Therefore there is no prospect of using the iron for such a process
You're stating the obvious.
However getting them to react at the nuclear level would be very ambitious - and the iron would keep on getting in the way.
The iron is mostly in the core. The mantle consists largely of magnesium, silicon, and oxygen, all elements that can undergo fusion (and do in nature). In addition, there are enough heavy elements that some form of catalyzed fission may also take place. A "Death Star" might also only work on some planets, or require preparation in advance of the final strike. Of course it's "ambitious" and we have no idea how to do it. The point is that known physics don't demand beaming in all the energy or having a gigantic lump of antimatter.
Incidentally, Mercury has had most of its mantle blown away and is mostly core; it also has one of the largest impact craters in the solar system. Coincidence?:-)
so long as corporate entities have corporate personhood, they get to have fault for their moral failings and criminal prosecution for the impact those failings have on others, just like everyone else with personhood.
"Just like everybody else"? You're saying that if I donate money to my city councilor and then ask him to adopt a policy that benefits me, I should be criminally prosecuted? If that's the rule, then about 90% of teachers should be thrown in jail, because they all donate to, and lobby and petition to, politicians that then raise their wages.
In fact, nobody should face criminal prosecution for petitioning or lobbying the government for anything, no matter how outrageous it is what they are asking for. It is the job of our legislators to decide which requests are reasonable and in the public interest and which ones are self-serving. And if they fail that, the legislators should get punished, and we do that at the ballot box.
Americans SAY they are considerably less materialistic than other nations. FTFY.
Materialism is a personal preference or choice, and asking is a reasonable way to find out what that is. But if you think they are lying, there is tons more data supporting the notion that Americans are generally less materialistic than other nations.
Have you noticed that people from the wealthier nations tend to say they are less materialistic?Funny that.
Nothing "funny" about it. You need to reach a certain level of material wealth to be less materialistic.
I said that the American culture is obsessed by money - quite a different statement. In fact, money is often prized as a measure of status rather than for what it can buy.
Americans are "obsessed by money" only to the degree that we can make decisions about our money that Europeans are denied. A European accusing an American of being "obsessed by money" is like an impotent man accusing a healthy man of being "obsessed by sex" simply for having working equipment and using it.
Beyond rational investment decisions that any mature adult should be allowed to do, Americans aren't very obsessed about money; most of us just accumulate it gradually. In fact, as research by Thomas Stanley and others has shown, wealthy Americans generally dislike displaying their wealth and live quite frugally.
In my personal experience, conspicuous displays of wealth and status consciousness are much more common in Europe. In fact, the pettiness with which people squabble over status, proper forms of address, proper attire, etc. in Europe is really off-putting. Of course, Europe does allow people to gain status through a few other ways, like sucking up to the political or academic power hierarchies; that isn't a good thing either.
Money to most Americans is a means to an end, a way to pursue the values and ideals they actually care about.
"As the sociologist Georg Simmel wrote over a century ago, if you make money the center of your value system, then finally you have no value system, because money is not a value".
Well, Georg Simmel certainly got his wish, because about a decade after his death, his country made community, fairness, and equality the center of its value system, under the NSDAP party program. And it did it again two decades later in the GDR. And it was a resounding success: people indeed stopped caring about money, because they ended up caring mostly about not starving, not getting shot, and not getting gassed. Germany's tradition of academic philosophy that Simmal was part of bears a great deal of the blame.
And, of course, Simmel himself came from a well-off family and never had to worry about a lack of money limiting what he could do. His teachings are the philosophical equivalent of "let them eat cake".
So far as I'm concerned they hadn't been testing new drugs thoroughly enough, and people were getting hurt or dying because of it.
A lot of people also get hurt and killed by not making new drugs available that could help them.
Ultimately, "they" should do the testing, and each patient should decide for themselves what risks to take. Unfortunately, in our paternalistic system, people are denied those choices.
A result has to be proven by a second independent study before you can take it seriously.
That's not sufficient. In many experiments, it is easy for multiple independent researchers to share incorrect assumptions or to make the same mistake.
Trusting scientific results is something that should take decades, many repeated experiments, and an understanding of how those results fit in with the rest of science.
Presumably, you wouldn't pump all the energy to destroy a planet in from the outside. Instead, you'd probably fire some kind of catalyst into the planet that causes fusion or fission throughout the planet. Keep in mind that most of a planet is already under very high temperatures and pressures. Potentially, even a strong muon beam or similarly heavy charged particles might start to induce fusion. There may also be many other mechanisms for inducing fusion or fission in solid matter that we simply don't know about.
Senior water right are property - like real estate, gold, food, houses, cars, home computers.
No, senior water rights are quite different from property in many ways. So, just because you think the takings clause applies doesn't mean this is legally settled territory. I'm sure people will make a claim like you are attempting to do, but I don't think it has much chance of prevailing in court.
Alternatively, if you want to think of senior water rights as property, then they are property whose value and utility can change subject to arbitrary decisions of the state. That is, when people acquired these water rights, they already knew (and priced into the acquisition) that the state might come in and change the rules for water usage on them later. So, they aren't losing anything when the state exercises its option to restrict water usage.
I think a simple way for California to deal with this is to simply limit the kind of agricultural activities that constitute "beneficial use".
A lot of people moved to Silicon Valley back when it was inexpensive and relaxed and when the computer industry was in its infancy. These people are now very wealthy and have founded big companies. In addition, there is a gigantic professional network in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. Those things attract workers, despite the way California is mismanaged.
a place that is culturally very accepting of immigrants, then maybe California is for you
The general attitude in California towards immigrants is that immigrants are poor, helpless, oppressed people that can only make it if the government intervenes to protect them from evil white men. Whether that is "very accepting" of immigrants is highly debatable; personally, I find it insulting.
What needs to happen in California is that the state ends handing out nearly free water to large agribusinesses and charges all rate payers the same rate.
The biggest destinations in California are the Bay Area and LA, and people migrate there not for the quality of life (which sucks) or for gardening, but because a bunch of important companies have their headquarters there.
Furthermore, demographically, California isn't doing so well either:
You can have that now: get a travel trailer and put some solar cells and a small wind turbine on it. I guarantee you it's cheaper and better designed. Get a four season one if you want to stay in it in the winter. And unlike this tiny "house" that violates code just about everywhere, you can actually find a place to put a travel trailer.
Nonetheless, the whole thing is a bit odd in that the authorities seem to be going to extraordinary lengths compared to crimes that the police just can't seem to be arsed to deal with properly. That makes it seem political.
it is political: British and Swedish police and prosecutors feel like they are being made fools of very publicly. That has nothing to do with why Assange is famous per se. He could have been an actor or sports star too. But once there was a lot of press coverage and he tried to get away by taking refuge in a foreign embassy, police and prosecutors were not going to let this go.
That isn't to say that a US extradition request also motivated them, but I think they would have done this even without it. Furthermore, I don't see any particular reason for people to object to a US extradition request, a request that is valid under mutual agreements between Sweden, Australia, and the US.
Sweden went to very usual lengths to get Assange for a case of this stature
You can bet any rapist who sought refuge in a foreign embassy to escape prosecution would result in prosecutors going through unusual lengths, if not for any other reason than that they don't want this sort of thing to become commonplace.
Why the heck don't you start using your head instead of spouting platitudes? Are you so ignorant that you think that Nazi Germany came about because Germans were bloodlusty anti-Semites to the core? What Germans voted for in the 1920's and early 1930's was progressive policies, largely the same policies progressives advocate today.
And if you advocate progressive policies today, you better be prepared to face the historic reality of what happened when other peoples voted for this in the past.
Does anybody really thing Bernie Sanders is comparable to Adolf Hitler?
Did I make such a comparison anywhere? Hitler wasn't even the leader of the NSDAP in 1920 and as far as I know didn't write their political program.
No, Sanders is no Hitler: Sanders is neither a genocidal maniac, nor an anti-Semite. That doesn't mean we can't look at the historical precedents for the economic and social policies he is advocating and how they worked out.
True - NOW. But this statement was NOT true when she began the process.
That's not true. There are multiple rules and regulations governing the use of E-mail. Some of those came into force after she left office, but others were in force throughout her tenure.
In addition, in her position, she was responsible for setting sensible policies for the department, and even if she had complied with all regulations, her use of a private E-mail server was a major policy screwup on her part.
If she gets elected anyway - still a high probability - she will have to stop trying to keep anything private.
If she gets elected anyway, you can kiss your civil rights, free speech, your privacy, and transparent government goodbye, because she is going to destroy all of those if she can.
You aren't addressing the point, that too much money in politics erodes democratic virtues in politics.
For something to be "eroded", it has to be present in the first place. When exactly do you think this "democratic virtue" was present before money eroded it? And what exactly do you think constituted this "democratic virtue" when it was present according to you?
Milton Friedman's idea of freedom is capitalist freedom, not worker freedom.
Correct. That's because the kind of "worker freedom" socialists imagine isn't attainable. That is, capitalist freedom is highly imperfect, but it's the most freedom we know how to achieve and the economically best outcome for everybody. Socialist "freedom" just ends in totalitarianism, and socialist economics ends in universal poverty.
Freedom in Friedman's view is the freedom to pollute, the freedom to exploit workers, bust unions and enrich the rich at everyone else's expense.
Those are just your economic delusions. They are not actually consequences of the political choices Friedman advocates.
So I'll chalk you up as supporting the Citizens United decision, which puts you at odds with most Americans.
Of course I support the Citizens United decision. I very much believe that in a free country, people ought to be free to spend their private money on making a film critical of Hillary Clinton.
His opinions are worthless to me and I wouldn't spend one second reading his nonsense.
What is "worthless" is the political opinions of wealthy pampered American, people like you, who have no idea at all what socialism is like in the real world.
willingly accepted to be taxed to pool their resources... Nobody stopped them. Nothing oppressive. No coercion.
You're pretending that the 10-20% of the population who voted for a socialist party and somehow put it into power then legitimize that party doing whatever it wants to to the remaining 80-90% of the population; that if they show up with guns to take people's property (which is what tax collectors do), that doesn't represent coercion. That's of course nonsense. Even if a majority of voters voted for instituting socialism, it would still represent coercion of the minority voting against it. In practice, socialist governments in Europe are installed
There's been plenty of free and democratic countries in Europe who willingly voted in a socialist government,
Voting in a socialist government (usually, a coalition led by a socialist party) doesn't make a country "socialist". Many European "socialist" parties are socialist in name only, and they couldn't deliver socialism even if they wanted to, because they are constrained by their coalition partners and their constitutions.
and together achieve greater things (free education, better infrastructures and healthcare, etc).
Having actually grown up in several of those countries, I can tell you that there is little that's "great" about it. Furthermore, the US has more government spending per capita on education, health care, and infrastructure than many of those countries you refer to, so clearly whatever you think is wrong, insufficient spending isn't the problem.
Wow, Godwin already?
Well, you better pay some attention to history, because Sanders programs and what you advocate are indeed awfully close to such historical models. And keep in mind that German voters voluntarily and willingly gave up their democracy and installed a leader who was supposed to fix the economy, restore fairness to wages, and give everybody old age pensions, health care, and free education.
I don't know what exactly you're trying to get at.
My point is simply that the only system in which everybody who contributes to the common good does so willingly is the free market.
Bernie Sanders does not advocate government in which people willingly contribute to the common good, he advocates government in which people are coerced to contribute to what other people declare to be (but rarely is) "the common good".
So, you're right: only individuals have rights, and free markets respect those rights, while socialism and social democracy necessarily violates the rights of at least some people.
As a general case no, but for services the government provides there's always debates of whether they should be provided by public employees or purchases from private companies.
Government purchasing services from private companies is not a "free market choice".
while private healthcare is typically an experienced doctor doing routine work to maximize the number of procedures he can bill the government for
Again, you are comparing one broken, corrupt government scheme (government-run healthcare) with an even more broken, corrupt government scheme (private doctors paid for by a government-run or government-regulated health plan).
Slashdot Mirror
You're stating the obvious.
The iron is mostly in the core. The mantle consists largely of magnesium, silicon, and oxygen, all elements that can undergo fusion (and do in nature). In addition, there are enough heavy elements that some form of catalyzed fission may also take place. A "Death Star" might also only work on some planets, or require preparation in advance of the final strike. Of course it's "ambitious" and we have no idea how to do it. The point is that known physics don't demand beaming in all the energy or having a gigantic lump of antimatter.
Incidentally, Mercury has had most of its mantle blown away and is mostly core; it also has one of the largest impact craters in the solar system. Coincidence? :-)
"Just like everybody else"? You're saying that if I donate money to my city councilor and then ask him to adopt a policy that benefits me, I should be criminally prosecuted? If that's the rule, then about 90% of teachers should be thrown in jail, because they all donate to, and lobby and petition to, politicians that then raise their wages.
In fact, nobody should face criminal prosecution for petitioning or lobbying the government for anything, no matter how outrageous it is what they are asking for. It is the job of our legislators to decide which requests are reasonable and in the public interest and which ones are self-serving. And if they fail that, the legislators should get punished, and we do that at the ballot box.
Materialism is a personal preference or choice, and asking is a reasonable way to find out what that is. But if you think they are lying, there is tons more data supporting the notion that Americans are generally less materialistic than other nations.
Nothing "funny" about it. You need to reach a certain level of material wealth to be less materialistic.
Americans are "obsessed by money" only to the degree that we can make decisions about our money that Europeans are denied. A European accusing an American of being "obsessed by money" is like an impotent man accusing a healthy man of being "obsessed by sex" simply for having working equipment and using it.
Beyond rational investment decisions that any mature adult should be allowed to do, Americans aren't very obsessed about money; most of us just accumulate it gradually. In fact, as research by Thomas Stanley and others has shown, wealthy Americans generally dislike displaying their wealth and live quite frugally.
In my personal experience, conspicuous displays of wealth and status consciousness are much more common in Europe. In fact, the pettiness with which people squabble over status, proper forms of address, proper attire, etc. in Europe is really off-putting. Of course, Europe does allow people to gain status through a few other ways, like sucking up to the political or academic power hierarchies; that isn't a good thing either.
Americans are actually considerably less materialistic than other nations: http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-p...
Money to most Americans is a means to an end, a way to pursue the values and ideals they actually care about.
Well, Georg Simmel certainly got his wish, because about a decade after his death, his country made community, fairness, and equality the center of its value system, under the NSDAP party program. And it did it again two decades later in the GDR. And it was a resounding success: people indeed stopped caring about money, because they ended up caring mostly about not starving, not getting shot, and not getting gassed. Germany's tradition of academic philosophy that Simmal was part of bears a great deal of the blame.
And, of course, Simmel himself came from a well-off family and never had to worry about a lack of money limiting what he could do. His teachings are the philosophical equivalent of "let them eat cake".
It's also a massive barrier to entry for competitors. At fault, either way, is the FDA and how it operates.
A lot of people also get hurt and killed by not making new drugs available that could help them.
Ultimately, "they" should do the testing, and each patient should decide for themselves what risks to take. Unfortunately, in our paternalistic system, people are denied those choices.
That's not sufficient. In many experiments, it is easy for multiple independent researchers to share incorrect assumptions or to make the same mistake.
Trusting scientific results is something that should take decades, many repeated experiments, and an understanding of how those results fit in with the rest of science.
Presumably, you wouldn't pump all the energy to destroy a planet in from the outside. Instead, you'd probably fire some kind of catalyst into the planet that causes fusion or fission throughout the planet. Keep in mind that most of a planet is already under very high temperatures and pressures. Potentially, even a strong muon beam or similarly heavy charged particles might start to induce fusion. There may also be many other mechanisms for inducing fusion or fission in solid matter that we simply don't know about.
No, senior water rights are quite different from property in many ways. So, just because you think the takings clause applies doesn't mean this is legally settled territory. I'm sure people will make a claim like you are attempting to do, but I don't think it has much chance of prevailing in court.
Alternatively, if you want to think of senior water rights as property, then they are property whose value and utility can change subject to arbitrary decisions of the state. That is, when people acquired these water rights, they already knew (and priced into the acquisition) that the state might come in and change the rules for water usage on them later. So, they aren't losing anything when the state exercises its option to restrict water usage.
I think a simple way for California to deal with this is to simply limit the kind of agricultural activities that constitute "beneficial use".
No, mismanagement is the cause of the misery in California.
At this point, growth is the only thing that keeps California from going bankrupt.
No, just in Silicon Valley and LA. Most of the rest of California can deal with this stuff just fine.
A lot of people moved to Silicon Valley back when it was inexpensive and relaxed and when the computer industry was in its infancy. These people are now very wealthy and have founded big companies. In addition, there is a gigantic professional network in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. Those things attract workers, despite the way California is mismanaged.
The general attitude in California towards immigrants is that immigrants are poor, helpless, oppressed people that can only make it if the government intervenes to protect them from evil white men. Whether that is "very accepting" of immigrants is highly debatable; personally, I find it insulting.
What needs to happen in California is that the state ends handing out nearly free water to large agribusinesses and charges all rate payers the same rate.
The biggest destinations in California are the Bay Area and LA, and people migrate there not for the quality of life (which sucks) or for gardening, but because a bunch of important companies have their headquarters there.
Furthermore, demographically, California isn't doing so well either:
http://knowmore.washingtonpost...
"I'm Frida Waterfall, leader of the Greenorita Eco-Feminist Collective, and we will not let you man-doze this beautiful gyno-desert."
You can have that now: get a travel trailer and put some solar cells and a small wind turbine on it. I guarantee you it's cheaper and better designed. Get a four season one if you want to stay in it in the winter. And unlike this tiny "house" that violates code just about everywhere, you can actually find a place to put a travel trailer.
it is political: British and Swedish police and prosecutors feel like they are being made fools of very publicly. That has nothing to do with why Assange is famous per se. He could have been an actor or sports star too. But once there was a lot of press coverage and he tried to get away by taking refuge in a foreign embassy, police and prosecutors were not going to let this go.
That isn't to say that a US extradition request also motivated them, but I think they would have done this even without it. Furthermore, I don't see any particular reason for people to object to a US extradition request, a request that is valid under mutual agreements between Sweden, Australia, and the US.
You can bet any rapist who sought refuge in a foreign embassy to escape prosecution would result in prosecutors going through unusual lengths, if not for any other reason than that they don't want this sort of thing to become commonplace.
Why the heck don't you start using your head instead of spouting platitudes? Are you so ignorant that you think that Nazi Germany came about because Germans were bloodlusty anti-Semites to the core? What Germans voted for in the 1920's and early 1930's was progressive policies, largely the same policies progressives advocate today.
And if you advocate progressive policies today, you better be prepared to face the historic reality of what happened when other peoples voted for this in the past.
Did I make such a comparison anywhere? Hitler wasn't even the leader of the NSDAP in 1920 and as far as I know didn't write their political program.
No, Sanders is no Hitler: Sanders is neither a genocidal maniac, nor an anti-Semite. That doesn't mean we can't look at the historical precedents for the economic and social policies he is advocating and how they worked out.
That's not true. There are multiple rules and regulations governing the use of E-mail. Some of those came into force after she left office, but others were in force throughout her tenure.
In addition, in her position, she was responsible for setting sensible policies for the department, and even if she had complied with all regulations, her use of a private E-mail server was a major policy screwup on her part.
If she gets elected anyway, you can kiss your civil rights, free speech, your privacy, and transparent government goodbye, because she is going to destroy all of those if she can.
Hillary isn't ignorant, she knows exactly what she is doing. Hillary is calculating, corrupt, and evil.
For something to be "eroded", it has to be present in the first place. When exactly do you think this "democratic virtue" was present before money eroded it? And what exactly do you think constituted this "democratic virtue" when it was present according to you?
Correct. That's because the kind of "worker freedom" socialists imagine isn't attainable. That is, capitalist freedom is highly imperfect, but it's the most freedom we know how to achieve and the economically best outcome for everybody. Socialist "freedom" just ends in totalitarianism, and socialist economics ends in universal poverty.
Those are just your economic delusions. They are not actually consequences of the political choices Friedman advocates.
Of course I support the Citizens United decision. I very much believe that in a free country, people ought to be free to spend their private money on making a film critical of Hillary Clinton.
What is "worthless" is the political opinions of wealthy pampered American, people like you, who have no idea at all what socialism is like in the real world.
You're pretending that the 10-20% of the population who voted for a socialist party and somehow put it into power then legitimize that party doing whatever it wants to to the remaining 80-90% of the population; that if they show up with guns to take people's property (which is what tax collectors do), that doesn't represent coercion. That's of course nonsense. Even if a majority of voters voted for instituting socialism, it would still represent coercion of the minority voting against it. In practice, socialist governments in Europe are installed
Voting in a socialist government (usually, a coalition led by a socialist party) doesn't make a country "socialist". Many European "socialist" parties are socialist in name only, and they couldn't deliver socialism even if they wanted to, because they are constrained by their coalition partners and their constitutions.
Having actually grown up in several of those countries, I can tell you that there is little that's "great" about it. Furthermore, the US has more government spending per capita on education, health care, and infrastructure than many of those countries you refer to, so clearly whatever you think is wrong, insufficient spending isn't the problem.
Well, you better pay some attention to history, because Sanders programs and what you advocate are indeed awfully close to such historical models. And keep in mind that German voters voluntarily and willingly gave up their democracy and installed a leader who was supposed to fix the economy, restore fairness to wages, and give everybody old age pensions, health care, and free education.
I don't know what exactly you're trying to get at.
My point is simply that the only system in which everybody who contributes to the common good does so willingly is the free market.
Bernie Sanders does not advocate government in which people willingly contribute to the common good, he advocates government in which people are coerced to contribute to what other people declare to be (but rarely is) "the common good".
So, you're right: only individuals have rights, and free markets respect those rights, while socialism and social democracy necessarily violates the rights of at least some people.
Government purchasing services from private companies is not a "free market choice".
Again, you are comparing one broken, corrupt government scheme (government-run healthcare) with an even more broken, corrupt government scheme (private doctors paid for by a government-run or government-regulated health plan).