapidly becoming a state where it's impossible to run a serious business. This is espeically true for manufacturing or anything that might have any environmental concern. Companies that only do office work are fairing better obviously but even then there is a flight of companies out of the state caused by these polices.
I am mostly expressing my frustration at this process which I feel is avoidable if people merely moderate their polices such that they're reasonable.
Why do you trust google more then a military contractor?
Is this based on your political prejudices or do you know about past misdeeds of these organizations that makes you distrust their ability to keep state secrets?
In any case, I don't think the government should outsource data centers to third parties period. It's a bad idea. They should have their own datacenters staffed with government employees.
The only situation where I MIGHT be okay with a third party managing a government database is if the data were encrypted in the way Mozy encrypts data such that the datacenter can't actually read any of the data due to the encryption. If the data can only be read by the government because the third party doesn't have the encryption keys then I can live with it. But it has to be so secure that you could literally staff it with chinese agents doing little more then trying to hack into it and be sure that they never can get any of the data. That is technically possible but difficult. If you can do that, I'm fine with it.
Of course, I would want backups of everything that are not in the physical possession of the datacenter and these really do need to be in a government vault somewhere.
Or we can just have wikileaks all over again until people learn their lesson.