If you still don't believe me, consider: while chloroplasts were free-living cyanobacteria millions of years ago, they are now incapable of survival outside of the host cell
No, their defenses may be lacking, but they can survive perfectly well in at least some environments.
additionally, they cannot replicate without the host cell so they are "not actually 'fully' alive" either
Yes they can. They have their own dna, their own ribosomes, everything.
Considering that a substantial portion of their DNA is also stored in the nucleus of the plant cell, one must really consider the chloroplast part of the host cell
This is news to me. There are supporting structures in the plant cell, but that's limited to a sort of 3-dimensional support beam that keeps chloroplasts in their location. More like a fence to keep them in place and to accelerate or decelerate their operations.
Proof of that : you can perfectly well stimulate a chloroplast to replicate itself outside of a plant cell.
The reverse is not true : a plant cell without chloroplasts cannot hope to divide successfully. Sometimes plant cells even die, in nature, after division because the chloroplasts refuse to divide for some reason (like insufficient materials delivered to them).
that is why any biologist will say that chloroplasts are an organelle inside (some) plant cells.
Imho, that's more a result of doing this for 150 years when it was not known that chloroplasts and mitochondria could survive and replicate by themselves.
Philosophically I'm in the camp that states "science improves when scientists die" : definitions and (consensus) theories get more correct and accepted as the defenders of the older (and less accurate) theories die. People don't change their minds nearly enough.
Just think that, say, tomorrow someone comes up with convincing proof that there's no AGW and that somehow it was the sun after all. It would take decades before such a theory, no matter how correct, would get accepted.
Or, say we found that there's no Higgs boson after all, that we've found all particles fully. Do you think they'd destroy the LHC ? Or would the LHC scientists still insist on checking the old theory ? We all know the answer.
But the best example is Einstein. First, a victim of academic exclusion to the point where he took a job as a nighttime security guard, and then himself (partly) responsible for firing at least a dozen people for believing quantum theory was correct. And lo and behold : a huge leap in acceptance of quantum mechanics came mere months after the death of Einstein. Coincidence ? Perhaps.
The same argument is applied to mitochondria: they are part of animal cells and thus, animal cells are alive. Trying to split the eukaryotic cells from mitochondria (or plant cells from chloroplasts) is like taking the creme filling out of a Twinkie; you can't because both parts are integral to the whole. Neither you nor your liver would survive very long without each other, and the same can be said for eukaryotic cells and mitochondria. (Obviously, this doesn't generalize to other organs as you are living proof that life can be sustained sans brain).
I like twinkies with jam filling. And cows would not survive long without grass. Yet they're not one organism. This is not a good criterium to use.
You could, and it's been done, replace chlorplasts or mitochondria with another species of them and the plant/animal cell would function perfectly well. There have even been some reports of successfully replacing chloroplasts with cyanobactera that weren't degenerate at all, and the cells functioned.
Google "halabja campaign". As far as nonexistent weapons go, they sure produce a hell of a lot of corpses.
So here's the reality : 1) Saddam fired WMD's at defenceless civilians, in an attempt to prop up the sunni islamic part of Iraq's population against the other groups 2) The bodies were found, analyzed 3) factories were found, analyzed 4) this analysis was considered proof by at least 1 court of law, sufficient to hand out death senteces. In addition to that the proof was recognized by the UN. 5) you're quite correct, no weapons were found after the invasion
Conclusion: a) of lefties : there never were any weapons ! Bushitler b) of righties : where the f#@$! did those weapons go ????
Please explain one more time which of these is the stupid way of thinking and why ?
*Ahem* the basic premise is wrong. Plants are NOT the most efficient at photosynthesis. In fact, plants, in the most narrow definition of the word, are incapable of photosynthesis.
Plant cells do, however, contain a degenerate cyanobacter, there are a few different species but we call all of them "chloroplasts". Strictly speaking this part of plant cells is not actually plant in origin.
Just like animal cells are not actually capable of digesting food, and using it to convert ADP into ATP. We do however contain degenerate cyanobacter that are capable of that feat, and who share their ATP with us. Strictly speaking, however, they are not "animal".
Plant and animal cells are not, in the strict definition of the word, alive, since they do not really fulfill all of life's functions themselves. Specifically plants and animals both lack "inherent" digestive capacity. And without digestive capacity all other living activities would soon cease. Both families do have a symbiotic relationship with a more primitive lifeform that is alive. Plant and animal cells may be more alive than viruses, but they are not actually "fully" alive.
Needless to say, the cyanobacter by itself is more efficient at photosynthesis than the entire plant cells. For starters, it captures a (much) greater portion of sunlight when not surrounded by a cell wall, and the food doesn't need to be shared with what is essentially a parasitic lifeform in this application. Normally the plant chloroplast relationship would be called symbiotic since the plant provides the chloroplasts with otherwise unavailable access to sunlight. However in this case it's direct human intervention that provides the access to sunlight.
You know, if you assume that there is zero critical thinking in people, then yes, you're right of course.
But of course that would make you a parrot for... what ? MSNBC ? BBC ? Or perhaps you're a blog reader : a parrot for Cory Doctorrow ? After all if you assume no-one has critical thinking skills, that would probably mostly mean that you do not see a need for critical thinking yourself.
And about viewing fox news : an extra perspective never hurts. I like to read the BBC frontpage, and to compensate for the (rather pronounced and obvious) leftist/progressive bias they have I watch fox news. And I listen to the radio on the way to and from work, but the station tends to be whoever's playing whatever I'm in the mood for.
Did the muslim countries sign the declaration of human rights ? Well, no. They signed the "Cairo declaration of human rights in islam".
There's a difference between the 2 treaties.
This is the opinion, not of some baboon, nor of any non-muslim. It is the opinion of the oic. It is the opinion of 83 muslim heads of state. They specifically state:
The CDHRI gives men and women the "right to marriage" regardless of their race, colour or nationality, but not religion. In addition women are given "equal human dignity", "own rights to enjoy", "duties to perform", "own civil entity", "financial independence", and the "right to retain her name and lineage", though not equal rights in general. The Declaration makes the husband responsible for the social and financial protection of the family. The Declaration gives both parents the rights over their children,...
Art. 19 stipulates that there are no other crimes or punishments than those mentioned in the Sharia, which include corporal punishment (whippings, amputations) and capital punishment. The right to hold public office can only be exercised in accordance with the Sharia, which forbids Muslims to submit to the rule of non-Muslims.
Do you still believe : "sharia law is not counter to human rights" ?
If not, what exactly are you going to claim ? That heads of state of muslim theocracies know nothing of islam ?
Of course let's not forget that this post is just a racist collection of, factually true, hate-filled arguments specifically meant to "shame" muslims, okay ?
I doubt very much that there is any way whatsoever to have a working economy without stable power sources.
I doubt, specifically, that if they cloned Ronald Raegan, made him president, and Jesus Christ personally stuffed all their mountains full of gold, that it could work without nuclear power.
Unfortunately I also know enough about nuclear power to know that's not what the Iranian government is building. We all know what it's doing, and it's not powering the people of Iran.
How is that relevant given the conflict, broadly interpreted, predates the last millenium ?
The conflict between America and this ideology long predates the last century. As I said, you might want to look up exactly who fought the "Barbary wars".
You might also look up the stated reason, as reported by Thomas Jefferson, it was fought.
There's just one tiny problem. The Iranian regime is going after everyone *except* muslims (well they attack those muslims that forget what their religion says about dissent too). So are a dozen other gulf regimes.
What I absolutely agree with is the idea that the US, the UN and everyone else needs to stay out of the way and not become a distraction or 'common enemy'. The greatest good we can do in America is to be less dependent on oil, lowering the price. Right now a little bit of isolationism would help force them to get their own house in order...
Just wondering. In this particular ideology that the state of Iran is pushing. What, exactly, are the requirements to be considered an enemy ? It seems to me that interfering or not will have zero effect on what this ideology thinks of us. Since the fight of western governments with this particular ideology predates even the founding of America. And you might want to look up whom exactly America fought in the "barbary wars". Please tell me, what "interference" from America caused them to think of Americans as enemies back then ?
Iran's government seems to have an accurate grasp of the tactical situation. They must expand, and hope against hope this gives them access to more resources. Or they must die. Guess which option a theocracy will pick (you might want to look up just what plastic keys, some death god named allah, minefields, and 500.000 children's corpses have to do with eachother before you answer this).
Iran, unlike the rest of the world it seems, is quite aware that it's oil will stop supporting the economy before another decade passes. And smart Iranians know that attacking Iran's nuclear facilities is all but ensuring the doom of Iran's people in the all to near future. And before you say it, no Iran's oilfields won't be dry in 10 years. They will, however, lose over 50% of their current output, even with the help of western technology. Destroying nuclear power sources, while probably a necessity to prevent a total disaster, will still create enormous hardship for the Iranian people. What about new fields ? Well, there aren't any new fields. Unless massive new regions are opened to exploration oil will diminish greatly world-wide.
So I fear this is more of a "fucked if you do, fucked if you don't" type of situation. Guess someone will just have to decide. Glad it's not me.
What I like to think about to analyze this sort of situtions is the deadlines. Before 10 years pass, this situation will be resolved. It is not necessary to fight the Iranian government beyond the point of keeping them within their borders. Before 10 years pass, expansion or no expansion, nuclear weapons or no nuclear weapons, nuclear power or not, Iran will have a new government. The only question is how many (Iranians and non-Iranians) will die until then.
The real, BIG question is what they will do when the theocracy falls in a large ball of fire. Will they consider the particular religion that propped up the government a failure ? If they do, that might save them. There are certainly enough upstanding Iranians to create a working secular government. If not, the only realistic result is a dictatorship. There are too many wild cards in play. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are (more or less) real democracies, and Iranians have lots of contact with those. America might attack, even China might attack. America and China might be forced to attack (ask yourself what would happen to America if it lost control over the Persian gulf. Hell even China would probably fight for those waters).
So that brutal violence in the protests following the election was what exactly?
That was the government, obviously.
But still, a too large minority supports the government. Why ? We all know why. It's about what "culture", law and political system is meant in the grandfather post, when equating the culture with the government. Even in the west we support (or at least don't oppose) the goal this "brutal government".
We all know what exactly the title is of the leader of Iran. It's not president. It's not king. It's not sjah anymore... and it is extremely politically incorrect...
It's ayatollah. Imams are his kolonels and muslims are his soldiers. The "brutal government" he's trying to impose is (ironically) a rather liberal form of islam (yes you heard me correctly, compared to sunni islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, this is a liberal and (extremely) progressive form of islam they're trying to impose here). And as indicated, the main opposition to Iran, in the region, is a more brutal, much, much less progressive form of islam. Some things women do that are tolerated in the very learning halls of Qom, where the ayatollahs are "educated" (indoctrinated is a more correct term) would earn those same women a death sentence in Saudi Arabia.
Or at least, that was the main opposition until Bush "changed" (liberated or destroyed, we shall have to wait and see) Iraq. Before America, the main opposition to this government was fascist (you might want to look up what "baath" really means), and (more or less) communists. Communism, while not a very powerful group in the region at the moment, is still a source of opposition to islamic government. It may not be one tenth as strong as it once was, but it's holding on. As such it has the potential to grow, but it's unlikely to make the region any more America-friendly.
That's not the same as choosing not to pursue a specific case. Of course there are physical limitations to the job of the prosecution. That doesn't mean they get to choose to whom to sue, and they don't. Not in the US, and not in the UK.
You say this as if they've stopped. Obama "curiously" hasn't turned back any of it. Nor does either congress or even the left wing (or right wing, but you'd imagine this would be the left wing) blogosphere even demand that he does.
You post is a touch on the paranoid side. Who, exactly, is "they" ? Is it the president and congress, meaning Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi ?
I do see the hypocrisy alluded to. How come bittorrent, widely used to violate the law gets so much support, while this... might... be used to violate some privacy laws. I doubt it though. So why all the hostility ?
Or are you seriously arguing that violating the law is perfectly A-okay as long as you're not the victim ?
And what's the problem with that ? Obviously emergency and defense sectors have uses for this technology. Firemen and police were the reason this was developed in the first place.
Selective enforcement of laws is allowed in Denmark :
For criminal law - no (like everywhere else, including the US)
For civil law (which is what this falls under) - yes (again, like everywhere else, including the US)
The general principle is that everyone is equal before the government. But ONLY before the government. Not before someone else (you're perfectly free to have you roof done only by someone with black hair, just to name something stupid), nor before companies.
An example : a company demands payment from half it's customers, say it's christmas and everyone below 16 does not get billed (just making up some excuse). One of the customers forced to pay (16 years and 2 days old, say) cannot complain because someone else didn't have to pay. That is "selective enforcement" and is perfectly A-okay, just about everywhere in the world.
A counterexample is that the government cannot choose not to pursue a murderer. It IS a (theoretical) defence for a murderer to claim the government let another murderer go free. This usually gets applied to parking fines or speeding tickets. If you can prove the police let someone else go, you don't have to pay the fine.
The police only intervenes in matters of criminal law. And before you ask, you can get arrested "for not paying a bill", yes. But not because not paying a bill itself lands you in jail, this is civil law and cannot result in incarceration. Ignoring a court's order to pay a bill IS criminal law (it's a felony I believe).
So this guy is basically an attention-grabber who's knows he'll go free, due a basic property of our law system every first-year law student learns. The police won't do anything because that's not their job. Their job is criminal law.
Funny how those who act like that always keep saying how you shouldn't lump everyone together.
Saying as opposed to that other thing... a rational human would observe that discrimination, painting with a broad brush, stigmatizing communities,... is only considered a problem when political opponents can be blamed for it
Science: eating fatty food is bad for you Government: we outlaw them all
Science: oh, some fatty foods are good Government: we outlaw all other food !
Science: oh, some fatty foods are bad, some are good, depending on you Government: okay, seriously... everybody alive is breaking the law. How could this possibly happen ? People simply have no respect for the laws anymore.
Science:... Government: obviously the solution is more laws !
Obviously this system works by increasing pressure on the price of international shipping, if the insurance system is "perfect", on the whole of the economy. They gain, a little (and probably kill eachother over it, then again "22 year old divorcee" ? we all know which religion this is, and they were killing eachother anyway).
The evident result is more expenses for everyone. Since this changes the demand-supply curves it also means less demand (higher price) and (ironically) more supply. This is like cement shoes for the practice of international sea trade (but keep in mind many things can only be traded by sea, if, for example they're big enough. Other things, foremost oil, are either dependant on sea trade, or on massive infrastructure investment (ie. pipes)). But who's paying ? Why you and me, who'll have to work harder for the same products.
Piracy, and ransoms is, economically speaking, like a tax. In practice this is also true since both are money sums demanded at the threat of physical violence.
A ship is the biggest possible moveable structure existing, and also the most capable load-bearing moveable structure. If we were to lose access to a sea due to piracy causing too much cost (like Europe did when muslim piracy started occuring on a large scale in the mediterranean in 650-700 A.D.) that would destroy the economy. It might even start a new dark age.
One is that you're forgetting that "not to decide is to decide." Everyone knows the predictive models are inexact. Even over the past ten years or so, we've seen the best scientific predictions proved wrong -- global warming is getting much worse, much faster, than the consensus belief in 1999.
Would that be the same models the IPCC uses ? The models that failed to predict increased warming at the end of the 90's AND failed to predict a cooling trend starting at 2004-2005 ? Surely you have a mountain of evidence that this time you're right. When will the next change come ? Will it be a cooling or a warming ? Surely if you can predict 100 years into the future, you can predict the first shift that's going to occur.
When I followed my mathematics education, climate was given as an example of a "chaotic" system. It was used to illustrate that some things cannot be predicted without the ability of predicting the actions of every last fruit fly with 100% certainty. The point the professor was trying to make, is that for some things either you know every last little thing that's going to happen in the future, or your predictions are doomed to fail.
Then we moved on what were more difficult "chaotic" systems. It is, for example, not possible to predict the positions of the planets of our solar system for any astronomically significant time in the future (tomorrow, yes. Hundred Thousand years from now, impossible).
A Chaotic system doesn't mean that it's unpredictable either. There are many situations where you have chaotic evolution, but you do know what every last fruit fly is going to do. The best known example is fractals. Especially the fractals that work by blowing up a tiny variation. But since you know exactly what every last number is going to do, you can draw them anyway. But if you left out even a single iteration in the calculation, replacing it by "statistically sound" numbers, you would see huge variations in the result. Prediction fails, no matter which method you use, no matter how accurate it may be.
There is a mathematical "test" for chaos, you see. That checks if a certain system works by blowing up minimal changes.
Now guess what any statistician will find if he runs that test against the temperature record ?
So the real question I have is this : please tell me how you get around the chaos property of the temperature time series ? I'm very, very interested. Of course any even vaguely reasonable answer will get you 10 nobel prizes in mathematics, and yet no-one's come forth with one.
Doesn't work fast enough. So, no it's not. If everyone became infertile today, it would take over 20 years before the load on the planet would go down even a little bit.
It would take over 40 years for > 30% population reduction. And that's still far removed from what we need.
No if you want to solve overpopulation by manipulating the amount of people, you have to kill. It sucks, but it's the only way.
That depends. In some cases efficiency increases actually save energy, in other cases they do just the reverse.
The same goes for what happens if electricity supply goes down. It could result in less resource usage, but the problem is that large electricity plants are just so much more efficient than what small people can do themselves. But people will use whatever they can for necessities. So for heating, for example, or light, it's better to increase the electiricity supply, as the alternative, everyone milking their surroundings for lamp oil or firewood, is far, far worse.
History has been near-uniformly on the side of "efficiency increases increase energy usage". Besides, I know lots of people who wish to "lower co2 output". I know none who will let their house temperature drop by more than 1 or 2 degrees at night, and the green whiner in my family actually warms his (badly insulated, and horrendously expensive to fix) house to ridiculous temperatures. Low temperatures hurt his bones or something. But we should "all work to lower co2 output".
Questions as to how that's going to work always seem to involve "big business and government" (whoever that is) doing something... something that presumably does not result in a lower temperature in his house... or in schools... or in company premises (that's worker abuse)... or in shops... the more you ask him, the longer this list tends to get.
So my conclusion would be : we're in for a rough ride.
"Stop" is such a beautiful euphemism for what is essentially death. A lot of death.
We can't stop population growth It will eventually stop of it's own (or so we hope) but probably not before world population doubles once more With the current output we don't have enough food to keep everyone alive, and we're FAR short of what everyone would like to eat (never mind the fact that people generally want more than just food) (we did 10 years ago, I know, today, we don't, thank you "anti-co2" biofuels advocates, who managed to seriously increase both co2 AND hunger) The statement above is ignoring the disconnect between where hunger is and where agricultural production is plentiful, and the energy for transit that requires. This to attract attention to the fact that just having sufficient total food is not enough, you need transit infrastructure, and the energy to run it.
So "stop somewhere" begs the question :
Who gets to die, and who gets to live, and what makes you think the rest of the world will accept that answer without a fight ?
Of course, unless that question is answered satisfactorily for everyone involved (including those asked to die), you're right:
The Heinlein fan in me says this will happen with war and starvation. Its not that hard to imagine, it happens all the time.
Which is probably how this whole evolution thing is supposed to work in the first place. Needless to say, no matter how atheist someone is, he or she will stress the need to intervene.
What is it with today's obsessions with feelings ? We're getting to the point where you can no longer say "it's bad to stone women", because it might hurt the feelings of muslims.
Welcome to the reality : caution... reality may not always immediately gratify your feelings, and may in fact hurt them. In case you really can't deal with this : you know the exit...
Can someone explain to me what exactly the problem is ? Or is there something about colleges that makes them massively dislike free speech ? Okay, I know profs do, they think they know better and so have the right to force their opinion on others. Which is fine in class, not so fine elsewhere. So why would any rational person find this a problem ?
Other than north korea and (more and more every year) Venezuela. They're mostly off the map.
But there are lots of graves to visit. Several hundred million of them in fact. In Russia, in China (and the whole of South Asia), in Africa, in the middle east,... lots of graves of people who didn't exactly die of old age.
But of course, all of those countries don't count as communism. After all, they were "imperfectly implemented", right ? Or "stolen" by dictators. (just like Teheran and Bagdad have massive graveyards of "imperfectly implemented" islam. Plastic keys to paradise with 72 virgins pictured on them and all (yes I know the plastic keys are only on the Iranian side... oh well)).
Ironically Iran is the only country where you could make a very good argument that dictators stole the communist revolution.
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If you still don't believe me, consider: while chloroplasts were free-living cyanobacteria millions of years ago, they are now incapable of survival outside of the host cell
No, their defenses may be lacking, but they can survive perfectly well in at least some environments.
additionally, they cannot replicate without the host cell so they are "not actually 'fully' alive" either
Yes they can. They have their own dna, their own ribosomes, everything.
Considering that a substantial portion of their DNA is also stored in the nucleus of the plant cell, one must really consider the chloroplast part of the host cell
This is news to me. There are supporting structures in the plant cell, but that's limited to a sort of 3-dimensional support beam that keeps chloroplasts in their location. More like a fence to keep them in place and to accelerate or decelerate their operations.
Proof of that : you can perfectly well stimulate a chloroplast to replicate itself outside of a plant cell.
The reverse is not true : a plant cell without chloroplasts cannot hope to divide successfully. Sometimes plant cells even die, in nature, after division because the chloroplasts refuse to divide for some reason (like insufficient materials delivered to them).
that is why any biologist will say that chloroplasts are an organelle inside (some) plant cells.
Imho, that's more a result of doing this for 150 years when it was not known that chloroplasts and mitochondria could survive and replicate by themselves.
Philosophically I'm in the camp that states "science improves when scientists die" : definitions and (consensus) theories get more correct and accepted as the defenders of the older (and less accurate) theories die. People don't change their minds nearly enough.
Just think that, say, tomorrow someone comes up with convincing proof that there's no AGW and that somehow it was the sun after all. It would take decades before such a theory, no matter how correct, would get accepted.
Or, say we found that there's no Higgs boson after all, that we've found all particles fully. Do you think they'd destroy the LHC ? Or would the LHC scientists still insist on checking the old theory ? We all know the answer.
But the best example is Einstein. First, a victim of academic exclusion to the point where he took a job as a nighttime security guard, and then himself (partly) responsible for firing at least a dozen people for believing quantum theory was correct. And lo and behold : a huge leap in acceptance of quantum mechanics came mere months after the death of Einstein. Coincidence ? Perhaps.
The same argument is applied to mitochondria: they are part of animal cells and thus, animal cells are alive. Trying to split the eukaryotic cells from mitochondria (or plant cells from chloroplasts) is like taking the creme filling out of a Twinkie; you can't because both parts are integral to the whole. Neither you nor your liver would survive very long without each other, and the same can be said for eukaryotic cells and mitochondria. (Obviously, this doesn't generalize to other organs as you are living proof that life can be sustained sans brain).
I like twinkies with jam filling. And cows would not survive long without grass. Yet they're not one organism. This is not a good criterium to use.
You could, and it's been done, replace chlorplasts or mitochondria with another species of them and the plant/animal cell would function perfectly well. There have even been some reports of successfully replacing chloroplasts with cyanobactera that weren't degenerate at all, and the cells functioned.
Google "halabja campaign". As far as nonexistent weapons go, they sure produce a hell of a lot of corpses.
So here's the reality :
1) Saddam fired WMD's at defenceless civilians, in an attempt to prop up the sunni islamic part of Iraq's population against the other groups
2) The bodies were found, analyzed
3) factories were found, analyzed
4) this analysis was considered proof by at least 1 court of law, sufficient to hand out death senteces. In addition to that the proof was recognized by the UN.
5) you're quite correct, no weapons were found after the invasion
Conclusion:
a) of lefties : there never were any weapons ! Bushitler
b) of righties : where the f#@$! did those weapons go ????
Please explain one more time which of these is the stupid way of thinking and why ?
*Ahem* the basic premise is wrong. Plants are NOT the most efficient at photosynthesis. In fact, plants, in the most narrow definition of the word, are incapable of photosynthesis.
Plant cells do, however, contain a degenerate cyanobacter, there are a few different species but we call all of them "chloroplasts". Strictly speaking this part of plant cells is not actually plant in origin.
Just like animal cells are not actually capable of digesting food, and using it to convert ADP into ATP. We do however contain degenerate cyanobacter that are capable of that feat, and who share their ATP with us. Strictly speaking, however, they are not "animal".
Plant and animal cells are not, in the strict definition of the word, alive, since they do not really fulfill all of life's functions themselves. Specifically plants and animals both lack "inherent" digestive capacity. And without digestive capacity all other living activities would soon cease. Both families do have a symbiotic relationship with a more primitive lifeform that is alive. Plant and animal cells may be more alive than viruses, but they are not actually "fully" alive.
Needless to say, the cyanobacter by itself is more efficient at photosynthesis than the entire plant cells. For starters, it captures a (much) greater portion of sunlight when not surrounded by a cell wall, and the food doesn't need to be shared with what is essentially a parasitic lifeform in this application. Normally the plant chloroplast relationship would be called symbiotic since the plant provides the chloroplasts with otherwise unavailable access to sunlight. However in this case it's direct human intervention that provides the access to sunlight.
You know, if you assume that there is zero critical thinking in people, then yes, you're right of course.
But of course that would make you a parrot for ... what ? MSNBC ? BBC ? Or perhaps you're a blog reader : a parrot for Cory Doctorrow ? After all if you assume no-one has critical thinking skills, that would probably mostly mean that you do not see a need for critical thinking yourself.
And about viewing fox news : an extra perspective never hurts. I like to read the BBC frontpage, and to compensate for the (rather pronounced and obvious) leftist/progressive bias they have I watch fox news. And I listen to the radio on the way to and from work, but the station tends to be whoever's playing whatever I'm in the mood for.
Sharia law is not counter to human rights,
Did the muslim countries sign the declaration of human rights ? Well, no. They signed the "Cairo declaration of human rights in islam".
There's a difference between the 2 treaties.
This is the opinion, not of some baboon, nor of any non-muslim. It is the opinion of the oic. It is the opinion of 83 muslim heads of state. They specifically state :
The CDHRI gives men and women the "right to marriage" regardless of their race, colour or nationality, but not religion. In addition women are given "equal human dignity", "own rights to enjoy", "duties to perform", "own civil entity", "financial independence", and the "right to retain her name and lineage", though not equal rights in general. The Declaration makes the husband responsible for the social and financial protection of the family. The Declaration gives both parents the rights over their children, ...
Art. 19 stipulates that there are no other crimes or punishments than those mentioned in the Sharia, which include corporal punishment (whippings, amputations) and capital punishment. The right to hold public office can only be exercised in accordance with the Sharia, which forbids Muslims to submit to the rule of non-Muslims.
Do you still believe : "sharia law is not counter to human rights" ?
If not, what exactly are you going to claim ? That heads of state of muslim theocracies know nothing of islam ?
Read the whole pit of filth that is muslim's relation to human rights
Of course let's not forget that this post is just a racist collection of, factually true, hate-filled arguments specifically meant to "shame" muslims, okay ?
I doubt very much that there is any way whatsoever to have a working economy without stable power sources.
I doubt, specifically, that if they cloned Ronald Raegan, made him president, and Jesus Christ personally stuffed all their mountains full of gold, that it could work without nuclear power.
Unfortunately I also know enough about nuclear power to know that's not what the Iranian government is building. We all know what it's doing, and it's not powering the people of Iran.
How is that relevant given the conflict, broadly interpreted, predates the last millenium ?
The conflict between America and this ideology long predates the last century. As I said, you might want to look up exactly who fought the "Barbary wars".
You might also look up the stated reason, as reported by Thomas Jefferson, it was fought.
There's just one tiny problem. The Iranian regime is going after everyone *except* muslims (well they attack those muslims that forget what their religion says about dissent too). So are a dozen other gulf regimes.
What I absolutely agree with is the idea that the US, the UN and everyone else needs to stay out of the way and not become a distraction or 'common enemy'. The greatest good we can do in America is to be less dependent on oil, lowering the price. Right now a little bit of isolationism would help force them to get their own house in order...
Just wondering. In this particular ideology that the state of Iran is pushing. What, exactly, are the requirements to be considered an enemy ? It seems to me that interfering or not will have zero effect on what this ideology thinks of us. Since the fight of western governments with this particular ideology predates even the founding of America. And you might want to look up whom exactly America fought in the "barbary wars". Please tell me, what "interference" from America caused them to think of Americans as enemies back then ?
Iran's government seems to have an accurate grasp of the tactical situation. They must expand, and hope against hope this gives them access to more resources. Or they must die. Guess which option a theocracy will pick (you might want to look up just what plastic keys, some death god named allah, minefields, and 500.000 children's corpses have to do with eachother before you answer this).
Iran, unlike the rest of the world it seems, is quite aware that it's oil will stop supporting the economy before another decade passes. And smart Iranians know that attacking Iran's nuclear facilities is all but ensuring the doom of Iran's people in the all to near future. And before you say it, no Iran's oilfields won't be dry in 10 years. They will, however, lose over 50% of their current output, even with the help of western technology. Destroying nuclear power sources, while probably a necessity to prevent a total disaster, will still create enormous hardship for the Iranian people. What about new fields ? Well, there aren't any new fields. Unless massive new regions are opened to exploration oil will diminish greatly world-wide.
So I fear this is more of a "fucked if you do, fucked if you don't" type of situation. Guess someone will just have to decide. Glad it's not me.
What I like to think about to analyze this sort of situtions is the deadlines. Before 10 years pass, this situation will be resolved. It is not necessary to fight the Iranian government beyond the point of keeping them within their borders. Before 10 years pass, expansion or no expansion, nuclear weapons or no nuclear weapons, nuclear power or not, Iran will have a new government. The only question is how many (Iranians and non-Iranians) will die until then.
The real, BIG question is what they will do when the theocracy falls in a large ball of fire. Will they consider the particular religion that propped up the government a failure ? If they do, that might save them. There are certainly enough upstanding Iranians to create a working secular government. If not, the only realistic result is a dictatorship. There are too many wild cards in play. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are (more or less) real democracies, and Iranians have lots of contact with those. America might attack, even China might attack. America and China might be forced to attack (ask yourself what would happen to America if it lost control over the Persian gulf. Hell even China would probably fight for those waters).
So that brutal violence in the protests following the election was what exactly?
That was the government, obviously.
But still, a too large minority supports the government. Why ? We all know why. It's about what "culture", law and political system is meant in the grandfather post, when equating the culture with the government. Even in the west we support (or at least don't oppose) the goal this "brutal government".
We all know what exactly the title is of the leader of Iran. It's not president. It's not king. It's not sjah anymore ... and it is extremely politically incorrect ...
It's ayatollah. Imams are his kolonels and muslims are his soldiers. The "brutal government" he's trying to impose is (ironically) a rather liberal form of islam (yes you heard me correctly, compared to sunni islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, this is a liberal and (extremely) progressive form of islam they're trying to impose here). And as indicated, the main opposition to Iran, in the region, is a more brutal, much, much less progressive form of islam. Some things women do that are tolerated in the very learning halls of Qom, where the ayatollahs are "educated" (indoctrinated is a more correct term) would earn those same women a death sentence in Saudi Arabia.
Or at least, that was the main opposition until Bush "changed" (liberated or destroyed, we shall have to wait and see) Iraq. Before America, the main opposition to this government was fascist (you might want to look up what "baath" really means), and (more or less) communists. Communism, while not a very powerful group in the region at the moment, is still a source of opposition to islamic government. It may not be one tenth as strong as it once was, but it's holding on. As such it has the potential to grow, but it's unlikely to make the region any more America-friendly.
That's not the same as choosing not to pursue a specific case. Of course there are physical limitations to the job of the prosecution. That doesn't mean they get to choose to whom to sue, and they don't. Not in the US, and not in the UK.
Remember when your ISPs bent over for Bush?
You say this as if they've stopped. Obama "curiously" hasn't turned back any of it. Nor does either congress or even the left wing (or right wing, but you'd imagine this would be the left wing) blogosphere even demand that he does.
You post is a touch on the paranoid side. Who, exactly, is "they" ? Is it the president and congress, meaning Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi ?
I do see the hypocrisy alluded to. How come bittorrent, widely used to violate the law gets so much support, while this ... might ... be used to violate some privacy laws. I doubt it though. So why all the hostility ?
Or are you seriously arguing that violating the law is perfectly A-okay as long as you're not the victim ?
And what's the problem with that ? Obviously emergency and defense sectors have uses for this technology. Firemen and police were the reason this was developed in the first place.
Selective enforcement of laws is allowed in Denmark :
For criminal law - no (like everywhere else, including the US)
For civil law (which is what this falls under) - yes (again, like everywhere else, including the US)
The general principle is that everyone is equal before the government. But ONLY before the government. Not before someone else (you're perfectly free to have you roof done only by someone with black hair, just to name something stupid), nor before companies.
An example : a company demands payment from half it's customers, say it's christmas and everyone below 16 does not get billed (just making up some excuse). One of the customers forced to pay (16 years and 2 days old, say) cannot complain because someone else didn't have to pay. That is "selective enforcement" and is perfectly A-okay, just about everywhere in the world.
A counterexample is that the government cannot choose not to pursue a murderer. It IS a (theoretical) defence for a murderer to claim the government let another murderer go free. This usually gets applied to parking fines or speeding tickets. If you can prove the police let someone else go, you don't have to pay the fine.
The police only intervenes in matters of criminal law. And before you ask, you can get arrested "for not paying a bill", yes. But not because not paying a bill itself lands you in jail, this is civil law and cannot result in incarceration. Ignoring a court's order to pay a bill IS criminal law (it's a felony I believe).
So this guy is basically an attention-grabber who's knows he'll go free, due a basic property of our law system every first-year law student learns. The police won't do anything because that's not their job. Their job is criminal law.
Funny how those who act like that always keep saying how you shouldn't lump everyone together.
Saying as opposed to that other thing ... a rational human would observe that discrimination, painting with a broad brush, stigmatizing communities, ... is only considered a problem when political opponents can be blamed for it
You forgot government intervention :
Science: eating fatty food is bad for you
Government: we outlaw them all
Science: oh, some fatty foods are good
Government: we outlaw all other food !
Science: oh, some fatty foods are bad, some are good, depending on you ... everybody alive is breaking the law. How could this possibly happen ? People simply have no respect for the laws anymore.
Government: okay, seriously
Science: ...
Government: obviously the solution is more laws !
Obviously this system works by increasing pressure on the price of international shipping, if the insurance system is "perfect", on the whole of the economy. They gain, a little (and probably kill eachother over it, then again "22 year old divorcee" ? we all know which religion this is, and they were killing eachother anyway).
The evident result is more expenses for everyone. Since this changes the demand-supply curves it also means less demand (higher price) and (ironically) more supply. This is like cement shoes for the practice of international sea trade (but keep in mind many things can only be traded by sea, if, for example they're big enough. Other things, foremost oil, are either dependant on sea trade, or on massive infrastructure investment (ie. pipes)). But who's paying ? Why you and me, who'll have to work harder for the same products.
Piracy, and ransoms is, economically speaking, like a tax. In practice this is also true since both are money sums demanded at the threat of physical violence.
A ship is the biggest possible moveable structure existing, and also the most capable load-bearing moveable structure. If we were to lose access to a sea due to piracy causing too much cost (like Europe did when muslim piracy started occuring on a large scale in the mediterranean in 650-700 A.D.) that would destroy the economy. It might even start a new dark age.
Those are pretty huge claims you're making there
One is that you're forgetting that "not to decide is to decide." Everyone knows the predictive models are inexact. Even over the past ten years or so, we've seen the best scientific predictions proved wrong -- global warming is getting much worse, much faster, than the consensus belief in 1999.
Would that be the same models the IPCC uses ? The models that failed to predict increased warming at the end of the 90's AND failed to predict a cooling trend starting at 2004-2005 ? Surely you have a mountain of evidence that this time you're right. When will the next change come ? Will it be a cooling or a warming ? Surely if you can predict 100 years into the future, you can predict the first shift that's going to occur.
When I followed my mathematics education, climate was given as an example of a "chaotic" system. It was used to illustrate that some things cannot be predicted without the ability of predicting the actions of every last fruit fly with 100% certainty. The point the professor was trying to make, is that for some things either you know every last little thing that's going to happen in the future, or your predictions are doomed to fail.
Then we moved on what were more difficult "chaotic" systems. It is, for example, not possible to predict the positions of the planets of our solar system for any astronomically significant time in the future (tomorrow, yes. Hundred Thousand years from now, impossible).
A Chaotic system doesn't mean that it's unpredictable either. There are many situations where you have chaotic evolution, but you do know what every last fruit fly is going to do. The best known example is fractals. Especially the fractals that work by blowing up a tiny variation. But since you know exactly what every last number is going to do, you can draw them anyway. But if you left out even a single iteration in the calculation, replacing it by "statistically sound" numbers, you would see huge variations in the result. Prediction fails, no matter which method you use, no matter how accurate it may be.
There is a mathematical "test" for chaos, you see. That checks if a certain system works by blowing up minimal changes.
Now guess what any statistician will find if he runs that test against the temperature record ?
So the real question I have is this : please tell me how you get around the chaos property of the temperature time series ? I'm very, very interested. Of course any even vaguely reasonable answer will get you 10 nobel prizes in mathematics, and yet no-one's come forth with one.
Just my 2c
Doesn't work fast enough. So, no it's not. If everyone became infertile today, it would take over 20 years before the load on the planet would go down even a little bit.
It would take over 40 years for > 30% population reduction. And that's still far removed from what we need.
No if you want to solve overpopulation by manipulating the amount of people, you have to kill. It sucks, but it's the only way.
That depends. In some cases efficiency increases actually save energy, in other cases they do just the reverse.
The same goes for what happens if electricity supply goes down. It could result in less resource usage, but the problem is that large electricity plants are just so much more efficient than what small people can do themselves. But people will use whatever they can for necessities. So for heating, for example, or light, it's better to increase the electiricity supply, as the alternative, everyone milking their surroundings for lamp oil or firewood, is far, far worse.
This is called the Jevon's paradox
History has been near-uniformly on the side of "efficiency increases increase energy usage". Besides, I know lots of people who wish to "lower co2 output". I know none who will let their house temperature drop by more than 1 or 2 degrees at night, and the green whiner in my family actually warms his (badly insulated, and horrendously expensive to fix) house to ridiculous temperatures. Low temperatures hurt his bones or something. But we should "all work to lower co2 output".
Questions as to how that's going to work always seem to involve "big business and government" (whoever that is) doing something ... something that presumably does not result in a lower temperature in his house ... or in schools ... or in company premises (that's worker abuse) ... or in shops ... the more you ask him, the longer this list tends to get.
So my conclusion would be : we're in for a rough ride.
"Stop" is such a beautiful euphemism for what is essentially death. A lot of death.
We can't stop population growth
It will eventually stop of it's own (or so we hope) but probably not before world population doubles once more
With the current output we don't have enough food to keep everyone alive, and we're FAR short of what everyone would like to eat (never mind the fact that people generally want more than just food) (we did 10 years ago, I know, today, we don't, thank you "anti-co2" biofuels advocates, who managed to seriously increase both co2 AND hunger)
The statement above is ignoring the disconnect between where hunger is and where agricultural production is plentiful, and the energy for transit that requires. This to attract attention to the fact that just having sufficient total food is not enough, you need transit infrastructure, and the energy to run it.
So "stop somewhere" begs the question :
Who gets to die, and who gets to live, and what makes you think the rest of the world will accept that answer without a fight ?
Of course, unless that question is answered satisfactorily for everyone involved (including those asked to die), you're right :
The Heinlein fan in me says this will happen with war and starvation. Its not that hard to imagine, it happens all the time.
Which is probably how this whole evolution thing is supposed to work in the first place. Needless to say, no matter how atheist someone is, he or she will stress the need to intervene.
What is it with today's obsessions with feelings ? We're getting to the point where you can no longer say "it's bad to stone women", because it might hurt the feelings of muslims.
Welcome to the reality : caution ... reality may not always immediately gratify your feelings, and may in fact hurt them. In case you really can't deal with this : you know the exit ...
"Struggling with the problem"
Can someone explain to me what exactly the problem is ? Or is there something about colleges that makes them massively dislike free speech ? Okay, I know profs do, they think they know better and so have the right to force their opinion on others. Which is fine in class, not so fine elsewhere. So why would any rational person find this a problem ?
Other than north korea and (more and more every year) Venezuela. They're mostly off the map.
But there are lots of graves to visit. Several hundred million of them in fact. In Russia, in China (and the whole of South Asia), in Africa, in the middle east, ... lots of graves of people who didn't exactly die of old age.
But of course, all of those countries don't count as communism. After all, they were "imperfectly implemented", right ? Or "stolen" by dictators. (just like Teheran and Bagdad have massive graveyards of "imperfectly implemented" islam. Plastic keys to paradise with 72 virgins pictured on them and all (yes I know the plastic keys are only on the Iranian side ... oh well)).
Ironically Iran is the only country where you could make a very good argument that dictators stole the communist revolution.
This proves once again what a weak and undemocratic government the EU commission (not "council" btw.) really is.