Well, historically we got our butts kicked when we invaded Canada. BUT... we did once conquer much of Mexico, and foolishly gave it back. (Actually, we paid them to take it back.) The lesson here is that it's better to invade than to be invaded.
They won't need to make war on us. As I've said before, all they'd need to do is get us dangled over a big enough debt barrel that we can't pay it off. I predict at that point we'll either blow off the debt (unlikely) or cede them some territory, such as one of those little-used states... Alaska would do nicely, doncha think??
I particularly noticed that section too. This guy's perspective is interesting all along -- he's both practical in the real world and a purist about religion and its background.
You're not forced to read their blogs. I'd say it's a good deal LESS invasive than the traditional door-to-door ministry.
[disclaimer: I'm an atheist, but when I read the article, my reaction was "Good for Pope Benedict! There's a man with a foreward-thinking brain." It cannot possibly hurt for religious professionals to become more aware of Real World Stuff than if they stayed in their medieval cloisters.]
As to the "austerity" fallacy, anyone who believes it needs to read Why They Behave Like Russians, which goes into considerable on-the-spot detail about the Soviet austerity program following WW2. The details differ but the principle is the same: gov't does whatever the hell it wants, takes everything we have, then tells us that *we* need to practice 'austerity' until the crisis passes. Trouble is, once you start down that road, the crisis never ends.
"...one way to look at awg is that it got started when man caused cooling theories could not get traction."
That's an interesting point. I wonder what would be revealed by an examination of the economics of the two theories, and of how the various interests interlock??
(Probably an endless parade of special-interest shills, that's what. I've actually read the fine print in the "green" bills that have been floated in California, and every damned one of them has nothing to do with green or halting AGW, but everything to do with setting up an economic advantage for some micro-industry that couldn't make it in the open market.)
It sounds like the decision has conflated "You can give me money so I can print stuff" with "You can use your money to print stuff". Note that neither addresses the content.
That's only for finishing -- the last month or so before slaughter. The majority of their life is spent in dry pasture, eating grass, regardless of the size of the operation.
Actually, someone did the math on that, and in a vegan system, the world population would have to *shrink* by at least 2/3rds to be sustainable on the available level of food production. The reason is twofold:
1) Crop agriculture largely depends on animal ag (which is to say, manure) for *fixed nitrogen* to fertilize crops. Most crop plants are NOT nitrogen fixers and rely entirely on fertilizer or on existing nitrogen compounds in the soil (which are rapidly depleted if not replaced; this nitrogen goes into making the proteins in the crop). This is actually the most important limiting factor in crop yields. -- Without manure, you have to rely on industrial ammonia, as several posters detail above -- a fairly costly process in terms of energy use. The only reason our crop yields are as good as they are today is because manure, never in sufficient supply, is being supplemented by industrial ammonia. To get off that dependency on industrial ammonia for fertilizer, we'd need to approximately DOUBLE manure production (which is to say, animal ag).
2) Getting rid of animal agriculture actually pulls a lot of land OUT of food production, since only about a quarter of the ag-utilized land is suitable for crops. Livestock are grazed mainly on land that CANNOT grow food crops, either for soil being too poor or terrain being unsuitable (thin, rocky, steep) or for not having enough evenly-distributed water (e.g. most of the American west, most of central Asia, etc.) Cattle can drink at a trough; plants need water distributed to their roots, and irrigation uses a lot of fuel, since most irrigation water needs to be pumped. (And irrigation pipe is hideously expensive, presently over $100 for a 20 foot piece of 4" pipe. That's right, it's over 5 bucks per FOOT.) With population growth using more and more water for urban survival, or water being pulled away from crop use (like the debacle in central California) water itself is rapidly becoming another limiting factor, and in some areas is actually too expensive to use on crops at all.
Crop-producing plants, especially those that produce a lot of protein, need a LOT of nitrogen and water, compared to graze and fodder useful for feeding animals. This animal fodder is not at all useful for feeding humans. (Unless you can figure out how to grow multiple stomachs or another 20 yards of intestine, so you can digest grass.) Animals serve as a very efficient means of converting NON-FOOD CROPS (mostly grass) from NON-ARABLE LAND (ie. pasture) into HUMAN-USABLE PROTEIN.
The other problem is that strict veganism is actually a recipe for human extinction, since it is not possible to raise healthy children on a vegan diet. It is catastrophically deficient in vit.B-12 (which leads to a variety of problems in children, from retardation to death), plus you need to eat about 3x the calories to get the required level and balance of animo acids, and even then it will be deficient in some of them.
Soy is actually not a very good or efficient protein, is processing-intensive to get it to the point where it is human-digestible, and has some other negative impacts; there is a lot of good research (with citations) compiled at http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/
[BTW my background is biochemistry, and I'm from farm and ranch country, so I actually do know what I'm talking about. Unlike the average urbanite who has no real idea what it takes to produce the food he eats.]
But how much could you save in the cost to transport fuel TO the metro area? Cuz most places, fuel all comes in by truck, rail, or pipeline. Why not produce it as close to the major demand as possible, thus reducing the necessary waste of using fuel to transport fuel? As a bonus, you may be able to stave off having to expand the waste treatment plant, since the algae would do part of the work.
Had this argument here already with some other educated idiot, who couldn't understand why crop agriculture largely depends on animal ag for nitrogen. (Ie. on manure, which is to say, already-captured nitrogen. Visit the Bandini fertilizer plant if you're ever in Los Angeles; it's where all that feedlot manure winds up.)
Anyway, occurred to me that siting those algae production plants downstream of waste treatment facilities (or dairies, or pig farms) would also help recapture a lot of otherwise-wasted nitrogen and phosphate, which now are regarded as pollutants but nonetheless must be replaced at the crop-growing stage of the food chain.
Oh, I don't doubt you at all, and I think you're correct that it's more common than people would like to believe. It's yet another side effect of cops being trained to regard everyone as potential perps, and the Us vs Them mentality that view engenders. So now when an ordinary idiot does something stupid, instead of a calming "Here now, that's enough of that", it's immediately a panicked "Everyone's on the warpath! call SWAT!"
Some Pit Bulls appear to have the double muscling gene too (it isn't truly correct for the breed, but a lot of people like the bully look).
Just occurred to me to wonder if the "9 stone weakling" look (which, alas, I have) is a related issue -- that is, folks like myself who just don't build muscle no matter what we do. I do physical work every day, but I still look like a roadkill!
"The smaller an individual organism is and the less resources it requires to maintain itself in breeding condition, the harder it is to eradicate."
Excellent point.
A possible corollary worth considering: the more macro the impact, the more micro changes it will engender as other organisms adapt and fill the new niches, and therefore the more insidious the unintended effects.
The real question is -- what will they do to the existing ecosystem? they're not the only animal that's either gone extinct or changed its range. What about the predators and plant life and other organisms, not to mention the watershed, that reintroducing such an animal will impact?
This was not well-examined prior to reintroducing wolves in the Yellowstone area, and now they're a problem, not only to domestic livestock but also to other wild species (there is some thought that the new wolf population could exterminate the elk within a couple generations, at their present rate of unchecked population growth).
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Well, historically we got our butts kicked when we invaded Canada. BUT... we did once conquer much of Mexico, and foolishly gave it back. (Actually, we paid them to take it back.) The lesson here is that it's better to invade than to be invaded.
Ya know, if we had any sense, we'd invade Mexico, not Iran. Much more convenient. ;)
Good point, but what happens when we run out of such territories??
Furthermore, what happens to American in the meantime?
And another excellent invention, the bounty hunter. Wonder what sort of bounty a drone would be worth??
They won't need to make war on us. As I've said before, all they'd need to do is get us dangled over a big enough debt barrel that we can't pay it off. I predict at that point we'll either blow off the debt (unlikely) or cede them some territory, such as one of those little-used states... Alaska would do nicely, doncha think??
St.Matthew invented binary??!
"The Internet is less disturbing than a face to face meeting."
Considering some of the people I've met on the internet, I daresay you're correct. ;)
I particularly noticed that section too. This guy's perspective is interesting all along -- he's both practical in the real world and a purist about religion and its background.
You're not forced to read their blogs. I'd say it's a good deal LESS invasive than the traditional door-to-door ministry.
[disclaimer: I'm an atheist, but when I read the article, my reaction was "Good for Pope Benedict! There's a man with a foreward-thinking brain." It cannot possibly hurt for religious professionals to become more aware of Real World Stuff than if they stayed in their medieval cloisters.]
Ah, very interesting, thank you.
As to the "austerity" fallacy, anyone who believes it needs to read Why They Behave Like Russians, which goes into considerable on-the-spot detail about the Soviet austerity program following WW2. The details differ but the principle is the same: gov't does whatever the hell it wants, takes everything we have, then tells us that *we* need to practice 'austerity' until the crisis passes. Trouble is, once you start down that road, the crisis never ends.
Why They Behave Like Russians -- out of copyright and free to read at the Open Library project:
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/whytheybehavelik00fiscmiss
(I have a battered old hardcopy of this book. One of the best quarters I ever spent.)
"...one way to look at awg is that it got started when man caused cooling theories could not get traction."
That's an interesting point. I wonder what would be revealed by an examination of the economics of the two theories, and of how the various interests interlock??
(Probably an endless parade of special-interest shills, that's what. I've actually read the fine print in the "green" bills that have been floated in California, and every damned one of them has nothing to do with green or halting AGW, but everything to do with setting up an economic advantage for some micro-industry that couldn't make it in the open market.)
Good posts, BTW.
It sounds like the decision has conflated "You can give me money so I can print stuff" with "You can use your money to print stuff". Note that neither addresses the content.
Or as long as it takes the current generation to die off, since you can't raise healthy children on a B12-null diet.
That's only for finishing -- the last month or so before slaughter. The majority of their life is spent in dry pasture, eating grass, regardless of the size of the operation.
Actually, someone did the math on that, and in a vegan system, the world population would have to *shrink* by at least 2/3rds to be sustainable on the available level of food production. The reason is twofold:
1) Crop agriculture largely depends on animal ag (which is to say, manure) for *fixed nitrogen* to fertilize crops. Most crop plants are NOT nitrogen fixers and rely entirely on fertilizer or on existing nitrogen compounds in the soil (which are rapidly depleted if not replaced; this nitrogen goes into making the proteins in the crop). This is actually the most important limiting factor in crop yields. -- Without manure, you have to rely on industrial ammonia, as several posters detail above -- a fairly costly process in terms of energy use. The only reason our crop yields are as good as they are today is because manure, never in sufficient supply, is being supplemented by industrial ammonia. To get off that dependency on industrial ammonia for fertilizer, we'd need to approximately DOUBLE manure production (which is to say, animal ag).
2) Getting rid of animal agriculture actually pulls a lot of land OUT of food production, since only about a quarter of the ag-utilized land is suitable for crops. Livestock are grazed mainly on land that CANNOT grow food crops, either for soil being too poor or terrain being unsuitable (thin, rocky, steep) or for not having enough evenly-distributed water (e.g. most of the American west, most of central Asia, etc.) Cattle can drink at a trough; plants need water distributed to their roots, and irrigation uses a lot of fuel, since most irrigation water needs to be pumped. (And irrigation pipe is hideously expensive, presently over $100 for a 20 foot piece of 4" pipe. That's right, it's over 5 bucks per FOOT.) With population growth using more and more water for urban survival, or water being pulled away from crop use (like the debacle in central California) water itself is rapidly becoming another limiting factor, and in some areas is actually too expensive to use on crops at all.
Crop-producing plants, especially those that produce a lot of protein, need a LOT of nitrogen and water, compared to graze and fodder useful for feeding animals. This animal fodder is not at all useful for feeding humans. (Unless you can figure out how to grow multiple stomachs or another 20 yards of intestine, so you can digest grass.) Animals serve as a very efficient means of converting NON-FOOD CROPS (mostly grass) from NON-ARABLE LAND (ie. pasture) into HUMAN-USABLE PROTEIN.
The other problem is that strict veganism is actually a recipe for human extinction, since it is not possible to raise healthy children on a vegan diet. It is catastrophically deficient in vit.B-12 (which leads to a variety of problems in children, from retardation to death), plus you need to eat about 3x the calories to get the required level and balance of animo acids, and even then it will be deficient in some of them.
Soy is actually not a very good or efficient protein, is processing-intensive to get it to the point where it is human-digestible, and has some other negative impacts; there is a lot of good research (with citations) compiled at http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/
[BTW my background is biochemistry, and I'm from farm and ranch country, so I actually do know what I'm talking about. Unlike the average urbanite who has no real idea what it takes to produce the food he eats.]
Just for the record, All Temperature Cheer, applied straight, will also do the job.
As a side benefit, it can help feed the algae downstream. ;)
But how much could you save in the cost to transport fuel TO the metro area? Cuz most places, fuel all comes in by truck, rail, or pipeline. Why not produce it as close to the major demand as possible, thus reducing the necessary waste of using fuel to transport fuel? As a bonus, you may be able to stave off having to expand the waste treatment plant, since the algae would do part of the work.
Had this argument here already with some other educated idiot, who couldn't understand why crop agriculture largely depends on animal ag for nitrogen. (Ie. on manure, which is to say, already-captured nitrogen. Visit the Bandini fertilizer plant if you're ever in Los Angeles; it's where all that feedlot manure winds up.)
Anyway, occurred to me that siting those algae production plants downstream of waste treatment facilities (or dairies, or pig farms) would also help recapture a lot of otherwise-wasted nitrogen and phosphate, which now are regarded as pollutants but nonetheless must be replaced at the crop-growing stage of the food chain.
Oh, I don't doubt you at all, and I think you're correct that it's more common than people would like to believe. It's yet another side effect of cops being trained to regard everyone as potential perps, and the Us vs Them mentality that view engenders. So now when an ordinary idiot does something stupid, instead of a calming "Here now, that's enough of that", it's immediately a panicked "Everyone's on the warpath! call SWAT!"
Welcome. Check out the article and more pics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_muscling
Some Pit Bulls appear to have the double muscling gene too (it isn't truly correct for the breed, but a lot of people like the bully look).
Just occurred to me to wonder if the "9 stone weakling" look (which, alas, I have) is a related issue -- that is, folks like myself who just don't build muscle no matter what we do. I do physical work every day, but I still look like a roadkill!
I dunno.. think how much less work you'd have to do to win the Mr.Olympia contest!
Haha, yeah, and that's exactly the picture I had in mind :)
"The smaller an individual organism is and the less resources it requires to maintain itself in breeding condition, the harder it is to eradicate."
Excellent point.
A possible corollary worth considering: the more macro the impact, the more micro changes it will engender as other organisms adapt and fill the new niches, and therefore the more insidious the unintended effects.
The real question is -- what will they do to the existing ecosystem? they're not the only animal that's either gone extinct or changed its range. What about the predators and plant life and other organisms, not to mention the watershed, that reintroducing such an animal will impact?
This was not well-examined prior to reintroducing wolves in the Yellowstone area, and now they're a problem, not only to domestic livestock but also to other wild species (there is some thought that the new wolf population could exterminate the elk within a couple generations, at their present rate of unchecked population growth).