Overall I agree with the concepts, but I would like to clarify a few points. We need to convince people we know what we're talking about, which means keeping the hand waving and tongue-clucking moralizing to a minimum.
I am a degreed scientist (I'd like to know what you are)...
I am reminded of Troy McLure's famous line, "Just ask this 'science-ologist!'" Simply claiming 'I am a scientist so I know more than you' won't cut the mustard. 'Degreed scientist' is not necessarily credentials that make you even as knowledgeable as an educated layman. What kind of scientist? Computer scientists might or might not know environmental issues. The same with a psychologist, or social scientist. I, for example, am a geophysicist, who specialized in environmental work for my thesis. But even there, my thesis work was aimed more at landfill remediation, and not climate issues. Still, I have kept up with the literature, and talked now and again with guys who were doing climate work, so I probably know a little more than your average man-on-the-street.
The disparity between surface and upper air trends in no way invalidates the conclusions that surface temperature has been rising.
Well, this is true, but does this support your implication that climate change is related to anthropogenic (fancy-talk for man-made) effects? The same climate models that predict that increased CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to warming via the greenhouse effect also predict that surface and upper-level temperatures should rise together. If the data does not support the theory, then the theory is wrong, and we need to know why. You imply in this statement that since we have one data point that supports your theory, we should ignore the one that doesn't fit.
That being said, I believe that the upper-atmospherics were based on a satelite measurements. If I recall correctly, a couple of years ago, I heard a report saying that they had figured out a slight error in the calculations they were using to calculate the temperature from whatever remote-sensing method they were using (remember, these are not direct measurements of the temperature). Once they went back and corrected for that glitch, the upper-level measurements seemed to bear out the global warming models. However, before you go quoting me on this in a letter to your senator, I'd like somebody who knows a bit more about it to back me up. I remember hearing this, but I couldn't tell you the source, and I could be wrong.
...and conservative wackos like yourself. Practice what you preach and leave science to the scientists...
Thanks! Name calling will really win people over to our side! And really, telling people not to get involved in the scientific debate, and to wait for us scientists to come tell the masses what they should do is SUCH a convincing argument!
Educate yourself... Ozone depletion (yes, it IS linked to global warming) is worsening.
Once again, if you're going to lecture people on science, get it straight. First, while it is now thought that ozone recovery will take longer than previously believed, the level of ozone-destroying chemicals in the atmosphere has been dropping steadily since the introduction of CFC limits and the like, and the ozone layer is projected to heal itself eventually, although the rate of recovery is not yet known for certain. Second, ozone depletion is only secondarily related to global warming in that some of the ozone depleting chemicals are also greenhouse gases. However, CO2, the biggest component in most greenhouse models, is NOT an ozone depletor, and a healthy ozone layer does nothing to stop global warming. The ozone hole will effect skin cancer rates, and possibly bio-diversity (UV may damage amphibian eggs, and so forth) by allowing more UV into the atmosphere, but this is a fairly small portion of the actual energy budget which won't cause a rise in temperatures. And with a personal history of skin cancer, I pay attention to this stuff. Vested interest, and all.
Your post god modded up to a 5, which is sad considering what a poor job it does of actually stating our case. This post was based more on venom aimed at people you don't like, which makes you and your fellow environmentalists feel better, but does little to actually convince anyone that you are right. You state the alternate opinion that you express is so phenomenally unsupported, so completely discredited... yet you do little to support yourself except for some URLs that you didn't even bother to tag, and some of which have spaces, so even if you copy them to your browser they won't work.
Here's a link that will be more convincing when you're talking to these guys. The Economist (respected by people you dismissively refer to as consrvative wackos) has an article stating that Bush will probably have to come to some compromise over Kyoto (although it probably won't have the name Kyoto so Bush can save face). This one will have more impact than all the quotes from policy wonks you throw out, since no one can claim the source is biased against business or the US. This is how to win the debate and actually build a concensus.
Now we just need Buck Rogers to return with that gorgeous sidekick he had and all the cool space series of the 70s will be renewed in the 21st century.
What about Space1999? And whatever that show where they went "I said LUNCH not LAUNCH?
Oh right. You said COOL shows. I guess that rules out the Animated Star Trek, too. Oh well.
The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 has this to say about The Legend of the Rangers. If you look in the 'JMS Speaks' section of the page (towards the bottom) he says:
To those who've heard the news already, and those just now finding out...the SciFi Channel today announced that we have a new Babylon 5 TV movie going into production that will also serve as a pilot for a likely new series.
The movie (and the series) is under the heading of BABYLON 5: THE LEGEND OF THE RANGERS. The specific title for the 2-hour movie's story is "To Live and Die in Starlight."
I doubt even a majority of Democrats are asking that SUVs be banned. The majority of SUV owners and people who want an SUV of their own that I know are liberal. I, on the other hand, when I just got a new car, got a fuel efficient car. I would love to see the artificial distinction between cars and trucks eliminated, for more reasons than just CAFE standards, although that is a good reason in itself.
This is NOT an authoritarian regime. This is a democratically elected government. And there is a VERY large segment of the population that wants SUVs, and that's why they're there. SUVs aren't a product of some corporate conspiracy. They're an outgrowth of shortsightedly complicated regulations (ie, distinguishing between light trucks and cars regardless of use) and the American public's desire for powerful vehicles and thier love of outdoor sports (I won't argue the shortsightedness of the 'typical' American's high-environmental-impact outdoor sports). But the history of SUVs has largely been pushed by consumers, not by automakers. Folks wanted them, and so the automakers made them.
A large number of voters don't like SUVs. A large number of voters do. And if they really don't like it, they can try to convince the rest to vote green. The Boston Tea Party folks had NO SUCH RECOURSE. If they didn't like it, they could convince as many of their peers that the Tea Tax was wrong as they wanted, but it wouldn't change a thing. The folks that torched the SUVs were striking at SUV owners.
Look at some of the other posts to this story. They talk about SUV owners as greedy, vain, arrogant, etc. They have no respect for the wants and desires of those people. They are judging them, and that is part of the motivation for this attack.
In that sense it is as much like a Mississippi cross burning as it is the Boston Tea party, in that it is meant not to protest government action, but to intimidate average people. (clearly it is not on the same scale of evil as a cross burning, but my point is that it isn't like the Tea Party, either.)
And of course, my final point against these guys is that drawing firefighters off to fight unnecessary fires could always result in some other guy getting slower response to a real fire.
In the final analysis, these guys are self-righteous jackasses, not patriots or freedom fighters.
Re:lots of talk, little reason
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People hate these things
This is a hate crime. 'People' are pissed off that other people choose to do different things with their lives.
SUV owners, get out while you still can. Get out while you are still able to salvage some self respect.
Get out or we'll beat you out, because we're right, you're wrong, and we are willing to force you to do things our way.
True, but revolting against an authoritarian regime that imposes laws and backs them up by force is one thing. But nobody was forcing these guys to buy SUVs. What they were protesting was the SUV driver's refusal to submit to THEIR agenda. This was not a case of wanting a fair say in running their own lives, it was a case of wanting a say (in my view probably an unfair one) in how OTHERS run thier lives.
We have come quite some way since the 1770's. If we are justified in destroying someone else's property just because we think we are right, why shouldn't the people who want to own SUVs go burn down Greenpeace's offices to protest their opposition to SUV ownership?
Suppose I support the use of GMOs. Perhaps I think they will reduce the use of pesticides and make the world a cleaner place. Should I go assault members of the ELF to protect the environment by stopping their opposition to biotech? If the Boston Tea Party (a tax protest) is still justified today, should I burn down the local Democratic Party offices for their support of gasoline taxes? Where does it stop?
I am opposed to the tactics of anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue (and the goals, incidentally) and I am opposed to the tactics of the ELF (and the goals). And I see NO MORAL DISTINCTION between the two. Both see their cause as being right, and any means as being acceptable to achieve it. They're all a bunch of brown shirt fascists, and their actions are indefensible.
The problem I have with the most vocal of the environmentalist folks, and the Earth First/ELF/ALF types, is their use of FUD tactics. The term 'frankenfood' is not meant to educate or inform the general public, its meant to SCARE the general public. By generating Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt regarding genetic engineering, they can shut it down, and increase their own influence.
FUD is FUD. I hate when Redmond does it (GPL will ruin the software industry!), I hate when Jerry Falwell does it (Gays will ruin America!), and I hate it when Greenpeace does it (bt Corn will ruin the pretty butterflies!).
The local NPR station (KERA in Dallas) runs a local talk show, and were discussing GMOs and Starlink. Now there's a local guy who calls in on a regular basis, and I had heard some friends talking about how smart the guy was, despite his homespun manner. Well this was the first time I'd heard the guy call in since hearing this discussion, and so I paid special attention. His comment was this. "I had a friend down in Nacogdoches, who ate some of that Starlink Corn from a Taco Bell, and he had an alergic reaction, and he died! That stuff isn't safe!" Unfortunately, this doesn't pass the smell test. If this were even remotely true, it would be all over the internet. But try doing a google search on starlink and death, and you won't find any mention of such an incident. The guy was just making up a story to back up his own gut level emotional reaction, which was fear of change.
This fear is being played upon by people who are opposed to America's technological society for one reason or another, and they're using every trick in the book to stop GMOs before they start, without any real interest in wether they will benefit man, or even to help acheive the environmentalists' stated goals of eliminating pesticide runoff.
This is not to say that there aren't perfectly good scientists urging caution, and that there shouldn't be serious debate. The guy who did the original research on monarch larvae and bt corn was investigating a true potential problem (although subsequent research has indicated that the real impact is negligible). Also, the potential danger of GM salmon entering the general population is worth investigating further. But at this point I have ceased to even listen to anyone using the term 'Frankenfood' because it is increasingly clear that such people will not listen to me. If you want to talk to me, tone down the rhetoric.
If I recall the theories that have been put forward regarding the Wrangell mammoth population was that they survived on that island becuase there was less competition there from other large herbivores which were better suited to the changing climate. Man had been coexisting with mammoths for some time prior to their extinction. However, man was not a factor in thier extinction from that island, which lends some credence to the idea that climate change was a stronger influence than most other factors.
It seems unlikely that any predator would be able to sustain a population while simultaneously driving most of its prey to extinction. I don't categorically reject all the conclusions of the authors, mind you, but I will be skeptical until I learn more.
Also, there have been some thoughts that the Cro-Magnon population might have out-competed the Neandertal because they had a more diverse diet. Both ate meat almost exclusively, but the Neandertal ate exclusively large game while the Cro-Magnon ate both large and small game, including birds and fish. The researcher who reported this based his findings on studies of the bone chemistry of well-preserved bones. He found almost no chemical signature associated with eating fruits and vegetables, which suprised me. I cannot find the URL for the story, or remember where I saw it, but it was very interesting. If anybody else saw it and can remember it, I'd appreciate it if you'd post a response.
These adds aren't a lie, they're entertainment! We at Sony want to produce the best advertisements possible, so that you, the consumer can have the best movie-ad-reading experience! We found that 'reality-based' review quotes weren't giving the quality of pablum our devotees expect, so we began creating custom pablum which is 100% pure bullshit! Now the movie-ad-reading public can be assured that no depth goes unplumbed in our search for the smelliest turds to leave on your doorstep!
KERA, the Dallas PBS station, recently ran a short series called 'Neverwhere.' It was only 12 or so 30-minute episodes. I just happened to catch the first episode, and was so intrigued by the wierd mixture of mundane and fantastic that I kept watching. While the acting was predictably uneven, it nonetheless had a very cool vibe. I hadn't ever figured out where it had come from, since it just showed up one night, ran for its 6 or 12 weeks and then was done, and was never mentioned anywhere. It was about 'Underground London' so I assume it was based on the Gaiman book mentioned above.
Did anybody else see this?
And why the Sam Hell is this under 'Science' anyway?
For anyone who cares, the book is called 'The Ghost of the Grand Banks' and its actually a really boring story about the Titanic and something to do with fractals, from back when they were the NextBigThing(tm).
I don't actually recomend it. Go back to his old stuff where he's predicting ComSat and so forth. Its much more fun.
Arthur C. Clarke is ahead of the game again. One of his early '90s books features a guy who made billions by getting the exclusive license to remove all traces of cigarettes from old movies, because people thought smoking was so revolting.
Of course he didn't think of the real moneybags aspect, from marketting, but that's just the next step.
That's always been my beef with the whole Star Trek NG/DS9/Voy's touchpad control systems. Can you imagine trying to touchtype on a keyboard that was printed on glass? Now you have to do that without even any glass!
Now, if they can develop this with a direct simulated neural feedback so it feels like you're touching a keyboard, while the do-hickey is just reading your muscle/neural signals, then you might have something. Except I don't know what you have that couldn't be achieved better just with an actual keyboard and mouse.
Of course, that's the cool thing about scientific/technological advance. These guys can work on this for years, never come up with anything useful, and then suddenly realize they've jsut invented the long-sought-after Infinite Improbability Drive!
That problem is also true of the 'mineral fuel' used in Nuclear. We need breeder reactors to get the most energy out of each ounce of nuclear fuels. From what I've heard (probably from Nova or some such info-tainment type thing) it could result in at least 2fold, probably 4 fold or more increase in energy use from Nuclear fuel, by harnessing the energy from the daughter reactions. The reason it doesn't get much attention is that some of the daughter products are weapons-grade material (esp. Plutonium), so they have all these proliferation nightmares. The French are ahead of the US in this regard.
Of course the major problem with even clean coal is that it will still be dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
Oh well, at least it will kick-start biodiversity.
Hmm. I seem to be letting my humor get excessively dark.
Slashdot is the worst offender of all!!!
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Slashdot, once bastion of correct-thinking liberalism, has long since ceased to provide balanced viewpoints.
Once the quickpoll was replete with options of 'RobSux' or 'HemosSux' as their joke answers, but now NO DISSENTION IS ALLOWED, and all the joke answers are 'CowboyNeal', forcing us to agree with everything that Slashdot says!!!!
Of course, for quite some time, this is in fact precisely what the government has done with broadcast journalism. In the early '70s, the FCC interpreted that an earlier law empowered them to regulate for the public interest. They instituted the 'Fairness Doctrine' that meant that any federally licensed broadcaster must present opposing views. Either the Reagan or Bush administration decided that this was too egregious an infringement on free speech, and abandoned the Fairness Doctrine. I do not know if the Clinton administration re-instated it, although I know there was some discussion of that at the time.
I do not know if the constitutionality of this rule was ever challenged in court. However, when applying it to the internet, one should remember that the primary argument for it was that there was limited bandwidth for radio broadcasts, and therefore it was important to keep content roughly balanced. There is no significant shortage of wither bandwidth or opinion on the web, especially since most political speech on the web is textual, and that takes the least bandwidth of all to transmit.
And I do think that most fringe types are being polarized, I would say that A: this is nothing new, and 2: The center is still doing a fair amount of cross-polination of ideas. Hell, even on/., which many have rightly pointed out to be a rather pro-linux and anti-M$ bunch, has pointed to editorials critical of the Linux, Open Source, Free Software, etc. We have even said, 'hey, they make a good point, we'll have to fix that.'
So certainly I would oppose taking that step down the slope to government mandated hyperlinking, since it would be open to manipulation by a biased administration (left or right). And it would be hard to put that kind of legislation back in the box if we decided it was constitutional.
Caution is in order when it comes to taking away civil rights.
Its a basic engineering problem. Yes, total solar influx is many many times greater than total human power usage. So why use coal? Well, how do you actually turn solar energy into something we can use? Solar panels are very expensive, since they are essentially huge LEDs that work in reverse. Also, have you ever tried to use solar powered lights? Seems ill advised, at best. Photosynthesis is much more efficient than steam plants. But nobody has figured out how to make that work to power a server. If you have a suggestion, by all means, let someone know.
On a side note, this is also the idea behind 'biomass fuels.' basically, you use plants to create hydrocarbons and sugars that you then convert to fuel. This produces CO2 and H2O, just like regular combustion (because it IS regular combustion) but since the fuel was created by plants using atmospheric CO2 and H2O, it doesn't raise greenhouse gas levels.
Really what we need to do is get the asteroid mining in gear, so that we can cheaply mass-produce platinum catalysts and other rare-metal products, so that we can build big fusion powered cracking chambers that convert excess CO2 to useful chemicals. Of course, that does kind of require cheap, clean fusion power, too, but hey, whats a little boondoggle among friends, eh?:P
New Orleans has more problems than sea level rise.
The article mentions that the barrier islands and wetlands around the mouth of the Mississippi are shrinking. This is largely due to the flood control and silt control on the Mississippi River. The dams and levees that keep the river navigable and that protect all those farms along the river also prevent the natural transport of sediment to the sea. This means that while the weight of the delta continues to cause it to sink, there is not as much sand to keep building new land.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which has been trying to tame the Mississippi for decades, may in the end be responsible for the first abandonment of a major city in the modern era.
One thing that has popped into my mind what with the close election in many states and questions about ballot box screwups etc, is 'What effect would vote by internet have?'
Clearly with Wisconsin, Florida, and Oregon all being decided by less that 10000 votes, the possibility of ballot stuffing and/or incompetent polling is a really significant issue. Would polling be made more fair by using the Internet as much as possible, or are the security issues too difficult?
why so many users here feel the need to badmouth those individuals who put their freedom, and sometimes lives, on the line for their beliefs?
This is an interesting point. What were this guy's beliefs? What was he trying to accomplish? How did getting arrested actually help his cause, especially since we don't know what his cause was?
This guy has succeeded in getting the attention of the Slashdot community, his name prominently displayed on an article on the main page of a website with thousands of readers. He is in the spotlight. But he has squandered that chance to actually say something. He hasn't made a point, he's just shown that he can shout "Hey, look at me." and get the cops and the Slashdot community to listen.
At least the folks in Seattle managed to get some things discussed. This guy has successfully thrown a tantrum, but any two-year-old could do better.
There are legitimate things to protest. If I were Peruvian, I would be protesting Fujimori's unconstitutional 3rd term. If I were in Yugoslavia, I would be protesting Milosevich's actions to let Serbia dominate Montenegro. I was proud that my father (who lives in South Carolina) joined the march from Charleston to Columbia protesting the continued flying of the Rebel flag over the SC statehouse.
But you have to accomplish something. Mere protest for the sake of protest is ridiculous, so I don't think the/.ers are wrong to ridicule this guy.
It is not a lack of social conscience that motivates this. Social justice is not served by knee-jerk anti-rightist obstructionism and confrontationalism.
Let's face it, the Operation Rescue types use the same tactics. I bet you would slit your wrists rather than post this same comment if they were the protest group being taken down by the/.ers
Just keep that in mind before saying 'all protesters are wonderful people.'
If you can't imagine a society less well suited to genome information than the US, you don't have much imagination. I certainly wouldn't expect wonderful things out of either China or North Korea. This is not to say that there isn't any cause for concern, but blanket statements about how horrible US culture fall into the "more heat than light" category of public discourse. Tone down the propaganda and maybe someone will take you seriously.
So you are saying that you have hungry children and starving livestock, eh? Well, as a matter of fact I have an idea about a way to genetically engineer crops that could be of some use to you. Special plants designed specifically to grow well in this environment. What's that? If I do this, I have to give it all away for free? So I can't get a loan and repay it later from the profits? So I can't get any money to run a lab? Oh, well, I'm sure you can just foot the bill for a genetics lab and do all the work yourself in your spare time.
Free software is one thing. It only takes $1k-$2k to get enough computing power to write software. To genetically engineer crops is an industrial research enterprise. At the very least you need a lab and some test beds to make it work. It is labor and capital intensive. And there is no such thing as 'deep gene-splicing mode' where young geneticists spend all their spare time hacking (gene) code. We cannot truly open source the world.
The capital system provides a good system for moving goods through the developed world.
What we do with the developed world, I don't rightly know. They can't afford tractors, pesticides, or fertilizers, the way US and European farmers can, either. Should we give those away for free as well? If so, who do we not pay? The companies that make them? They'll have a hard time making payroll if we do.
Folks, the world is NOT our oyster. Just because someone has something we want does NOT give us the right to take it from them. If someone puts their blood sweat and tears into something, you can't just take it for granted.
Hey -- why didn't we think of this before? What a way to reduce crime and stop the bloodshed!
Well, that is an excellent idea. The Feds can also introduce a virus to shut down DNS servers. That way, no one will be able to download any speech condemning DMCA or showing the source of DeCSS. We can shut down the 1st Amendment without actually passing any laws! We could also 'accidently' have the IRS start doing 'innocent' tax audits of all defense attourneys. That way, they would be too busy to actually write motions to dismiss evidence obtained from illegal searches. We can shut down the 4th too! And we can...
You get my point.
I recognize that a number of people believe that the right to keep and bear arms is not simply unwise, but even morally reprehensible. But if we begin disregarding the Constitution for the public good, simply because 'Those Nasty Gun Companies Have Too Much Power!' They would use the NRA to prevent you from actually amending the constitution to correct this problem legally. But if we use that as an argument to subvert the Bill of Rights, then we open a whole can of worms.
People argue that a majority of people want gun control. They argue that to deny that majority what they want is undemocratic. I will use a counter example to show that the rule of the majority is not necessarily a good thing, when it comes to preserving life and liberty. In the 1950's, Joe McCarthy could conceivably gotten a majority of Americans to believe that it was necessary to jail anyone who espoused support for the Communist Party. Who now would argue that that would be blatantly unconsititutional?
Let's not use technology to take away a constitutionally protected right, no matter what we think about the right itself. If you dissagree, we have a method for amending the constitution. If you can't convince 2 thirds of the people that you are right enough to change it, then you probably aren't right enough to change it.
Its not like Hurricanes (with associated storm surge and winds) don't already clean up bits of the coast from time to time. Don't build on a barrier island, because the barrier is what gets hit. Duuuhhhh.
Slashdot Mirror
Overall I agree with the concepts, but I would like to clarify a few points. We need to convince people we know what we're talking about, which means keeping the hand waving and tongue-clucking moralizing to a minimum.
...and conservative wackos like yourself. Practice what you preach and leave science to the scientists...
I am a degreed scientist (I'd like to know what you are)...
I am reminded of Troy McLure's famous line, "Just ask this 'science-ologist!'" Simply claiming 'I am a scientist so I know more than you' won't cut the mustard. 'Degreed scientist' is not necessarily credentials that make you even as knowledgeable as an educated layman. What kind of scientist? Computer scientists might or might not know environmental issues. The same with a psychologist, or social scientist. I, for example, am a geophysicist, who specialized in environmental work for my thesis. But even there, my thesis work was aimed more at landfill remediation, and not climate issues. Still, I have kept up with the literature, and talked now and again with guys who were doing climate work, so I probably know a little more than your average man-on-the-street.
The disparity between surface and upper air trends in no way invalidates the conclusions that surface temperature has been rising.
Well, this is true, but does this support your implication that climate change is related to anthropogenic (fancy-talk for man-made) effects? The same climate models that predict that increased CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to warming via the greenhouse effect also predict that surface and upper-level temperatures should rise together. If the data does not support the theory, then the theory is wrong, and we need to know why. You imply in this statement that since we have one data point that supports your theory, we should ignore the one that doesn't fit.
That being said, I believe that the upper-atmospherics were based on a satelite measurements. If I recall correctly, a couple of years ago, I heard a report saying that they had figured out a slight error in the calculations they were using to calculate the temperature from whatever remote-sensing method they were using (remember, these are not direct measurements of the temperature). Once they went back and corrected for that glitch, the upper-level measurements seemed to bear out the global warming models. However, before you go quoting me on this in a letter to your senator, I'd like somebody who knows a bit more about it to back me up. I remember hearing this, but I couldn't tell you the source, and I could be wrong.
Thanks! Name calling will really win people over to our side! And really, telling people not to get involved in the scientific debate, and to wait for us scientists to come tell the masses what they should do is SUCH a convincing argument!
Educate yourself... Ozone depletion (yes, it IS linked to global warming) is worsening.
Once again, if you're going to lecture people on science, get it straight. First, while it is now thought that ozone recovery will take longer than previously believed, the level of ozone-destroying chemicals in the atmosphere has been dropping steadily since the introduction of CFC limits and the like, and the ozone layer is projected to heal itself eventually, although the rate of recovery is not yet known for certain. Second, ozone depletion is only secondarily related to global warming in that some of the ozone depleting chemicals are also greenhouse gases. However, CO2, the biggest component in most greenhouse models, is NOT an ozone depletor, and a healthy ozone layer does nothing to stop global warming. The ozone hole will effect skin cancer rates, and possibly bio-diversity (UV may damage amphibian eggs, and so forth) by allowing more UV into the atmosphere, but this is a fairly small portion of the actual energy budget which won't cause a rise in temperatures. And with a personal history of skin cancer, I pay attention to this stuff. Vested interest, and all.
Your post god modded up to a 5, which is sad considering what a poor job it does of actually stating our case. This post was based more on venom aimed at people you don't like, which makes you and your fellow environmentalists feel better, but does little to actually convince anyone that you are right. You state the alternate opinion that you express is so phenomenally unsupported, so completely discredited... yet you do little to support yourself except for some URLs that you didn't even bother to tag, and some of which have spaces, so even if you copy them to your browser they won't work.
Here's a link that will be more convincing when you're talking to these guys. The Economist (respected by people you dismissively refer to as consrvative wackos) has an article stating that Bush will probably have to come to some compromise over Kyoto (although it probably won't have the name Kyoto so Bush can save face). This one will have more impact than all the quotes from policy wonks you throw out, since no one can claim the source is biased against business or the US. This is how to win the debate and actually build a concensus.
Now we just need Buck Rogers to return with that gorgeous sidekick he had and all the cool space series of the 70s will be renewed in the 21st century.
What about Space1999? And whatever that show where they went "I said LUNCH not LAUNCH?
Oh right. You said COOL shows. I guess that rules out the Animated Star Trek, too. Oh well.
I doubt even a majority of Democrats are asking that SUVs be banned. The majority of SUV owners and people who want an SUV of their own that I know are liberal. I, on the other hand, when I just got a new car, got a fuel efficient car. I would love to see the artificial distinction between cars and trucks eliminated, for more reasons than just CAFE standards, although that is a good reason in itself.
This is NOT an authoritarian regime. This is a democratically elected government. And there is a VERY large segment of the population that wants SUVs, and that's why they're there. SUVs aren't a product of some corporate conspiracy. They're an outgrowth of shortsightedly complicated regulations (ie, distinguishing between light trucks and cars regardless of use) and the American public's desire for powerful vehicles and thier love of outdoor sports (I won't argue the shortsightedness of the 'typical' American's high-environmental-impact outdoor sports). But the history of SUVs has largely been pushed by consumers, not by automakers. Folks wanted them, and so the automakers made them.
A large number of voters don't like SUVs. A large number of voters do. And if they really don't like it, they can try to convince the rest to vote green. The Boston Tea Party folks had NO SUCH RECOURSE. If they didn't like it, they could convince as many of their peers that the Tea Tax was wrong as they wanted, but it wouldn't change a thing. The folks that torched the SUVs were striking at SUV owners.
Look at some of the other posts to this story. They talk about SUV owners as greedy, vain, arrogant, etc. They have no respect for the wants and desires of those people. They are judging them, and that is part of the motivation for this attack.
In that sense it is as much like a Mississippi cross burning as it is the Boston Tea party, in that it is meant not to protest government action, but to intimidate average people. (clearly it is not on the same scale of evil as a cross burning, but my point is that it isn't like the Tea Party, either.)
And of course, my final point against these guys is that drawing firefighters off to fight unnecessary fires could always result in some other guy getting slower response to a real fire.
In the final analysis, these guys are self-righteous jackasses, not patriots or freedom fighters.
People hate these things
This is a hate crime. 'People' are pissed off that other people choose to do different things with their lives.
SUV owners, get out while you still can. Get out while you are still able to salvage some self respect.
Get out or we'll beat you out, because we're right, you're wrong, and we are willing to force you to do things our way.
True, but revolting against an authoritarian regime that imposes laws and backs them up by force is one thing. But nobody was forcing these guys to buy SUVs. What they were protesting was the SUV driver's refusal to submit to THEIR agenda. This was not a case of wanting a fair say in running their own lives, it was a case of wanting a say (in my view probably an unfair one) in how OTHERS run thier lives.
We have come quite some way since the 1770's. If we are justified in destroying someone else's property just because we think we are right, why shouldn't the people who want to own SUVs go burn down Greenpeace's offices to protest their opposition to SUV ownership?
Suppose I support the use of GMOs. Perhaps I think they will reduce the use of pesticides and make the world a cleaner place. Should I go assault members of the ELF to protect the environment by stopping their opposition to biotech? If the Boston Tea Party (a tax protest) is still justified today, should I burn down the local Democratic Party offices for their support of gasoline taxes? Where does it stop?
I am opposed to the tactics of anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue (and the goals, incidentally) and I am opposed to the tactics of the ELF (and the goals). And I see NO MORAL DISTINCTION between the two. Both see their cause as being right, and any means as being acceptable to achieve it. They're all a bunch of brown shirt fascists, and their actions are indefensible.
The problem I have with the most vocal of the environmentalist folks, and the Earth First/ELF/ALF types, is their use of FUD tactics. The term 'frankenfood' is not meant to educate or inform the general public, its meant to SCARE the general public. By generating Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt regarding genetic engineering, they can shut it down, and increase their own influence.
FUD is FUD. I hate when Redmond does it (GPL will ruin the software industry!), I hate when Jerry Falwell does it (Gays will ruin America!), and I hate it when Greenpeace does it (bt Corn will ruin the pretty butterflies!).
The local NPR station (KERA in Dallas) runs a local talk show, and were discussing GMOs and Starlink. Now there's a local guy who calls in on a regular basis, and I had heard some friends talking about how smart the guy was, despite his homespun manner. Well this was the first time I'd heard the guy call in since hearing this discussion, and so I paid special attention. His comment was this. "I had a friend down in Nacogdoches, who ate some of that Starlink Corn from a Taco Bell, and he had an alergic reaction, and he died! That stuff isn't safe!" Unfortunately, this doesn't pass the smell test. If this were even remotely true, it would be all over the internet. But try doing a google search on starlink and death, and you won't find any mention of such an incident. The guy was just making up a story to back up his own gut level emotional reaction, which was fear of change.
This fear is being played upon by people who are opposed to America's technological society for one reason or another, and they're using every trick in the book to stop GMOs before they start, without any real interest in wether they will benefit man, or even to help acheive the environmentalists' stated goals of eliminating pesticide runoff.
This is not to say that there aren't perfectly good scientists urging caution, and that there shouldn't be serious debate. The guy who did the original research on monarch larvae and bt corn was investigating a true potential problem (although subsequent research has indicated that the real impact is negligible). Also, the potential danger of GM salmon entering the general population is worth investigating further. But at this point I have ceased to even listen to anyone using the term 'Frankenfood' because it is increasingly clear that such people will not listen to me. If you want to talk to me, tone down the rhetoric.
If I recall the theories that have been put forward regarding the Wrangell mammoth population was that they survived on that island becuase there was less competition there from other large herbivores which were better suited to the changing climate. Man had been coexisting with mammoths for some time prior to their extinction. However, man was not a factor in thier extinction from that island, which lends some credence to the idea that climate change was a stronger influence than most other factors.
It seems unlikely that any predator would be able to sustain a population while simultaneously driving most of its prey to extinction. I don't categorically reject all the conclusions of the authors, mind you, but I will be skeptical until I learn more.
Also, there have been some thoughts that the Cro-Magnon population might have out-competed the Neandertal because they had a more diverse diet. Both ate meat almost exclusively, but the Neandertal ate exclusively large game while the Cro-Magnon ate both large and small game, including birds and fish. The researcher who reported this based his findings on studies of the bone chemistry of well-preserved bones. He found almost no chemical signature associated with eating fruits and vegetables, which suprised me. I cannot find the URL for the story, or remember where I saw it, but it was very interesting. If anybody else saw it and can remember it, I'd appreciate it if you'd post a response.
These adds aren't a lie, they're entertainment! We at Sony want to produce the best advertisements possible, so that you, the consumer can have the best movie-ad-reading experience! We found that 'reality-based' review quotes weren't giving the quality of pablum our devotees expect, so we began creating custom pablum which is 100% pure bullshit! Now the movie-ad-reading public can be assured that no depth goes unplumbed in our search for the smelliest turds to leave on your doorstep!
KERA, the Dallas PBS station, recently ran a short series called 'Neverwhere.' It was only 12 or so 30-minute episodes. I just happened to catch the first episode, and was so intrigued by the wierd mixture of mundane and fantastic that I kept watching. While the acting was predictably uneven, it nonetheless had a very cool vibe. I hadn't ever figured out where it had come from, since it just showed up one night, ran for its 6 or 12 weeks and then was done, and was never mentioned anywhere. It was about 'Underground London' so I assume it was based on the Gaiman book mentioned above.
Did anybody else see this?
And why the Sam Hell is this under 'Science' anyway?
For anyone who cares, the book is called 'The Ghost of the Grand Banks' and its actually a really boring story about the Titanic and something to do with fractals, from back when they were the NextBigThing(tm).
I don't actually recomend it. Go back to his old stuff where he's predicting ComSat and so forth. Its much more fun.
Arthur C. Clarke is ahead of the game again. One of his early '90s books features a guy who made billions by getting the exclusive license to remove all traces of cigarettes from old movies, because people thought smoking was so revolting.
Of course he didn't think of the real moneybags aspect, from marketting, but that's just the next step.
That's always been my beef with the whole Star Trek NG/DS9/Voy's touchpad control systems. Can you imagine trying to touchtype on a keyboard that was printed on glass? Now you have to do that without even any glass!
Now, if they can develop this with a direct simulated neural feedback so it feels like you're touching a keyboard, while the do-hickey is just reading your muscle/neural signals, then you might have something. Except I don't know what you have that couldn't be achieved better just with an actual keyboard and mouse.
Of course, that's the cool thing about scientific/technological advance. These guys can work on this for years, never come up with anything useful, and then suddenly realize they've jsut invented the long-sought-after Infinite Improbability Drive!
That problem is also true of the 'mineral fuel' used in Nuclear. We need breeder reactors to get the most energy out of each ounce of nuclear fuels. From what I've heard (probably from Nova or some such info-tainment type thing) it could result in at least 2fold, probably 4 fold or more increase in energy use from Nuclear fuel, by harnessing the energy from the daughter reactions. The reason it doesn't get much attention is that some of the daughter products are weapons-grade material (esp. Plutonium), so they have all these proliferation nightmares. The French are ahead of the US in this regard.
Of course the major problem with even clean coal is that it will still be dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
Oh well, at least it will kick-start biodiversity.
Hmm. I seem to be letting my humor get excessively dark.
Slashdot, once bastion of correct-thinking liberalism, has long since ceased to provide balanced viewpoints.
Once the quickpoll was replete with options of 'RobSux' or 'HemosSux' as their joke answers, but now NO DISSENTION IS ALLOWED, and all the joke answers are 'CowboyNeal', forcing us to agree with everything that Slashdot says!!!!
Of course, for quite some time, this is in fact precisely what the government has done with broadcast journalism. In the early '70s, the FCC interpreted that an earlier law empowered them to regulate for the public interest. They instituted the 'Fairness Doctrine' that meant that any federally licensed broadcaster must present opposing views. Either the Reagan or Bush administration decided that this was too egregious an infringement on free speech, and abandoned the Fairness Doctrine. I do not know if the Clinton administration re-instated it, although I know there was some discussion of that at the time.
/., which many have rightly pointed out to be a rather pro-linux and anti-M$ bunch, has pointed to editorials critical of the Linux, Open Source, Free Software, etc. We have even said, 'hey, they make a good point, we'll have to fix that.'
I do not know if the constitutionality of this rule was ever challenged in court. However, when applying it to the internet, one should remember that the primary argument for it was that there was limited bandwidth for radio broadcasts, and therefore it was important to keep content roughly balanced. There is no significant shortage of wither bandwidth or opinion on the web, especially since most political speech on the web is textual, and that takes the least bandwidth of all to transmit.
And I do think that most fringe types are being polarized, I would say that A: this is nothing new, and 2: The center is still doing a fair amount of cross-polination of ideas. Hell, even on
So certainly I would oppose taking that step down the slope to government mandated hyperlinking, since it would be open to manipulation by a biased administration (left or right). And it would be hard to put that kind of legislation back in the box if we decided it was constitutional.
Caution is in order when it comes to taking away civil rights.
FWIW, here's a link to a page that came up after a search for 'fairness doctrine'
Hmmm something about pots and kettles.
:P
Its a basic engineering problem. Yes, total solar influx is many many times greater than total human power usage. So why use coal? Well, how do you actually turn solar energy into something we can use? Solar panels are very expensive, since they are essentially huge LEDs that work in reverse. Also, have you ever tried to use solar powered lights? Seems ill advised, at best. Photosynthesis is much more efficient than steam plants. But nobody has figured out how to make that work to power a server. If you have a suggestion, by all means, let someone know.
On a side note, this is also the idea behind 'biomass fuels.' basically, you use plants to create hydrocarbons and sugars that you then convert to fuel. This produces CO2 and H2O, just like regular combustion (because it IS regular combustion) but since the fuel was created by plants using atmospheric CO2 and H2O, it doesn't raise greenhouse gas levels.
Really what we need to do is get the asteroid mining in gear, so that we can cheaply mass-produce platinum catalysts and other rare-metal products, so that we can build big fusion powered cracking chambers that convert excess CO2 to useful chemicals. Of course, that does kind of require cheap, clean fusion power, too, but hey, whats a little boondoggle among friends, eh?
New Orleans has more problems than sea level rise.
The article mentions that the barrier islands and wetlands around the mouth of the Mississippi are shrinking. This is largely due to the flood control and silt control on the Mississippi River. The dams and levees that keep the river navigable and that protect all those farms along the river also prevent the natural transport of sediment to the sea. This means that while the weight of the delta continues to cause it to sink, there is not as much sand to keep building new land.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which has been trying to tame the Mississippi for decades, may in the end be responsible for the first abandonment of a major city in the modern era.
One thing that has popped into my mind what with the close election in many states and questions about ballot box screwups etc, is 'What effect would vote by internet have?'
Clearly with Wisconsin, Florida, and Oregon all being decided by less that 10000 votes, the possibility of ballot stuffing and/or incompetent polling is a really significant issue. Would polling be made more fair by using the Internet as much as possible, or are the security issues too difficult?
why so many users here feel the need to badmouth those individuals who put their freedom, and sometimes lives, on the line for their beliefs?
/.ers are wrong to ridicule this guy.
/.ers
This is an interesting point. What were this guy's beliefs? What was he trying to accomplish? How did getting arrested actually help his cause, especially since we don't know what his cause was?
This guy has succeeded in getting the attention of the Slashdot community, his name prominently displayed on an article on the main page of a website with thousands of readers. He is in the spotlight. But he has squandered that chance to actually say something. He hasn't made a point, he's just shown that he can shout "Hey, look at me." and get the cops and the Slashdot community to listen.
At least the folks in Seattle managed to get some things discussed. This guy has successfully thrown a tantrum, but any two-year-old could do better.
There are legitimate things to protest. If I were Peruvian, I would be protesting Fujimori's unconstitutional 3rd term. If I were in Yugoslavia, I would be protesting Milosevich's actions to let Serbia dominate Montenegro. I was proud that my father (who lives in South Carolina) joined the march from Charleston to Columbia protesting the continued flying of the Rebel flag over the SC statehouse.
But you have to accomplish something. Mere protest for the sake of protest is ridiculous, so I don't think the
It is not a lack of social conscience that motivates this. Social justice is not served by knee-jerk anti-rightist obstructionism and confrontationalism.
Let's face it, the Operation Rescue types use the same tactics. I bet you would slit your wrists rather than post this same comment if they were the protest group being taken down by the
Just keep that in mind before saying 'all protesters are wonderful people.'
If you can't imagine a society less well suited to genome information than the US, you don't have much imagination. I certainly wouldn't expect wonderful things out of either China or North Korea. This is not to say that there isn't any cause for concern, but blanket statements about how horrible US culture fall into the "more heat than light" category of public discourse. Tone down the propaganda and maybe someone will take you seriously.
So you are saying that you have hungry children and starving livestock, eh? Well, as a matter of fact I have an idea about a way to genetically engineer crops that could be of some use to you. Special plants designed specifically to grow well in this environment. What's that? If I do this, I have to give it all away for free? So I can't get a loan and repay it later from the profits? So I can't get any money to run a lab? Oh, well, I'm sure you can just foot the bill for a genetics lab and do all the work yourself in your spare time.
Free software is one thing. It only takes $1k-$2k to get enough computing power to write software. To genetically engineer crops is an industrial research enterprise. At the very least you need a lab and some test beds to make it work. It is labor and capital intensive. And there is no such thing as 'deep gene-splicing mode' where young geneticists spend all their spare time hacking (gene) code. We cannot truly open source the world.
The capital system provides a good system for moving goods through the developed world.
What we do with the developed world, I don't rightly know. They can't afford tractors, pesticides, or fertilizers, the way US and European farmers can, either. Should we give those away for free as well? If so, who do we not pay? The companies that make them? They'll have a hard time making payroll if we do.
Folks, the world is NOT our oyster. Just because someone has something we want does NOT give us the right to take it from them. If someone puts their blood sweat and tears into something, you can't just take it for granted.
Hey -- why didn't we think of this before? What a way to reduce crime and stop the bloodshed!
Well, that is an excellent idea. The Feds can also introduce a virus to shut down DNS servers. That way, no one will be able to download any speech condemning DMCA or showing the source of DeCSS. We can shut down the 1st Amendment without actually passing any laws! We could also 'accidently' have the IRS start doing 'innocent' tax audits of all defense attourneys. That way, they would be too busy to actually write motions to dismiss evidence obtained from illegal searches. We can shut down the 4th too! And we can...
You get my point.
I recognize that a number of people believe that the right to keep and bear arms is not simply unwise, but even morally reprehensible. But if we begin disregarding the Constitution for the public good, simply because 'Those Nasty Gun Companies Have Too Much Power!' They would use the NRA to prevent you from actually amending the constitution to correct this problem legally. But if we use that as an argument to subvert the Bill of Rights, then we open a whole can of worms.
People argue that a majority of people want gun control. They argue that to deny that majority what they want is undemocratic. I will use a counter example to show that the rule of the majority is not necessarily a good thing, when it comes to preserving life and liberty. In the 1950's, Joe McCarthy could conceivably gotten a majority of Americans to believe that it was necessary to jail anyone who espoused support for the Communist Party. Who now would argue that that would be blatantly unconsititutional?
Let's not use technology to take away a constitutionally protected right, no matter what we think about the right itself. If you dissagree, we have a method for amending the constitution. If you can't convince 2 thirds of the people that you are right enough to change it, then you probably aren't right enough to change it.
Now lets all go and arm bears!!
Its not like Hurricanes (with associated storm surge and winds) don't already clean up bits of the coast from time to time. Don't build on a barrier island, because the barrier is what gets hit. Duuuhhhh.