And occasionally somebody proposes a space elevator too (which, based on current technologies, is only slightly more infeasible.)
The proposed road is uneconomic but not infeasible. A space elevator requires materials we can't even produce yet. (Worth some research dollars though since those materials would be really handy in a lot of applications)
Well they had a whole fleet there already, logistics are always tricky but it seems hard to imagine they couldn't have thrown in some troop transports.
Western nations have no stomach to use nuclear arms any more - so if Russia or Iran (well, really that should be when instead of if) uses nuclear arms against someone, very likely NATO will do nothing except sanctions. Really.
Depends on who they use them on. A NATO member, well it's probably WWIII. Uzbekistan, meh probably just lots of shouting and saber rattling, then some sanctions.
It has nothing to do with us being nice, and everything to do with the fact that we can smash flat pretty much anyone we want with conventional weapons, thus leaving little justification to go nuclear.
It was a dumb move that showed they didn't understand our internal politics, but if they were going to do it, it was pretty shortsighted not to land troops and take Hawaii. That would have allowed them to consolidate their Pearl Harbor air strike results and forced us over 2500 miles back to the West Coast. Given our industrial power it probably wouldn't have mattered in the long run, but it would have bought them at least an extra year.
Assad made a decision to ditch his chemical weapons in order to avoid military intervention by the USA.
His decision and timing were brilliant since it prevented Obama from launching airstrikes and cruise missiles which he was on the verge of doing. Assad can always rebuild his WMD program later after he crushes the rebels.
How fricking complicated is it to eat less than you burn?
Somewhat complicated, for most people this involves calorie tracking. Additionally, if all you do is pure calorie restriction you're going to end up with metabolic syndrome and fail.
You need very little fat. You can cut most of it out and not have any problems (besides hunger).
Well aside from rabbit starvation if you go too low and the fact that your testosterone production will drop through the floor, but hey who needs to feel good anyways?
No. Stable, developed, democratic nation states don't worry me much. Besides, as best I can tell they've had the bomb for a long time and haven't nuked anyone yet. I'm more worried about unstable, failed, theocratic and expansionist states or non-state actors.
Pretty much. No one cares about nuclear weapons since the cold war ended. Well, no one but old, irrelevant people.
I'm less worried about full scale nuclear war, but I'm a lot more worried about nuclear weapons proliferation to groups that are unlikely to use them with any sort of restraint.
Price would be lower if there was more R&D, same goes for any industry.
Sure, that could be true, but we're talking about the current situation, not some hypothetical future technology.
What comes out of the smoke stack is what the plants took from the air in the first place, zero sum AFAIK.
That's a bad argument as it could be applied to coal or other fossil fuels. A better argument would be to compare the emissions to what they would be via natural plant decay, in which case bio-generation is better than coal/oil, but not as good as many other technologies for the same reason fireplaces/wood stoves aren't that great.
They most definitely don't, how many people do you know who have 'Thermodynamic Central Heating Systems' or ' ground source heat pumps' or 'air source heat pumps'? these can save up to %75 or %80 fuel usage.
With high initial investments and long payback periods that make them unattractive for most users.
Natural gas is of course a CO2 emitter.
Of course it is, but it's a huge improvement over coal and one we can implement right now. Quit letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
We all negotiate our own pay scales, for which mine is above average because I am a valued worker and can negiotiate for myself, and we receive very good benefits (private health care, sports tickets, days away etc) for free.
Unions are generally most helpful for workers with little individual bargaining power. If you're a "professional" then generally you're not in that category and unions don't seem particularly useful. What I find fascinating is people that will go on and on about how evil unions are, but then turn around and say that trade associations (which are exactly the same thing from the business end) are just fine. Either grouping to increase bargaining power is good or it isn't, make up your mind.
Maybe because the geothermal, wave and tidal energy generation is currently trivial in scope and expensive. Bio-waste generation is actually not very green if you look at the composition of what's coming out the smoke stack. Energy efficiency is good but that's not something we really need to push on the consumption end, people already invest in all of the energy efficiency improvements that pay for themselves, if you're going to push that it needs to be on the research and pricing end. For base load, we should be trying to get rid of coal by replacing it with nuclear and natural gas. Solar and wind can help and should be deployed but without better storage technology they can't really solve the whole problem. Hydro is great but pretty much already at maximum.
The problem is in america, we are still stuck on the idea of Big Energy large grids covering the nation. We don't think in terms of small energy, having a small community powered by modest green sources.
Perhaps because we no longer live in small town agricultural communities? Unless you're talking about New York being a "small community".
The vast majority of students will never need to know how to analyse literature.
True, which is why we should remove that portion of the curriculum. They do need to know how to think critically about what they've read so as to be able to evaluate things like contracts or marketing materials though so there needs to be something as a replacement.
The vast majority of students will never need to know about world history.
As part of any decent civics program they need enough to knowledge of this subject to be able to vote intelligently. They may not need the intricate details of 12th century Romania, but at least an overview of some of the main civilizations that lead to the development of Western society would be appropriate.
The vast majority of students will never need to solve algebraic equations.
Totally untrue. I have $42.06, beer costs $9.13, how much beer can I buy? All students need at least single variable algebra.
Wind on the other hand has already arrived: $80.3/MWh
The problem for both wind and solar is energy storage due to irregular generation. I think we're to the point where we could safely mandate all new construction be built with sufficient solar to cover their peak daytime load minus continuous base load. That would start having a big impact on volume pricing and battery technology research, but to say that solar is already cheaper is getting ahead of ourselves.
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Well, there is that whole crash risk problem.
And occasionally somebody proposes a space elevator too (which, based on current technologies, is only slightly more infeasible.)
The proposed road is uneconomic but not infeasible. A space elevator requires materials we can't even produce yet. (Worth some research dollars though since those materials would be really handy in a lot of applications)
Well if you compare our (admittedly stupid) immigration policy with that of say Japan we look positively enlightened.
Well they had a whole fleet there already, logistics are always tricky but it seems hard to imagine they couldn't have thrown in some troop transports.
Western nations have no stomach to use nuclear arms any more - so if Russia or Iran (well, really that should be when instead of if) uses nuclear arms against someone, very likely NATO will do nothing except sanctions. Really.
Depends on who they use them on. A NATO member, well it's probably WWIII. Uzbekistan, meh probably just lots of shouting and saber rattling, then some sanctions.
Your good vs bad seem an awful lot like west vs the rest.
As bad as the West is the rest of the world make us look like saints.
Indirect collective revenge is not a good reason to kill 200,000 people.
Generally no, setting an example of what happens when poke us with a sharp stick, that's another matter entirely.
The USA is still the main bad actor.
If we're limiting the discussion to nuclear weapons you seem to have little justification for that stance since we haven't bombed anyone lately.
It has nothing to do with us being nice, and everything to do with the fact that we can smash flat pretty much anyone we want with conventional weapons, thus leaving little justification to go nuclear.
It was a dumb move that showed they didn't understand our internal politics, but if they were going to do it, it was pretty shortsighted not to land troops and take Hawaii. That would have allowed them to consolidate their Pearl Harbor air strike results and forced us over 2500 miles back to the West Coast. Given our industrial power it probably wouldn't have mattered in the long run, but it would have bought them at least an extra year.
Assad made a decision to ditch his chemical weapons in order to avoid military intervention by the USA.
His decision and timing were brilliant since it prevented Obama from launching airstrikes and cruise missiles which he was on the verge of doing. Assad can always rebuild his WMD program later after he crushes the rebels.
Agreed, though I'd have to specify that it be hypertrophy inducing exercise or you're just making the problem worse.
It won't be easy. It WILL be unpleasant.
Of course, but that's no reason to make it harder than necessary by doing it stupidly.
Eat right, Exercise Properly, Manage your hormones.
How fricking complicated is it to eat less than you burn?
Somewhat complicated, for most people this involves calorie tracking. Additionally, if all you do is pure calorie restriction you're going to end up with metabolic syndrome and fail.
You need very little fat. You can cut most of it out and not have any problems (besides hunger).
Well aside from rabbit starvation if you go too low and the fact that your testosterone production will drop through the floor, but hey who needs to feel good anyways?
You mean countries like Israel?
No. Stable, developed, democratic nation states don't worry me much. Besides, as best I can tell they've had the bomb for a long time and haven't nuked anyone yet. I'm more worried about unstable, failed, theocratic and expansionist states or non-state actors.
Pretty much. No one cares about nuclear weapons since the cold war ended. Well, no one but old, irrelevant people.
I'm less worried about full scale nuclear war, but I'm a lot more worried about nuclear weapons proliferation to groups that are unlikely to use them with any sort of restraint.
Price would be lower if there was more R&D, same goes for any industry.
Sure, that could be true, but we're talking about the current situation, not some hypothetical future technology.
What comes out of the smoke stack is what the plants took from the air in the first place, zero sum AFAIK.
That's a bad argument as it could be applied to coal or other fossil fuels. A better argument would be to compare the emissions to what they would be via natural plant decay, in which case bio-generation is better than coal/oil, but not as good as many other technologies for the same reason fireplaces/wood stoves aren't that great.
They most definitely don't, how many people do you know who have 'Thermodynamic Central Heating Systems' or ' ground source heat pumps' or 'air source heat pumps'? these can save up to %75 or %80 fuel usage.
With high initial investments and long payback periods that make them unattractive for most users.
Natural gas is of course a CO2 emitter.
Of course it is, but it's a huge improvement over coal and one we can implement right now. Quit letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
We all negotiate our own pay scales, for which mine is above average because I am a valued worker and can negiotiate for myself, and we receive very good benefits (private health care, sports tickets, days away etc) for free.
Unions are generally most helpful for workers with little individual bargaining power. If you're a "professional" then generally you're not in that category and unions don't seem particularly useful. What I find fascinating is people that will go on and on about how evil unions are, but then turn around and say that trade associations (which are exactly the same thing from the business end) are just fine. Either grouping to increase bargaining power is good or it isn't, make up your mind.
Maybe because the geothermal, wave and tidal energy generation is currently trivial in scope and expensive. Bio-waste generation is actually not very green if you look at the composition of what's coming out the smoke stack. Energy efficiency is good but that's not something we really need to push on the consumption end, people already invest in all of the energy efficiency improvements that pay for themselves, if you're going to push that it needs to be on the research and pricing end. For base load, we should be trying to get rid of coal by replacing it with nuclear and natural gas. Solar and wind can help and should be deployed but without better storage technology they can't really solve the whole problem. Hydro is great but pretty much already at maximum.
The problem is in america, we are still stuck on the idea of Big Energy large grids covering the nation. We don't think in terms of small energy, having a small community powered by modest green sources.
Perhaps because we no longer live in small town agricultural communities? Unless you're talking about New York being a "small community".
The vast majority of students will never need to know how to analyse literature.
True, which is why we should remove that portion of the curriculum. They do need to know how to think critically about what they've read so as to be able to evaluate things like contracts or marketing materials though so there needs to be something as a replacement.
The vast majority of students will never need to know about world history.
As part of any decent civics program they need enough to knowledge of this subject to be able to vote intelligently. They may not need the intricate details of 12th century Romania, but at least an overview of some of the main civilizations that lead to the development of Western society would be appropriate.
The vast majority of students will never need to solve algebraic equations.
Totally untrue. I have $42.06, beer costs $9.13, how much beer can I buy? All students need at least single variable algebra.
As solar is already cost-competitive with coal
We're not there yet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Solar PV $130/MWh
Coal $95.6/MWh
Wind on the other hand has already arrived: $80.3/MWh
The problem for both wind and solar is energy storage due to irregular generation. I think we're to the point where we could safely mandate all new construction be built with sufficient solar to cover their peak daytime load minus continuous base load. That would start having a big impact on volume pricing and battery technology research, but to say that solar is already cheaper is getting ahead of ourselves.
Convincing them it's worth paying for isn't too hard, convincing them that they should be the ones to pay for it, now that's tough.