They do it because the CAFE and air standards are unrealistic and stupid. It's good that we have standards, but we have raised them too high too fast and NOBODY can make those numbers without cheating in one way or another. Either through "creative accounting" "creative calculating" or straight up fudging the tests, as VW has.
The fix they propose to apply will make the cars meet those very standards you claim are impossible to meet. How do you explain that?
You guys got this all wrong.. This IS NOT a global warming issue, at least not directly. The EPA rules VW bent where about air quality.
NOx is a serious pollution problem, but it is NOT a greenhouse gas...
However, in this case, meeting the NOx standards runs counter to green house gas emissions. The likely solution for VW is to lower power output, add a urea injection system and lower fuel economy, all of which will up operating costs for the owners. This will ADD to CO2 emissions for each mile these cars drive, but it will also make the air we inhale cleaner in areas where lots of these cars drive....
I'm genuinely surprised this story has been on the front page this long: a) without a comment, and b) without a comment from someone making a snarky remark about global warming being fake and how its killing businesses. Good on you Slashdot.
How does the specific NOx emission issue they where cheating on have anything directly to do with global warming/climate change? NOx is not a greenhouse ga so this was about air quality not C02 emissions...
It's *really* hard to clean up those high compression diesel engines without using urea injection, which comes at a increased price, lower power output, lower economy and higher maintenance cost. VW was just trying to save a few hundred bucks a car and keeping it's power and fuel economy up by skipping the injection system. They basically broke the EPA's rules for competitive price advantages and MPG bragging rights, but I dare say N0x is more an air quality issue than a Global Warming one.
Actually, from a C02 release perspective, bringing the engines into NOx compliance is likely to INCREASE CO2 emissions..... But we digress..
Have you ever in your life seen a design spec that covered all possible use cases?
Nope, but I've also not seen a protracted court battle over something that wasn't actually addressed in the contract's specs either. I've seen debates of what the spec means, but never have I been sued for non-conformance on a requirement not at least implied by the contract.
We have a serious problem in this country where our laws and regulations are out of hand and in many cases conflict with each other. This, my friends, is on of the paralyzing affects of "big government" and should not be so.
I didn't consider it "normal" but, it was the price I paid to be gainfully employed by a Telco company during the dot com melt down in 2000. So the family and I could eat I kept taking the paycheck and putting up with the work hours and being on call. When I found a better situation, I moved on.
All I'm saying is you do what the job demands of you, or find another. If that's being on call 24/7, then that's what you do. If you cannot do it tell them you can't, but be prepared to get another job.
However, I can imagine a situation where "on call" at "all times" is considered the norm. I've had such jobs, one where as the primary support engineer of a mission critical system, I was expected to be available after normal business hours should the need arise. I was given a cell phone, data service and a laptop to carry and it was my job to answer the phone when it rang, regardless of when it was or where I was. I was compensated accordingly for this availability and even took calls during "vacations" from time to time. I didn't get called that often at off hours, but when I did, I answered the phone. The company I worked for had contracted SLA's, and I was responsible to the customer to meet them.
I can see where a Trauma surgeon might be put "on call" for weeks and have specific response times. The very best of these know what they signed up for and are paid handsomely for their skills and availability. How a life choice like this is a bad one is beyond me. Work can be inconvenient and a pain at times, but if you take a job that requires after hours availability, or travel or whatever, you do what you agreed to do, and if you don't like it, find another job you do like.
Solar beats it? Not on your life.... Solar is a really dirty business that uses a lot of energy. Building those solar cells is an environmental nightmare in it's own right, you just don't notice it because most of the bad stuff is done overseas these days but it produces hazardous chemical waste and uses scads of energy. When you get done with all the building, then solar struggles to produce more energy than it uses in production of the equipment before it is worn out.
Or to coin an old phrase: "Stick that where the sun don't shine!" and see how well it works...
Personally, I'm for "all of the above" when talking about energy production. Wind, solar, fossil fueled, you name it. But more than just production, I'm about conversation. Using LESS energy when possible is worth more than all the green/renewable sources you can come up with...
Also stop living in the past. The US was also founded on the principle's that only land owners got to vote and slaves counted as 3/5ths of a person. Things change.
Yet we are quite past all that now. Not to mention that NONE of these imply the government needs to be bigger to deal with the issue. In fact, all that was required was to change the law and practice of voting to what we have now.
Yes, things change, but just because some idea seems new to you, doesn't make it new nor does new mean better. I quite like the principles upon which this country was founded and I think folks like you are all too quick to abandon even the pretense of giving lip service to our founders principles. Of course that is to be expected when these principles are no longer taught or held as being historically important and revolutionary as they really were (and still are).
Socialists, progressives, liberals, communists, are all the same idea, bigger government is the answer, people cannot be responsible for themselves. Changing the name doesn't make it a different idea, nor does a different name produce a different result. I advocate for freedom and liberty and the necessarily small government that allows them to exist, for the genius of our founding principles.
Seriously, take it for what it obviously is. A mind set that says, "Government is the answer of last resort" and "Government should be as small as possible, and we should be striving to make it smaller."
There are way to many folks who think that any problem is a chance for a bigger government and that's simply wrong headed. We where founded with the principle of LIMITED government, with LIMITED powers that left us free in as many ways as possible. Now days, folks demand MORE government, more laws, more entitlements, not seeming to care that with every one of these we loose just a little bit more of our freedom....
Lest you forget, I didn't use an absolute 100%... There ARE things for which the government is the answer... The national defense and roads are among the correct answers..
Nice sounding theory, but not true. The Tea Party barely more than a pipe dream before September 2009 when this bill was passed and nobody knew who they where. They certainly didn't have any pull yet with anybody in congress. The republican objections to ObamaCare where therefore in place a LONG time before it got shoved out of congress and that was before the Tea Party had any influence even in the red states. In fact, HARP and ObamaCare where likely the driving forces in making the Tea Party what it became, not the other way around.
But I'm glad you agreed to my basic point. Democrats did this on their own, disregarding republican input. The *reasons* they did this are really irrelevant because as passed, nobody on the other side of the isle voted for it and did everything they could to stop it. Democrats didn't care about the objections, and passed it.
Therefore, good, bad and ugly, your side owns this mess... Which is fine with me. Now you want to claim that the other side is being obstructionist because they won't compromise to help you fix your mistake? Grow up. Politics is a rough and tumble business and if you are unwilling to take your lumps, go home.
It's still not over, we have about 3 weeks and a debate to go and Clinton only has about a 2 point lead outside the margin of error nationally, it could go either way.... But you are right, if Trump keeps up his 3AM twitter fights over stupid stuff and refuses to stay disciplined and on message, Clinton will walk away with this in a land slide.. I'm sure there is at least one more "October surprise" planned for Trump and maybe one for "Clinton", something might actually stick to one or the other...
Trump has been counted out before and managed to rally... In fact he does his best work when he's on the ropes... But hey, if you want to underestimate him, feel free...
The fact is that the ACA has been something of a success, which you wouldn't realize by listening to Republican propaganda.
"Something of a success"?? Well, I suppose it's had one or two positive results, but all the stuff we got told by the people selling this bill turned out to be patently false. Remember these?
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor....
This plan will save $2,500 a year for a family of 4..
There are no "death panels" in this bill..
This will not increase your healthcare expenses.
It's only going to cost (what ever the number was then)...
Your taxes won't go up..
We are not changing Medicare...
Every one of these was false... Every one..
Then there is this pesky fact the Clinton even admits that the thing needs to be adjusted, that it's got serious issues..
Oh, and that the republicans won't cooperate with the democrats on this is indeed true. If you believe that the idea is extremely bad to start with and the other party bypassed you to get it into law, why would ANYBODY then turn around and cooperate? The republicans are simply letting the bad idea take it's course, letting the thing grow more and more unpopular and reaping the benefits at the ballot box. Personally I don't see a problem with this. Republicans have said all along it needs to be repealed, not fixed, and their supporters keep putting them into office on that position. But go ahead and keep up your hissy fit/temper tantrums about republicans not helping you fix the catastrophes that befall you. We DID try to warn you, but you where not interested in hearing what we had to say. Live with your choices and leave us out of this.
Republicans couldn't block the bill. The Democrats had an iron lock on both houses. They held the majority in the house and had a filibuster poof majority in the Senate all the way though the passage of the bill. The republicans could do NOTHING to stop this but hold press conferences and stomping their feet, they didn't have the votes.
In fact, NOT ONE republican voted for this bill at any point after it became a health care bill in the house. Remember this NOT ONE republican voted for this. Go check the congressional record like I have. All the votes recorded to pass this bill where by democrats. The democrats pass this all on their own.
Not only did they pass this on their own, they literally did it in an all fired hurry because they knew they where going to loose their ability to avoid a filibuster as Teddy Kennedy had died and the special election had provided a republican who said he was committed to blocking this very bill. So Nancy P make her "You have to pass it to find out what's in it" statement to get her party to pass it NOW, before the democrats could no longer count on getting a cloture vote by themselves to advance a bill in the Senate from debate to a vote, short of invoking the nuclear option and changing the rules.
So, don't repeat this lie that the democrats somehow bowed to republican pressure because there was no pressure the republicans could actually apply. The only pressure here was the time crunch or from their own members (and those that caucus with the democrats). This is EXACTLY the bill the democrats authored with no republican amendments (they where not allowed to offer them) passed solely by democrat votes with EVERY republican objecting.
Also stop blaming republicans for ANYTHING to do with ObamaCare and it's failings. The blame for this is with those who authored the bill, refused to discuss it and then passed it all on their own over the objections of others. Who is to blame? The democrats..
It only needs fixing because congress ripped it apart and put together something different, ultimately with inherent problems. It wasn't going to pass without republican votes, so a lot of concessions had to be made, much to the chagrin of the democrats.
NOT ONE REPUBLICAN voted for the affordable care act in either house. NOT ONE, not one time. This was done totally by the democrats who passed it in the dead of night because Teddy K's seat was being given to a republican and would give the republicans the ability to filibuster the bill in the Senate by denying cloture on the bill. Remember Nancy P saying "We've got to pass it to find out what's in it"? Nobody had time to read the thing, it had to pass NOW or face death in the Senate once Teddy K's seat got filled. The congressional record clearly records this, so don't keep saying it got changed to satisfy the republicans. It may have been changed, but it wasn't for the republicans.
Yea, you don't seem to understand the facts then. We originally planned reprocessing as part of the fuel cycle. It wasn't until the 70's that the plan got put on hold.
Ok, so it's marginally more popular than a root canal, but the MAJORITY of voters don't like it and nearly EVERYBODY admits from Hillary Clinton on down that it is not working. Trump want's to repeal it, Hillary want's to fix it...
But that's my point, Obama is powerless now and has no real legacy that's positive, so he's left to stuff like this..
But the point remains, he was responsible for the Bay of Pigs... That he didn't choose to say "no" makes him responsible.
However, I'm not so sure I'd be too hard on him for this. He lacked a lot of the information we expect our leaders to have access too now, he was just learning the ropes, and I'm sure the threat of communism was looming large being that close to our shores. I think I'd be harder on him for not demanding an overwhelming overt force instead of the "let's keep this quite" Bay of Pigs approach that caused us to lose.
In war, it's go big or don't leave home. Either you go in fully committed come hell, high water or collateral damage, or don't bother sending uniformed troops onto foreign soil uninvited.
I'm sure they won't have any trouble selling tickets for a flight to Mars if either Trump or Hillary wins the election. The Republican party has only 3 weeks left to finish disintegrating, get a new candidate out there and piece itself back together behind new leadership, which appears to be the only option left for an America that a majority of the population wants to actually live in.
Seriously, don't count Trump as done yet.... If the primaries where any indication, he's far from done. Yes, he's down a couple of runs, but it's the bottom of the 8th so the game isn't over and the surest way to lose is to under estimate your opponent.
Hillary is no sure thing either... She's got a 747 full of baggage along with likability and trust issues to rival Trumps... Where she's less likely to make a stupid unforced error (being disciplined and experienced at this political thing) AND she's ahead right now, she's NOT out of the woods with Trump making inroads with this "What do you have to loose?" appeal to her base...
Other than "it's there" and "Nobody else has gone" what's the point?
I seriously don't think it's worth the trouble to go to Mars, just to go. However, I support the effort because it will advance technology and likely lead to gains in scientific knowledge should we actually get there (which I don't think is likely).
What's sad here is that this is *obviously* Obama searching for a legacy, not a full hearted attempt to actually do this. Had this been important, why didn't he do it 8 years ago when his party had both cambers? Oh, no, wasn't important then. He has 180 days left with Obama Care is as popular as getting a root canal, it's over for him. Now he has a Congress that won't give him the time of day even if he asked nicely and literally zero power (legally and politically) to get this funded this so he's been reduced to plagiarizing JFK and banging on the bully pulpit trying to get attention in the middle of a election that is a whole circus of side shows. He's spitting into the wind.
This is simply NOT true. We have a LOT of ways to get rid of HIGH level waste and the best is to separate it into concentrated high level stuff and not so radioactive stuff that we can reuse.
You can usually convert the high level stuff into medium to low levels by exposing it to neutron flux to accelerate the radioactive decay, or if it's the REALLY high level stuff, you just put it into short term storage and wait for nature to take its course. It may take 20 years, but if it's high level stuff it means it's decaying faster. If the products of the high level decay are lower level, you just keep reprocessing the stuff, pulling out the less reactive stuff, keep concentrating the high level stuff reducing it's volume and thus the danger, until you have a manageable size that you can securely package in inert containers for long term "storage" (or perhaps just disposal). I'm sure we could easily find some subduction zone under the sea where the geologic processes will draw this stuff into the earth's radioactive core over a few million years which is far away from land.
Where I agree this is a long term problem, the current solution of storing spend fuel ON SITE forever is really the problem here, not the actual storage and disposal of nuclear wastes. The current state of affairs is driven by the politics of fear and NOT reason, as is the idea that nuclear power is somehow more dangerous to the people or the environment than say coal or natural gas (even wind and solar). Don't let the irrational fear and politics drive us away from what the reasoned solution really is.
Nuclear waste is only a problem because we make it one by refusing to reprocess spent fuel and have some mind numbingly strict storage requirements that really don't make all that much sense.
If we could re-process the spent fuel, two things would happen. 1st the physical amount of high level waste would go DOWN because we would be taking the inert and low level stuff out of the fuel assemblies. Much of the really nasty stuff would decay more quickly on it's own and could be separated out into a much lower volume. Some of this high level stuff could be "burned off" faster by putting it to high levels of neutron flux, making the problem even smaller. 2nd, we'd have a lot of very useful fissionable material that we could then use to generate power with a lot fewer high level waste products.
So, nuclear power is indeed a long term environmental issue, but the technology to deal with this issue is well known and understood. Which leaves the "problems" really limited to cleaning up the "accidents" at these plants, which here to fore has been relatively easy with two notable exceptions. Chernobyl, which was just plain stupidity in both operations and risky design, and The plants in Japan which suffered though TWO natural disasters, both of which were well beyond designed limits and where 2 decades older than the state of the art today.
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They do it because the CAFE and air standards are unrealistic and stupid. It's good that we have standards, but we have raised them too high too fast and NOBODY can make those numbers without cheating in one way or another. Either through "creative accounting" "creative calculating" or straight up fudging the tests, as VW has.
The fix they propose to apply will make the cars meet those very standards you claim are impossible to meet. How do you explain that?
You guys got this all wrong.. This IS NOT a global warming issue, at least not directly. The EPA rules VW bent where about air quality.
NOx is a serious pollution problem, but it is NOT a greenhouse gas...
However, in this case, meeting the NOx standards runs counter to green house gas emissions. The likely solution for VW is to lower power output, add a urea injection system and lower fuel economy, all of which will up operating costs for the owners. This will ADD to CO2 emissions for each mile these cars drive, but it will also make the air we inhale cleaner in areas where lots of these cars drive....
I'm genuinely surprised this story has been on the front page this long: a) without a comment, and b) without a comment from someone making a snarky remark about global warming being fake and how its killing businesses. Good on you Slashdot.
How does the specific NOx emission issue they where cheating on have anything directly to do with global warming/climate change? NOx is not a greenhouse ga so this was about air quality not C02 emissions...
It's *really* hard to clean up those high compression diesel engines without using urea injection, which comes at a increased price, lower power output, lower economy and higher maintenance cost. VW was just trying to save a few hundred bucks a car and keeping it's power and fuel economy up by skipping the injection system. They basically broke the EPA's rules for competitive price advantages and MPG bragging rights, but I dare say N0x is more an air quality issue than a Global Warming one.
Actually, from a C02 release perspective, bringing the engines into NOx compliance is likely to INCREASE CO2 emissions..... But we digress..
Have you ever in your life seen a design spec that covered all possible use cases?
Nope, but I've also not seen a protracted court battle over something that wasn't actually addressed in the contract's specs either. I've seen debates of what the spec means, but never have I been sued for non-conformance on a requirement not at least implied by the contract.
We have a serious problem in this country where our laws and regulations are out of hand and in many cases conflict with each other. This, my friends, is on of the paralyzing affects of "big government" and should not be so.
I didn't consider it "normal" but, it was the price I paid to be gainfully employed by a Telco company during the dot com melt down in 2000. So the family and I could eat I kept taking the paycheck and putting up with the work hours and being on call. When I found a better situation, I moved on.
All I'm saying is you do what the job demands of you, or find another. If that's being on call 24/7, then that's what you do. If you cannot do it tell them you can't, but be prepared to get another job.
However, I can imagine a situation where "on call" at "all times" is considered the norm. I've had such jobs, one where as the primary support engineer of a mission critical system, I was expected to be available after normal business hours should the need arise. I was given a cell phone, data service and a laptop to carry and it was my job to answer the phone when it rang, regardless of when it was or where I was. I was compensated accordingly for this availability and even took calls during "vacations" from time to time. I didn't get called that often at off hours, but when I did, I answered the phone. The company I worked for had contracted SLA's, and I was responsible to the customer to meet them.
I can see where a Trauma surgeon might be put "on call" for weeks and have specific response times. The very best of these know what they signed up for and are paid handsomely for their skills and availability. How a life choice like this is a bad one is beyond me. Work can be inconvenient and a pain at times, but if you take a job that requires after hours availability, or travel or whatever, you do what you agreed to do, and if you don't like it, find another job you do like.
Solar beats it? Not on your life.... Solar is a really dirty business that uses a lot of energy. Building those solar cells is an environmental nightmare in it's own right, you just don't notice it because most of the bad stuff is done overseas these days but it produces hazardous chemical waste and uses scads of energy. When you get done with all the building, then solar struggles to produce more energy than it uses in production of the equipment before it is worn out.
Or to coin an old phrase: "Stick that where the sun don't shine!" and see how well it works...
Personally, I'm for "all of the above" when talking about energy production. Wind, solar, fossil fueled, you name it. But more than just production, I'm about conversation. Using LESS energy when possible is worth more than all the green/renewable sources you can come up with...
Also stop living in the past. The US was also founded on the principle's that only land owners got to vote and slaves counted as 3/5ths of a person. Things change.
Yet we are quite past all that now. Not to mention that NONE of these imply the government needs to be bigger to deal with the issue. In fact, all that was required was to change the law and practice of voting to what we have now.
Yes, things change, but just because some idea seems new to you, doesn't make it new nor does new mean better. I quite like the principles upon which this country was founded and I think folks like you are all too quick to abandon even the pretense of giving lip service to our founders principles. Of course that is to be expected when these principles are no longer taught or held as being historically important and revolutionary as they really were (and still are).
Socialists, progressives, liberals, communists, are all the same idea, bigger government is the answer, people cannot be responsible for themselves. Changing the name doesn't make it a different idea, nor does a different name produce a different result. I advocate for freedom and liberty and the necessarily small government that allows them to exist, for the genius of our founding principles.
Seriously AC....
How's "Nearly 99%" and what you suggest all that different? Consider it a mind set, a principle, a world view and move on.
Seriously, take it for what it obviously is. A mind set that says, "Government is the answer of last resort" and "Government should be as small as possible, and we should be striving to make it smaller."
There are way to many folks who think that any problem is a chance for a bigger government and that's simply wrong headed. We where founded with the principle of LIMITED government, with LIMITED powers that left us free in as many ways as possible. Now days, folks demand MORE government, more laws, more entitlements, not seeming to care that with every one of these we loose just a little bit more of our freedom....
Lest you forget, I didn't use an absolute 100%... There ARE things for which the government is the answer... The national defense and roads are among the correct answers..
Nice sounding theory, but not true. The Tea Party barely more than a pipe dream before September 2009 when this bill was passed and nobody knew who they where. They certainly didn't have any pull yet with anybody in congress. The republican objections to ObamaCare where therefore in place a LONG time before it got shoved out of congress and that was before the Tea Party had any influence even in the red states. In fact, HARP and ObamaCare where likely the driving forces in making the Tea Party what it became, not the other way around.
But I'm glad you agreed to my basic point. Democrats did this on their own, disregarding republican input. The *reasons* they did this are really irrelevant because as passed, nobody on the other side of the isle voted for it and did everything they could to stop it. Democrats didn't care about the objections, and passed it.
Therefore, good, bad and ugly, your side owns this mess... Which is fine with me. Now you want to claim that the other side is being obstructionist because they won't compromise to help you fix your mistake? Grow up. Politics is a rough and tumble business and if you are unwilling to take your lumps, go home.
No, but that's at least a logical conclusion you can reach when someone asks the Federal government to get involved in this..
Government isn't the answer to nearly 99% of the questions it tries to answer..
It's still not over, we have about 3 weeks and a debate to go and Clinton only has about a 2 point lead outside the margin of error nationally, it could go either way.... But you are right, if Trump keeps up his 3AM twitter fights over stupid stuff and refuses to stay disciplined and on message, Clinton will walk away with this in a land slide.. I'm sure there is at least one more "October surprise" planned for Trump and maybe one for "Clinton", something might actually stick to one or the other...
Trump has been counted out before and managed to rally... In fact he does his best work when he's on the ropes... But hey, if you want to underestimate him, feel free...
The fact is that the ACA has been something of a success, which you wouldn't realize by listening to Republican propaganda.
"Something of a success"?? Well, I suppose it's had one or two positive results, but all the stuff we got told by the people selling this bill turned out to be patently false. Remember these?
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor....
This plan will save $2,500 a year for a family of 4..
There are no "death panels" in this bill..
This will not increase your healthcare expenses.
It's only going to cost (what ever the number was then)...
Your taxes won't go up..
We are not changing Medicare...
Every one of these was false... Every one..
Then there is this pesky fact the Clinton even admits that the thing needs to be adjusted, that it's got serious issues..
Oh, and that the republicans won't cooperate with the democrats on this is indeed true. If you believe that the idea is extremely bad to start with and the other party bypassed you to get it into law, why would ANYBODY then turn around and cooperate? The republicans are simply letting the bad idea take it's course, letting the thing grow more and more unpopular and reaping the benefits at the ballot box. Personally I don't see a problem with this. Republicans have said all along it needs to be repealed, not fixed, and their supporters keep putting them into office on that position. But go ahead and keep up your hissy fit/temper tantrums about republicans not helping you fix the catastrophes that befall you. We DID try to warn you, but you where not interested in hearing what we had to say. Live with your choices and leave us out of this.
Republicans couldn't block the bill. The Democrats had an iron lock on both houses. They held the majority in the house and had a filibuster poof majority in the Senate all the way though the passage of the bill. The republicans could do NOTHING to stop this but hold press conferences and stomping their feet, they didn't have the votes.
In fact, NOT ONE republican voted for this bill at any point after it became a health care bill in the house. Remember this NOT ONE republican voted for this. Go check the congressional record like I have. All the votes recorded to pass this bill where by democrats. The democrats pass this all on their own.
Not only did they pass this on their own, they literally did it in an all fired hurry because they knew they where going to loose their ability to avoid a filibuster as Teddy Kennedy had died and the special election had provided a republican who said he was committed to blocking this very bill. So Nancy P make her "You have to pass it to find out what's in it" statement to get her party to pass it NOW, before the democrats could no longer count on getting a cloture vote by themselves to advance a bill in the Senate from debate to a vote, short of invoking the nuclear option and changing the rules.
So, don't repeat this lie that the democrats somehow bowed to republican pressure because there was no pressure the republicans could actually apply. The only pressure here was the time crunch or from their own members (and those that caucus with the democrats). This is EXACTLY the bill the democrats authored with no republican amendments (they where not allowed to offer them) passed solely by democrat votes with EVERY republican objecting.
Also stop blaming republicans for ANYTHING to do with ObamaCare and it's failings. The blame for this is with those who authored the bill, refused to discuss it and then passed it all on their own over the objections of others. Who is to blame? The democrats..
It only needs fixing because congress ripped it apart and put together something different, ultimately with inherent problems. It wasn't going to pass without republican votes, so a lot of concessions had to be made, much to the chagrin of the democrats.
NOT ONE REPUBLICAN voted for the affordable care act in either house. NOT ONE, not one time. This was done totally by the democrats who passed it in the dead of night because Teddy K's seat was being given to a republican and would give the republicans the ability to filibuster the bill in the Senate by denying cloture on the bill. Remember Nancy P saying "We've got to pass it to find out what's in it"? Nobody had time to read the thing, it had to pass NOW or face death in the Senate once Teddy K's seat got filled. The congressional record clearly records this, so don't keep saying it got changed to satisfy the republicans. It may have been changed, but it wasn't for the republicans.
Yea, you don't seem to understand the facts then. We originally planned reprocessing as part of the fuel cycle. It wasn't until the 70's that the plan got put on hold.
Ok, so it's marginally more popular than a root canal, but the MAJORITY of voters don't like it and nearly EVERYBODY admits from Hillary Clinton on down that it is not working. Trump want's to repeal it, Hillary want's to fix it...
But that's my point, Obama is powerless now and has no real legacy that's positive, so he's left to stuff like this..
But the point remains, he was responsible for the Bay of Pigs... That he didn't choose to say "no" makes him responsible.
However, I'm not so sure I'd be too hard on him for this. He lacked a lot of the information we expect our leaders to have access too now, he was just learning the ropes, and I'm sure the threat of communism was looming large being that close to our shores. I think I'd be harder on him for not demanding an overwhelming overt force instead of the "let's keep this quite" Bay of Pigs approach that caused us to lose.
In war, it's go big or don't leave home. Either you go in fully committed come hell, high water or collateral damage, or don't bother sending uniformed troops onto foreign soil uninvited.
I'm sure they won't have any trouble selling tickets for a flight to Mars if either Trump or Hillary wins the election. The Republican party has only 3 weeks left to finish disintegrating, get a new candidate out there and piece itself back together behind new leadership, which appears to be the only option left for an America that a majority of the population wants to actually live in.
Seriously, don't count Trump as done yet.... If the primaries where any indication, he's far from done. Yes, he's down a couple of runs, but it's the bottom of the 8th so the game isn't over and the surest way to lose is to under estimate your opponent.
Hillary is no sure thing either... She's got a 747 full of baggage along with likability and trust issues to rival Trumps... Where she's less likely to make a stupid unforced error (being disciplined and experienced at this political thing) AND she's ahead right now, she's NOT out of the woods with Trump making inroads with this "What do you have to loose?" appeal to her base...
Other than "it's there" and "Nobody else has gone" what's the point?
I seriously don't think it's worth the trouble to go to Mars, just to go. However, I support the effort because it will advance technology and likely lead to gains in scientific knowledge should we actually get there (which I don't think is likely).
What's sad here is that this is *obviously* Obama searching for a legacy, not a full hearted attempt to actually do this. Had this been important, why didn't he do it 8 years ago when his party had both cambers? Oh, no, wasn't important then. He has 180 days left with Obama Care is as popular as getting a root canal, it's over for him. Now he has a Congress that won't give him the time of day even if he asked nicely and literally zero power (legally and politically) to get this funded this so he's been reduced to plagiarizing JFK and banging on the bully pulpit trying to get attention in the middle of a election that is a whole circus of side shows. He's spitting into the wind.
Don't they trust their own tools?
Wouldn't they just need to Google the name to find out?
This is simply NOT true. We have a LOT of ways to get rid of HIGH level waste and the best is to separate it into concentrated high level stuff and not so radioactive stuff that we can reuse.
You can usually convert the high level stuff into medium to low levels by exposing it to neutron flux to accelerate the radioactive decay, or if it's the REALLY high level stuff, you just put it into short term storage and wait for nature to take its course. It may take 20 years, but if it's high level stuff it means it's decaying faster. If the products of the high level decay are lower level, you just keep reprocessing the stuff, pulling out the less reactive stuff, keep concentrating the high level stuff reducing it's volume and thus the danger, until you have a manageable size that you can securely package in inert containers for long term "storage" (or perhaps just disposal). I'm sure we could easily find some subduction zone under the sea where the geologic processes will draw this stuff into the earth's radioactive core over a few million years which is far away from land.
Where I agree this is a long term problem, the current solution of storing spend fuel ON SITE forever is really the problem here, not the actual storage and disposal of nuclear wastes. The current state of affairs is driven by the politics of fear and NOT reason, as is the idea that nuclear power is somehow more dangerous to the people or the environment than say coal or natural gas (even wind and solar). Don't let the irrational fear and politics drive us away from what the reasoned solution really is.
Nuclear waste is only a problem because we make it one by refusing to reprocess spent fuel and have some mind numbingly strict storage requirements that really don't make all that much sense.
If we could re-process the spent fuel, two things would happen. 1st the physical amount of high level waste would go DOWN because we would be taking the inert and low level stuff out of the fuel assemblies. Much of the really nasty stuff would decay more quickly on it's own and could be separated out into a much lower volume. Some of this high level stuff could be "burned off" faster by putting it to high levels of neutron flux, making the problem even smaller. 2nd, we'd have a lot of very useful fissionable material that we could then use to generate power with a lot fewer high level waste products.
So, nuclear power is indeed a long term environmental issue, but the technology to deal with this issue is well known and understood. Which leaves the "problems" really limited to cleaning up the "accidents" at these plants, which here to fore has been relatively easy with two notable exceptions. Chernobyl, which was just plain stupidity in both operations and risky design, and The plants in Japan which suffered though TWO natural disasters, both of which were well beyond designed limits and where 2 decades older than the state of the art today.
Rumor has it they were found trying to use the software for legitimate purposes instead of just pirating media.
Well Duh! Everybody knows there is no money in that..