Marine here. Safe to say I know a lot about em. Pro gun. And pro (reasonable) gun control.
But come on. If you claim to use logic and reason, how can anyone look at other countries with far far more restrictions than us, and far lower gun crime and homocide rates, and not think "hmmm...maybe there's something to this? maybe i DONT need a.50cal or MK19* in my closet. Maybe I dont need enough weapons to personally equip the army of a small country. Maybe background checks to stop bad or questionable folks from being to too easily get one arent such a bad thing." Seriosuly. To reject it out of hand is not logical, its emotional. its a knee jerk reaction.
Hell, people want concealed carry on base now! Cause aparently they fear they cant trust their fellow Marines and Soldiers.....to which I say "then how in hell are you going to go into harms way with them if you dont trust them?" And I say that applies in everyday life too. Crime rates are down, and been going down for a long time. Its time to move past this active mistrust of anyone and everyone around you.
This is not a promotion of naivety. but at the same time, while you mock people for fearing the unknown, i'd say its the rabid virulent gun movement (as opposed to the majority of gun owners who are like myself, both pro gun yet ok with some reasonable controls) who is scared of the unknown, and everyone around them, looking at everyone with mistrust.
no. you fail to grasp reality of a modern cities budget.
the revenue from citations is not compensated for by the elimination of those who do traffic enforcement. they bring in far more than they cost, and city budgets often rely on that revenue stream to push local tax rates down while still maintaining a city budget that includes the services we consider essential in a modern community.
no. the revenue from citations is not compensated for by the elimination of those who do traffic enforcement. they bring in far more than they cost, and city budgets often rely on that revenue stream to push local tax rates down while still maintaining a city budget that includes the services we consider essential in a modern community.
If you know, through traffic studies and past data, about how many citiations get written a year and how much gets paid in fines, its possible to predict and forecast the next year, and write a budget around that. a budget that doesnt impose as much of a tax burden because you can reasonably expect a certain amount of revenue from traffic fines. there is poential for abuse (as many of the cop hating/. crowd will quickly attest (for what its worth, i support cops generally)), but it does serve the local community to offload some tax burden in this manner.
but now there is potential to see that source of revenue reduced or eliminated. and yet the city budget is still what it is (removing a handful of positions for traffic enforcement wont reduce the budget that much). so the obvious solution (heresy to some wackos), is to raise the local taxes. or cut services....cause hey? who needs a fire department, or local schools?
its niether shocking nor controversial. its completely expected and a natural consequence.
i was rather hoping that as Firefox and Opera have both decided to become little more than Chrome clones, replete with crappy interface and lack of customization (especially when Opera 12 was the KING of layout customization, a truly exceptional peice of software), that Chrome might opt to add more customization.
To be clear: Firefox needs to stop chainging its UI every few releases. So when Firefox 29 finally became Just Another Chrome Clone (JACC), it amused me that it took only 24 hours for an extention called "Classic Firefox Restorer" or whatever to hit the web and become one of the most popular firefox extensions (but of course the devs will ignore that) Opera 12 was the best browser I have ever used. The only reason I no longer use it exclusively, is because they've stopped updating it, and its page renderer chugs on many common pages these days. and now Opera 20 is JACC, that axed basically everything that appealed about Opera.
If I wanted to use Chrome, I would bloody use Chrome. Stop messing with your browsers and alienating your users in the quest to chase Google with your JACC's.
Just like Zoos, Seaworld does a LOT for education. Seaworld and most reputable zoos also funnel a tremendous amount of money into conservation efforts.
people who would otherwise not even know whales exist (its just something in a book, something they might see...someday...maybe) get to see them up close. to learn about them. to learn about the problems they face in the wild. to learn about what human pressure on the environment is doing to them. no, seaworld isnt ideal for the individuals kept there, much like many zoos in smaller cities arent nearly as good for the animals as the larger refuges or zoos like the San Diego.
But they still do a LOT for public education, getting people to understand that maybe burning down rainforest isnt a good idea, that buying from certain companies or certain products leads indirectly to financing poaching or habitat exploitation.
yes those individuals arent in ideal conditions in many cases. but beacuse of the education opportunities provided by their presence, we can swing public opinion to help and make things better for many times larger wild populations. we can get people to get behind preservation and conservation. to demand better fishing practices, to demand better stewardship.
im an environmentalist and believer in the well treatment of animals, but here is where i diverge from folks who think the zoos and seaworlds of the world should all be shut down: i absolutely reject that these places have no value*. their biggest value is, and always has been, education of the masses who otherwise would know and care nothing. and if we can achieve that goal, i believe the planet will be for it. maybe someday we can reach the point where zoos are no longer necessary, but i dont think we're anywhere near that state of affairs yet.
*that's not to say places dont need improvements. And I believe the "zoo" Reno NV is a joke that ought be shutdown, since it's just a guy with a couple kennels stuffed with lions. there is a difference between a reputable Zoo and someone inspired by PT Barnum.
youre conflating "local/regional problems" with "extinction level event facing the entire human race, and most of hte other species as well". slight difference in scale.
people were there before, but there is a nonnegligible population spike in the "sunbelt states" from Arizona to Florida, but particuarly in the inland portions away from the cooling Gulf Coast breezes, that correlates to the advent and widespread adoption of A/C.
its not compensating. its reacting. the system as a whole is attempting to reach equillibirum. at the boundary layer, at the water/ice interface, the ice gets warmer, and the water gets colder. if the water gets colder enough, it will freeze. likewise, if the ice gets wamer enough, it will melt. in actuality, if you split it into fine enough pieces (Finite Element Analysis) you would see both occuring at the same time; but since we dont really care about the individual molecules, but rather than the system as a whole, the fact we see more ice melting than water freezing shows us that the system as a whole is more energetic as represented by temperature than it was previously.
ergo: the ice melts. left to its own devices, with no further inputs, the system would eventually reach an equillibrium. assuming proper quantities and masses of materials, if I have X amount of 31F ice and X amount of 33F water, and mix them, equilibrium is achieved at 32F. The system is stable; it changes no further. At the molecule level (finite element analysis) yes, some molecules are freezing and others are melting, but on the whole its occuring in equal quantitites and the system is stable. It will not change any further, WITHOUT FURTHER INPUTS. could just as easily say 30F ice + 33F water, stable system at 31.5, expect the whole system freeze, or 32F ice and 34F water, stable at 33F, expect the whole system to melt. the specifics arent the point, the point is the equilibrium point will be achieved and will not change unless further inputs to the system occur (and this is why he sayd your grasp of thermodynamics is weak).
and the other key points that were made was that not only is the ice melting and not reaching equilibrium (the process slows the closer it gets to equilibrium), but the rate at which it is melting is increasing. and we have physically measured the water temperatures and shown that they are increasing. its not a stable system. thermdynamically, the loop we're trying to look at is not closed. we can partition off the system we are trying to look at, but we effectively have an input into the system that is not being compensated for with an equal output. which means the system is steadily increasing in total energy.
your attacks contain no logic, or actual economic theory. actually your entire long rant containt no facts whatsoever. you doth say too much, whilst saying nothing.
the economy does not have the potential to cause the extinction of "life as we know it", the 6th major extinction event of the entire planet, but particularly of our own species.
2ndly, the only one going full retard is you, as you've proven that you actually know nothing of government, and how vital it is to modern life in a free nation. www.governmentisgood.com has several essays that will settle primitive brain free, and begin your transformation into an actual thinking human.
And thus you prove yourself to be a shill. If you aren't a shill, then that's your loss, cause you might as well earn some money for acting ignorant and posting BS.
Certainly, people have become millionaires pushing environmental protection (take a look at their houses and methods of travel).
By that you mean "Al Gore". Al Gore didn't become rich pushing environmentalism. He was already well off : his father (Al Gore, Sr) was a successful Congressman, they had a successful family farm. Even though he worked on that farm, manual labor, they weren't hurting, and were decidely upper middle class or more, as seen by Al Gore, Jr went to prestigious schools, then Harvard. And of course, a successful career in politics, except for his Presidential run.
So basically: no. No he didn't get rich off environmentalism, no one really gets rich off environmentalism.
I cannot think of a single person who has gotten rich pushing environmental destruction.
And of course then you say this. Which simply means you aren't thinking hard enough, or are just full of it.
Because basically your position, your statements, are the complete and total opposite of reality.
1- warm currents caused by global warming. the oceans are warming, due to global warming, and it is shifting the paths of some currents, and intensifying others. 2- it's risen 8 inches since hte 1880s, and that alone was enough to allow Lower Manhattan to flood from Sandy's storm surge. 3- its also not "just a foot" over the next 100 years. its closer to 3 feet by 2100, on the conservative side of estimates. 4- these arent even the main point. the main point is that the trend could reacha tipping point, beyond which it is garunteed that the Antarctic, Greenland, all the ice basically, will melt. gradually, over time, maybe 200 years...but still: ALL OF THE ICE SHEETS GONE. That is bad. That is bas because it means a minimum of ~80ft higher sea level. Which means Long Island, NYC, most of the eastern seaboard to about 70 miles inland (at least), California's Central Valley, LA and San Diego, all of the Florida, most of Louisiana, the gulf coast inland about 200 miles, Baja California (minus the mtn ridges), Seatle, Tokyo...the list goes on....will all be underwater.
Which translates into: 50% of the worlds population being displaced, and the worlds largest, most economically important cities, being gone. Because of global warming
No, most have proven to be pretty much spot on. You're failure to be educated and not repeat myths is your own problem, not a problem of Climate Science.
Denial timeline: Stage 1: It's not happening Stage 2: It is happening, but it's not us. Stage 3: It is happening, it is us, but there's nothing we can do because: jobs, economy, freedom Stage 4: It is happening, it is us, and we can solve it.
You are presently in Stage 2. You will enter reality upon reaching Stage 4. I urge you to continue your journey.
problem is there is no one else to vote for. there is no 3rd party choice. the greens, the independent, etc, they arent even on the ballot in most places.
Slashdot Mirror
Marine here. Safe to say I know a lot about em.
Pro gun. And pro (reasonable) gun control.
But come on. If you claim to use logic and reason, how can anyone look at other countries with far far more restrictions than us, and far lower gun crime and homocide rates, and not think "hmmm...maybe there's something to this? maybe i DONT need a .50cal or MK19* in my closet. Maybe I dont need enough weapons to personally equip the army of a small country. Maybe background checks to stop bad or questionable folks from being to too easily get one arent such a bad thing." Seriosuly. To reject it out of hand is not logical, its emotional. its a knee jerk reaction.
Hell, people want concealed carry on base now! Cause aparently they fear they cant trust their fellow Marines and Soldiers.....to which I say "then how in hell are you going to go into harms way with them if you dont trust them?" And I say that applies in everyday life too. Crime rates are down, and been going down for a long time. Its time to move past this active mistrust of anyone and everyone around you.
This is not a promotion of naivety. but at the same time, while you mock people for fearing the unknown, i'd say its the rabid virulent gun movement (as opposed to the majority of gun owners who are like myself, both pro gun yet ok with some reasonable controls) who is scared of the unknown, and everyone around them, looking at everyone with mistrust.
So take your rhetoric and stuff it AC.
*for deer hunting of course
thats an engineering problem, not a political one.
no. you fail to grasp reality of a modern cities budget.
the revenue from citations is not compensated for by the elimination of those who do traffic enforcement. they bring in far more than they cost, and city budgets often rely on that revenue stream to push local tax rates down while still maintaining a city budget that includes the services we consider essential in a modern community.
no.
the revenue from citations is not compensated for by the elimination of those who do traffic enforcement. they bring in far more than they cost, and city budgets often rely on that revenue stream to push local tax rates down while still maintaining a city budget that includes the services we consider essential in a modern community.
If you know, through traffic studies and past data, about how many citiations get written a year and how much gets paid in fines, its possible to predict and forecast the next year, and write a budget around that. a budget that doesnt impose as much of a tax burden because you can reasonably expect a certain amount of revenue from traffic fines. there is poential for abuse (as many of the cop hating /. crowd will quickly attest (for what its worth, i support cops generally)), but it does serve the local community to offload some tax burden in this manner.
but now there is potential to see that source of revenue reduced or eliminated. and yet the city budget is still what it is (removing a handful of positions for traffic enforcement wont reduce the budget that much). so the obvious solution (heresy to some wackos), is to raise the local taxes. or cut services....cause hey? who needs a fire department, or local schools?
its niether shocking nor controversial. its completely expected and a natural consequence.
who mods this kind of trash insightful?
because the storyline in Wolfenstein was shakespearean, right?
i was rather hoping that as Firefox and Opera have both decided to become little more than Chrome clones, replete with crappy interface and lack of customization (especially when Opera 12 was the KING of layout customization, a truly exceptional peice of software), that Chrome might opt to add more customization.
To be clear:
Firefox needs to stop chainging its UI every few releases. So when Firefox 29 finally became Just Another Chrome Clone (JACC), it amused me that it took only 24 hours for an extention called "Classic Firefox Restorer" or whatever to hit the web and become one of the most popular firefox extensions (but of course the devs will ignore that)
Opera 12 was the best browser I have ever used. The only reason I no longer use it exclusively, is because they've stopped updating it, and its page renderer chugs on many common pages these days. and now Opera 20 is JACC, that axed basically everything that appealed about Opera.
If I wanted to use Chrome, I would bloody use Chrome.
Stop messing with your browsers and alienating your users in the quest to chase Google with your JACC's.
Just like Zoos, Seaworld does a LOT for education. Seaworld and most reputable zoos also funnel a tremendous amount of money into conservation efforts.
people who would otherwise not even know whales exist (its just something in a book, something they might see...someday...maybe) get to see them up close. to learn about them. to learn about the problems they face in the wild. to learn about what human pressure on the environment is doing to them. no, seaworld isnt ideal for the individuals kept there, much like many zoos in smaller cities arent nearly as good for the animals as the larger refuges or zoos like the San Diego.
But they still do a LOT for public education, getting people to understand that maybe burning down rainforest isnt a good idea, that buying from certain companies or certain products leads indirectly to financing poaching or habitat exploitation.
yes those individuals arent in ideal conditions in many cases. but beacuse of the education opportunities provided by their presence, we can swing public opinion to help and make things better for many times larger wild populations. we can get people to get behind preservation and conservation. to demand better fishing practices, to demand better stewardship.
im an environmentalist and believer in the well treatment of animals, but here is where i diverge from folks who think the zoos and seaworlds of the world should all be shut down: i absolutely reject that these places have no value*. their biggest value is, and always has been, education of the masses who otherwise would know and care nothing. and if we can achieve that goal, i believe the planet will be for it. maybe someday we can reach the point where zoos are no longer necessary, but i dont think we're anywhere near that state of affairs yet.
*that's not to say places dont need improvements. And I believe the "zoo" Reno NV is a joke that ought be shutdown, since it's just a guy with a couple kennels stuffed with lions. there is a difference between a reputable Zoo and someone inspired by PT Barnum.
Who modded this up?
It has nothing to do with breathing their own excretions:
1- whales breathe air
2- your tank should have a filtration system
AMEN!
you dont even know what you are talking about.
you are spouting BS.
nothing you said is true.
youre conflating "local/regional problems" with "extinction level event facing the entire human race, and most of hte other species as well".
slight difference in scale.
people were there before, but there is a nonnegligible population spike in the "sunbelt states" from Arizona to Florida, but particuarly in the inland portions away from the cooling Gulf Coast breezes, that correlates to the advent and widespread adoption of A/C.
its not compensating.
its reacting.
the system as a whole is attempting to reach equillibirum.
at the boundary layer, at the water/ice interface, the ice gets warmer, and the water gets colder.
if the water gets colder enough, it will freeze.
likewise, if the ice gets wamer enough, it will melt.
in actuality, if you split it into fine enough pieces (Finite Element Analysis) you would see both occuring at the same time; but since we dont really care about the individual molecules, but rather than the system as a whole, the fact we see more ice melting than water freezing shows us that the system as a whole is more energetic as represented by temperature than it was previously.
ergo: the ice melts.
left to its own devices, with no further inputs, the system would eventually reach an equillibrium. assuming proper quantities and masses of materials, if I have X amount of 31F ice and X amount of 33F water, and mix them, equilibrium is achieved at 32F. The system is stable; it changes no further. At the molecule level (finite element analysis) yes, some molecules are freezing and others are melting, but on the whole its occuring in equal quantitites and the system is stable. It will not change any further, WITHOUT FURTHER INPUTS. could just as easily say 30F ice + 33F water, stable system at 31.5, expect the whole system freeze, or 32F ice and 34F water, stable at 33F, expect the whole system to melt. the specifics arent the point, the point is the equilibrium point will be achieved and will not change unless further inputs to the system occur (and this is why he sayd your grasp of thermodynamics is weak).
and the other key points that were made was that not only is the ice melting and not reaching equilibrium (the process slows the closer it gets to equilibrium), but the rate at which it is melting is increasing. and we have physically measured the water temperatures and shown that they are increasing. its not a stable system. thermdynamically, the loop we're trying to look at is not closed. we can partition off the system we are trying to look at, but we effectively have an input into the system that is not being compensated for with an equal output. which means the system is steadily increasing in total energy.
your attacks contain no logic, or actual economic theory.
actually your entire long rant containt no facts whatsoever.
you doth say too much, whilst saying nothing.
the economy does not have the potential to cause the extinction of "life as we know it", the 6th major extinction event of the entire planet, but particularly of our own species.
2ndly, the only one going full retard is you, as you've proven that you actually know nothing of government, and how vital it is to modern life in a free nation. www.governmentisgood.com has several essays that will settle primitive brain free, and begin your transformation into an actual thinking human.
And thus you prove yourself to be a shill.
If you aren't a shill, then that's your loss, cause you might as well earn some money for acting ignorant and posting BS.
they make their money off coal, the dirtiest of all energy sources....
seriously, just how dumb are you?
Certainly, people have become millionaires pushing environmental protection (take a look at their houses and methods of travel).
By that you mean "Al Gore". Al Gore didn't become rich pushing environmentalism. He was already well off : his father (Al Gore, Sr) was a successful Congressman, they had a successful family farm. Even though he worked on that farm, manual labor, they weren't hurting, and were decidely upper middle class or more, as seen by Al Gore, Jr went to prestigious schools, then Harvard. And of course, a successful career in politics, except for his Presidential run.
So basically: no. No he didn't get rich off environmentalism, no one really gets rich off environmentalism.
I cannot think of a single person who has gotten rich pushing environmental destruction.
And of course then you say this.
Which simply means you aren't thinking hard enough, or are just full of it.
Because basically your position, your statements, are the complete and total opposite of reality.
1- warm currents caused by global warming. the oceans are warming, due to global warming, and it is shifting the paths of some currents, and intensifying others.
2- it's risen 8 inches since hte 1880s, and that alone was enough to allow Lower Manhattan to flood from Sandy's storm surge.
3- its also not "just a foot" over the next 100 years. its closer to 3 feet by 2100, on the conservative side of estimates.
4- these arent even the main point. the main point is that the trend could reacha tipping point, beyond which it is garunteed that the Antarctic, Greenland, all the ice basically, will melt. gradually, over time, maybe 200 years...but still: ALL OF THE ICE SHEETS GONE. That is bad. That is bas because it means a minimum of ~80ft higher sea level. Which means Long Island, NYC, most of the eastern seaboard to about 70 miles inland (at least), California's Central Valley, LA and San Diego, all of the Florida, most of Louisiana, the gulf coast inland about 200 miles, Baja California (minus the mtn ridges), Seatle, Tokyo...the list goes on....will all be underwater.
Which translates into: 50% of the worlds population being displaced, and the worlds largest, most economically important cities, being gone.
Because of global warming
So it is, it REALLY IS, kind of a big deal.
No, most have proven to be pretty much spot on.
You're failure to be educated and not repeat myths is your own problem, not a problem of Climate Science.
Denial timeline:
Stage 1: It's not happening
Stage 2: It is happening, but it's not us.
Stage 3: It is happening, it is us, but there's nothing we can do because: jobs, economy, freedom
Stage 4: It is happening, it is us, and we can solve it.
You are presently in Stage 2.
You will enter reality upon reaching Stage 4. I urge you to continue your journey.
problem is there is no one else to vote for.
there is no 3rd party choice.
the greens, the independent, etc, they arent even on the ballot in most places.
more accurately: "until the company decides they need you to buy the newest iteration so they keep getting $$$"