I'd agree with you if I thought Obama as even remotely OF THE LEFT. As far as I can tell -- he is far to the Right of Nixon.
>> The ONLY REASON we Progressives even support Obama is that he is 'regretful' about war. That his thoughts are in the 'right direction.' I'm sickened by his continuing support for the wars, his signing of the NDAA, and his lack of prosecutions of war crimes, and malfeasance on Wall Street and in our banking system.
That said -- he's the best we got. If we don't cheer for someone occasionally POINTING in the right direction and saying; "America can do better," then we are damning us all to follow the vulture capitalists into the grave. I have yet to hear anyone on to the "Right" of Obama say anything that didn't give me the chills and make me want to run to a sane country if they would have me.
>> You cannot play the game of equivalency if ONE SIDE has never been headed in the right direction of Progress. The main sin of the Democrats has been to follow the Republicans into their slide into fascism -- I can't see anything to distinguish them from that.
But I've since re-imagined the War between the states since we had the "Tea Party" march on Washington so that Wall Street tycoons could get more tax breaks. Oh, and so that history books wouldn't bring up inconvenient facts of history about the founding fathers -- because delusional hero worship is so very healthy...
I now think that the South was NOT REALLY fighting for states rights. The Civil War was really a class war. The 1% who had slaves, wanted the rest of the workers who had to compete with slave labor to say; "Hey, you Northern oppressors -- we want to import cheap goods and not have to buy American, because we can't compete by selling good not made by slave labor."
The Slave Masters wanted everyone in the South to say; "WE are being harmed by the North economically" -- when really, slavery probably reduced wages for MOST Southerners.
>> So if there is another civil war -- it will be between the people fighting for the Common Good, and those people who are convinced that they are destined to be a CEO.
... this man should have been a bit more geeky and lazy at the same time by putting the camera and the RC controls on the Internet, then having remote volunteers run the RC toys to dig out his basement.
This gets me thinking I can probably get the internet to excavate and build me a large swimming pool, given about 50 RC bulldozers and a month of use of my web-server.
I disagree with you -- but nice comeback. We are all "hand waving" because ANY solution is going to take a lot of work.
I disagree about the amount of effort it would take to create a moon base -- I think you can do MOST of it with two large lifts and three smaller rockets.
The MAIN thing you would need is something like a Kiln, to bake oxygen out of moon dust and create bricks. IN a few months, you've can create air tight buildings on the moon out of native materials. Either an automated drill for underground, or a brick layer attached to the "feeder" from the kiln. If you weren't harvesting the oxygen and raw materials, you could have a robotic device create a structure much like a mud wasp with moon dust -- however, instead of using water and mud, I'd go with a microwave maser between two plates that compress dust. No expendable material used on the construction drone means less need for repairs.
The energy of course could either be laser from earth, or nuclear, since we aren't worried about contamination yet.
Still, a small group of people overseeing mostly remote devices would make the most sense and THAT would take a commitment of resources.
>> But we wasted far more on two wars and got no benefits from it other than the stocks of some oil companies. I'm sick of "handwaving" at the future and doing nothing but make excuses why anything inspiring is too expensive. There are a lot of people "SAVING MONEY" right now, as America falls into a downward spiral of mediocrity.
I had the same argument with a bunch of geeks on a popular Sci-fi author's blog.
He was in favor of LEO objects and Asteroids. I was in favor of the Moon because it has fuel and one other VERY important component; a little bit of gravity.
We've gotten better in space, we've got some remote robots, but nothing beats being able to walk across the room and get a part and a wrench. The expenditure of fuel on the earth is geometric because the more fuel you have, the more weight and the more fuel you need. A lot of the fuel is for the weight of the fuel.
The OTHER huge option to get a moon base started, is to use lasers from earth and shoot target energy to geosynchronous satellites that bounce the energy down to the moon's surface. You'd probably need this for a few years. I think they've already had success with tests at Groom Lake, Texas. I don't know if that's public knowledge, or even true, correct information just sticks in my head... so I figure this speculation is likely -- it makes too much sense.
>> The other big advantage is you can make lot's of bricks out of moon dust. As you bake out the oxygen and aluminum you need, the refuse is fused into a large block that can be used for construction.
>> The fuel expense can be lowered by using rail gun catapults to throw the heavy components into a moon orbit. The delicate equipment could be brought up with a normal shuttle type rocket along with the people, and then they rendezvous with the space ship body or payload in orbit around the moon.
>> The TINY advantage of orbiting debris or using a moonlet like Phobos is "outweighed" (pun totally by accident) by the advantages of a "shirtsleeve environment" on the moon. Human's still need some gravity for long-term projects. The moon is the perfect stepping stone to the solar system as long as we are dependent on rockets for travel.
Well, as long as nobody finds the gyro-magnetic propulsion system in my basement, that is...;-)
So that means if we start using Seaweed for Ethanol, you won't have enough left for a Sushi roll after we've used up perhaps a trillion metric shit-tons of seaweed!
I think the main problem would be competing with the already strained food-chain in the ocean... but that's going to be a problem after a million metric shit tons of seaweed are used.
The less proof someone has of a strongly held belief, the more vigorously they defend it.
>> If God wanted everyone to believe in him with merely faith, he wouldn't have put Religion in the hands of people who club to death a person who doesn't believe -- he'd put Religion in the hands of people who were so good and inspiring, that everyone would be drawn to them.
Either there is no God, or He just doesn't care to interfere with the messengers -- which means these religious vigilantes are screwed either way.
It's simpler than that; Educating engineers in this country requires SOMEONE to pay. Only people who don't need money right away can survive a 1 year internship to "sacrifice for opportunity."
Since the Chinese engineer was educated on someone else's dime, he's the perfect "lowest cost input" for a globalist. The problem is that he's eventually going to take this knowledge and first hand experience back to his/her own country -- since the US is less tolerant now and not as attractive a become of hope that makes people want to stay.
China's economy is doing everything the OPPOSITE of what our Globalist said to do; it pays for a lot of social things, it does government stimulus projects (but sure, they need the roads and dams), and it has very high tariffs on imports.
The corporations that sold us the concept of "high efficiency and global competitiveness" will either move to China or be replaced by a start-up created by someone entrepreneurial that they trained instead of an American.
America will be left with a generation of under-educated, or worse; expensively educated on their own dime people who have to pay off the debts the companies left when they shipped the assets and ownership but left the cost of the leveraged buyouts. It's not as bad as you put it -- it's going to be worse. This is like allowing a private company to own the rights to your sports team after your taxes paid the bill for the stadium they ran into the ground and never paid for. The Jersey fan is either going to pick up a new sport or move to Denver.
The UPSIDE of this media orchestrated ridicule is that more and more people don't think the Media is legitimate -- other than of course fans of Fox News who think CNN is somehow "Liberal" because it's less obviously for pinheads.
When I hear from OWS and other groups like them -- they sound legitimate. Legitimacy is becoming more and more a social media networking experiment -- echoing the "small town" of long ago. I'm sure that's why Facebook is so important -- but I'd caution anyone trying to manipulate public opinion here too; In order for people to LISTEN, they need to get value from the exchange. If people don't have jobs, justice, or opportunity -- you cannot tell them that their friend's sister said "this is the best of all possible worlds." The skunk gets defriended pretty quickly.
The moment for me where the Media became the annoying drunken uncle was when Howard Dean's innocuous "Yeehaw" was sampled and broadcast on almost every TV station about 2000 times per channel for two weeks. The normal staid and thoughtful Dean was instantly painted as a kook.
The DOWNSIDE of the "friendly network news" system is the creation of Bubble realities. IF you are an intelligent design scientist with part time membership in a militia and your greatest fear is Canadians crossing the border to steal our jobs -- there is likely a group of like-minded individuals ready to listen to your sage echo of their own thoughts.
>> Americans have been used and abused by commercial messages and our government has been bought and sold, and the people who "buy into it" are going to be in the minority soon. It's got to be disappointing that after Clear Channel got 80% of the radio stations and News Corp built their empire, they've got a majority stake in that annoying buzzing sound we tune out.
I like to call this blowback from the "will of the governed."
When the Justice Department closed for business, and avowed War Criminals get to walk around after having playing cards made for people they wanted to assassinate without the benefit of a Nuremberg or even military trial. When Wall Street and Oil companies paid off their regulators and ran their own game.
Well, THAT is what creates Anonymous and things like it in the digital age.
See, Corporate taxes are now below 7% of the government's revenue now when they used to be about 40%. But what those fans of a "police state" don't realize, is that their NEW tax is going to be paying for body guards, bullet proof glass everywhere, and some hacker they cannot trust to watch the programmer they cannot trust to protect them from a million Anonymous script kiddies with mayhem in mind because now everyone is as ruthless as they are.
It's all fun and profits when YOU are the only rat bastard.
Anonymous likely has never hurt any corporation or entity that didn't also do the same thing to someone else -- only those stories don't get printed in the sponsor driven papers.
The idea that america is "loaded" with spies implies a call for change in government policy. Even your anecdotes don't rise to the level that requires government action - if you knew that guy was plotting espionage than tell your boss, get him fired and the problem is solved.
I'm a Progressive, and I figure MOST wars are for profit and a scam. I'm not big on the Security State or the Pentagon.
Having said that... are you fricken' kidding me? The only reason nobody cares if some Chinese national is stealing their stuff is if the whole thing is corrupt and security is a farce for our benefit.
Why are we bothering to spy on every American and sniff every shoe traveling on an airplane, if ANY imported worker could be working against a company that is doing work that is vital to national security? And by any measure, the Fed is vital to national security.
If nobody cares, that means they already have one foot out the door and don't care who does what. I'd say this was an instance of arguing over deck chairs on the Titanic -- but someone already sold them.
Not just Chinese spies... America is LOADED with Mossad and AIPAC agents. Turkish agents. Saudi princes ready to party. Ukrainian mafia probably put about a Billion dollars in the coffers of the Bush family -- likely they are rolling in Opium today. It's all up for grabs...
Nobody is going to attack America if they can merely bid for the Speaker of the House. I'm wondering when Christies is going to quit playing with the chump change million dollar art auctions and organize this mayhem into a profitable enterprise.
Via looking the other way because EVERYONE was corrupt, Washington has become the fricken' UN. I can imagine that most of the work for Chinese intelligence is sifting through the crap that they already stole, and sorting that from the crap that already came in a diplomatic pouch.
When Sibel Edmonds blew the whistle about Nuclear weapons secrets that she translated from Turkish intelligence communications -- she was ignored and told to sit down and shut up. Going higher only got her in trouble. She also claimed that Dennis Hastert was on Turkey's payroll -- nothing happened. Now D H is a highly paid consultant for Turkey -- he's probably giving them million dollar history lessons like Newt gave Fannie Mae.
I'm not talking about guild or innocence here but; They outsourced this important coding job to a Chinese man. Is he the only one who could do it, or was he the cheapest?
If Americans are given good jobs, opportunity and hope for the future -- there's a good chance to expect loyalty and honor from happy citizens.
If you want to replace that model with; "We will bargain you down to the lowest common-denominator on the planet" then you really, really have to beef up security because you can trust them only slightly more than they can trust you. Holy crap!
>> When November of 2008 financial collapse rolled around (inevitably), some Bonds rating companies were giving their consulting clients AAA ratings on whatever they pushed out because consulting made more money than bond rating. The Big Banks got around protections for consumers by using smaller banks to collect the sub-par loans with no questions asked (they were not forced in the SLIGHTEST by anti-red lining laws, contrary to Rush Limbaugh and his minions).
Ultimately, all these "Job Creators" can't really trust each other -- because there are no suckers left. It's only sharks in them thar waters and there is nothing left for bottom feeders but the blood.
>> The Federal Reserve (which has no oversight and isn't government), outsourced a job to a non-American, and likely he already sent a good portion of the code and the Fed's security procedures to China. Dig in fella's, this is how you enjoy just desserts -- and you thought you only had to worry about Occupy Wall Street? Heh.
Wow, kudos sir on some of the most elegant Weasel Words I've seen to use the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law.
If he Cops don't need a warrant to place a GPS on your car, then the cops don't need a warrant to secretly "place" a GPS pill in your hamburger and have you swallow it. I mean, I can place a Penny on the hood of your car -- but if you swallow that GPS/penny -- you've basically interacted with it and chosen to participate in this voluntary measure. Since the GPS device is LEGAL -- and you are ignorant of it -- ignorance of the law is no excuse. Ipso Facto; cops don't need a law to tag and release you.
I'm actually sure that you will go far with this sort of logic, because Weasels are in high demand.
>> IF you ignore intent - then there isn't ANYTHING you cannot justify if you phrase things in the right way. Which is why your comment is so scary.
Your comment sounds really thoughtful....... which is why the Supreme court will consider none of this.
They will look at case law, previous misinterpretations, and situations where a hypothetical GPS device would avert Nuclear war to come down fairly on the side of whatever keeps the population under control.
Unless someone from OWS can hire Clarence Thomas' wife as a consultant, it's going to be a 5 to 4 ruling to allow GPS without a warrant.
The decision will be ghost written and handed in as if it were actually the opinion of the court, from a Law Firm recommended by the US Chamber of Commerce.
>> I think we all need to update how this Legal stuff works... you were obviously hindered by some education in law.
If I'm a "BUG" and you gave me a low dose -- that means MORE of me survive, right?
If it's capable of reducing some "bugs" in the gut, isn't that basically digestion - meaning, the animal doesn't digest as quickly so it stores more of the food as fat?
When humans take anti-biotics, we take mega-doses and we are supposed to take a full course -- why? Because even if we get healthy, we don't want weakened but "educated" bugs to come back and make us sick again -- thus making the antibiotic useless.
Also, there are OTHER things going on here, that are perhaps going to cause problems -- but there is no money in figuring that out. We can fake meat with soy beans, we can put saw dust in bread, we can add fillers and additives but in the end -- the further we "process" food, or make animals unhealthy, the further we get from the very complex system we evolved as part of.
The low doses to me, sound like a great way to inoculate the bugs. And FOOD is too complicated to leave it up to profit margins to decide what is "adequate."
The ONLY reason we have antibiotics in lifestock feed, is because it is profitable. We have high unemployment now because it is profitable. WE don't have family farms -- instead we have huge conglomerated factory farms that treat livestock as part of a conveyor belt of efficiency.
Efficiency is no good to the vast majority of people. Sure, we want to use some modern equipment instead of plowing by Ox, but we've doubled production only to make a product with 1/10th the real nutrition and half the value.
We have a world of make-work, accounting practices, regulations, lawsuits, stock trades, leveraged buyouts, and fucking useless MBAs and Hedge Fund Managers creating scarcity with Futures Contracts.
>> Antibiotics MIGHT be safe -- but who really, really knows? It's not in the interest in the multi-billion dollar industry to look at 50 year impacts, or quality of life. Nobody else has the resources or incentive if they had the resources to look into it. Everyone else with the money and power, is busy diminishing life for others to enhance their own when you get right down to it.
The Antibiotics come on top of genetic engineering, cloned meat, animals so closely packed they can die standing up. It's on top of "Clean Coal" and fracking for Oil. It's on top of modified Soy Beans that produce more estrogen which only amplifies the plastics that do the same. It's on top of a thousand other profit-driven cuts and insults to what we are adapted to.
I don't think we know enough about nutrition, to say that 16 essential vitamins and 12 proteins is all that we need. Not by a long shot.
You don't really know, and I don't really know -- so the fundamental question is; Since we don't REALLY benefit from having such efficiencies in food production -- why not stop messing with nature? Those who once complained about irradiated foods -- maybe they were wrong. Maybe they were slightly right. But eventually, we've got an out house built on a deck of cards.
no, no... you got it wrong Clint, Gatzke really did learn that in his textbooks from Middle School...... however, he was home schooled, so that would explain how you BOTH might be right.
>> But I honestly seriously doubt the Middle School textbooks did much beyond mentioning past ice ages.
There are a million excuses to do the wrong thing, and there are a million fathers of success.
Leonard Nimoy didn't start the fire -- it's been always burning since the worlds been turning!
The only way to get the Useful Idiots on the side of Global Warming, is to tell them they are fucking geniuses, great Americans, and after a good blow job, say; "It sure was a great idea that you helped us stop Global Warming by putting up that fake fight against GW and thus making the scientists do their homework!"
This has never been a discussion -- it has always been about people with small minds and small dicks fucking up the world because someone knew how to tell them they weren't losers. And I hate the concept of "winners and losers" but that is the world they live in.
Not only will I NOT look up that Liberal propaganda fom the link yu provided -- I will be repeating the tooth that they scientists were saying the globe was going to freeze and now they say it's going to burn up./That Deniar guy, who won't fucking listen to shit that didn't come from the guy who told him he was genius for seeing the tooth.
The problem is, that the CIA often uses charity and peace corps operations -- they either embed or convince someone in their ranks to do their country "a favor."
Because of the abuse of the Peace Corps -- foreign nations are very suspicious of them in general. The "setup" is likely due to the KNB being convinced by some behavior that this member was working for the CIA and is frustrated -- so they are perhaps manufacturing the evidence -- as police are wont to do when they are convinced of someone's guilt.
It's entirely possible for this Peace Corps member to be working for the CIA, however, and Kazakhstan has strategic significance -- at least as some chew toy for India and Pakistan to pretend fight over so that they can keep their populations focused on an external threat.
>> Just remember, in the dance of nations; you are either a resource to be exploited, or a pretend enemy. The REAL enemy is your citizens. Once you understand that the CIA works to procure for Transnational corporations -- it starts to make sense.
but now Obama has allowed the latest "Enabling Act" to pass. He has to check which way the conventional wind is blowing to decide if he is for or against the Pipeline XL project.
Sure Ron Paul is a occasionally bat shit crazy, but occasionally, he does the right thing.
I've given up on "change I can believe in" and now I merely want "change that involves a monkey wrench."
Ron Paul could just be that monkey wrench.
You know, when you can't fix a machine but need a plausible excuse to replace it under warrantee? That's why I may vote for Ron Paul -- break things and see what happens.
My wife wanted to be a Nutritionist, and then a Physical Therapists, however, it's almost as much work as becoming a doctor.
>> The ULTIMATE problem here in the USA, is that Doctors are getting vilified by the groups that are sucking the profits out of the system; Health Insurers, Drug Companies, and HMOs. While doctors blame lawsuits, and patients blame bad doctors -- the AMA doesn't remove the bad doctors, the hospitals cover for them and the GOOD doctors pay the price. But the insurance rates doctors pay have LITTLE to do with actual costs, as states with Torte Reform show only about a 2% difference in fees.
The solution is Single Payer -- it always has been. Until a doctor could proscribe "burdock root, and some Vyvance" -- meaning, prescriptions that are based on the BEST and most cost effective solution, rather than the profit-inspired treatments we have, these problems will only get worse.
The big costs are dumped on the taxpayer now.
The patients pay through the nose for health insurance, and it still isn't cheap to go to a hospital -- what are they supposed to do when a treatment doesn't work, it's not like people can get a refund?
The insurance companies like when patients and doctors blame each other, so they can collect one of every two dollars in the system.
If nobody had to PAY for medical care, lawsuits would only be based on really bad cases -- rather than as a way to SURVIVE the costs of more treatments.
And the AMA needs to lower the bar on non-critical care, and perhaps find ways to make LEARNING MEDICINE easier. The current system of perfect grades, hazing and high fees doesn't necessarily produce the best medicine -- just the fewest doctors. Doctors should also collaborate more and use telemedicine with an on-site practitioner to reduce costs -- but that won't happen until we can reduce liability. And we can't reduce liability until we take the costs and profits out of medicine. And we can't do that until we can fix our election system. And we can't do that until we can get Public financing of elections....... OK, face it -- it all comes down to Occupy Wall Street and either getting social justice or letting this system collapse. EVERY problem comes back to the parasites who profit rigging the system to fail expensively for most Americans. WE keep blaming each other rather than following the money. And it really SUCKS to be a doctor these days.
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I'd agree with you if I thought Obama as even remotely OF THE LEFT.
As far as I can tell -- he is far to the Right of Nixon.
>> The ONLY REASON we Progressives even support Obama is that he is 'regretful' about war. That his thoughts are in the 'right direction.' I'm sickened by his continuing support for the wars, his signing of the NDAA, and his lack of prosecutions of war crimes, and malfeasance on Wall Street and in our banking system.
That said -- he's the best we got. If we don't cheer for someone occasionally POINTING in the right direction and saying; "America can do better," then we are damning us all to follow the vulture capitalists into the grave. I have yet to hear anyone on to the "Right" of Obama say anything that didn't give me the chills and make me want to run to a sane country if they would have me.
>> You cannot play the game of equivalency if ONE SIDE has never been headed in the right direction of Progress. The main sin of the Democrats has been to follow the Republicans into their slide into fascism -- I can't see anything to distinguish them from that.
In some ways, I agree with your point.
But I've since re-imagined the War between the states since we had the "Tea Party" march on Washington so that Wall Street tycoons could get more tax breaks. Oh, and so that history books wouldn't bring up inconvenient facts of history about the founding fathers -- because delusional hero worship is so very healthy...
I now think that the South was NOT REALLY fighting for states rights. The Civil War was really a class war. The 1% who had slaves, wanted the rest of the workers who had to compete with slave labor to say; "Hey, you Northern oppressors -- we want to import cheap goods and not have to buy American, because we can't compete by selling good not made by slave labor."
The Slave Masters wanted everyone in the South to say; "WE are being harmed by the North economically" -- when really, slavery probably reduced wages for MOST Southerners.
>> So if there is another civil war -- it will be between the people fighting for the Common Good, and those people who are convinced that they are destined to be a CEO.
... this man should have been a bit more geeky and lazy at the same time by putting the camera and the RC controls on the Internet, then having remote volunteers run the RC toys to dig out his basement.
This gets me thinking I can probably get the internet to excavate and build me a large swimming pool, given about 50 RC bulldozers and a month of use of my web-server.
Headline: Solar Eruption Triggers Strongest Radiation Storm
Oh wait... from the summary
A recent eruption on the sun will be exposing Earth to the strongest radiation storm seen since 2005.
That means we've been on a dead, lifeless cinder for over (counts fingers and toes), 25 years!
Apologies Slashdot -- but this is about geeky fun as well.
Only on Venus!
>> I figure it was just some ash as there is a lot of hot wind on Venus -- but sometimes it escapes as hot air!
If life is found -- I retract this comment.
LOL.
I disagree with you -- but nice comeback. We are all "hand waving" because ANY solution is going to take a lot of work.
I disagree about the amount of effort it would take to create a moon base -- I think you can do MOST of it with two large lifts and three smaller rockets.
The MAIN thing you would need is something like a Kiln, to bake oxygen out of moon dust and create bricks. IN a few months, you've can create air tight buildings on the moon out of native materials. Either an automated drill for underground, or a brick layer attached to the "feeder" from the kiln. If you weren't harvesting the oxygen and raw materials, you could have a robotic device create a structure much like a mud wasp with moon dust -- however, instead of using water and mud, I'd go with a microwave maser between two plates that compress dust. No expendable material used on the construction drone means less need for repairs.
The energy of course could either be laser from earth, or nuclear, since we aren't worried about contamination yet.
Still, a small group of people overseeing mostly remote devices would make the most sense and THAT would take a commitment of resources.
>> But we wasted far more on two wars and got no benefits from it other than the stocks of some oil companies. I'm sick of "handwaving" at the future and doing nothing but make excuses why anything inspiring is too expensive. There are a lot of people "SAVING MONEY" right now, as America falls into a downward spiral of mediocrity.
I had the same argument with a bunch of geeks on a popular Sci-fi author's blog.
He was in favor of LEO objects and Asteroids. I was in favor of the Moon because it has fuel and one other VERY important component; a little bit of gravity.
We've gotten better in space, we've got some remote robots, but nothing beats being able to walk across the room and get a part and a wrench. The expenditure of fuel on the earth is geometric because the more fuel you have, the more weight and the more fuel you need. A lot of the fuel is for the weight of the fuel.
The OTHER huge option to get a moon base started, is to use lasers from earth and shoot target energy to geosynchronous satellites that bounce the energy down to the moon's surface. You'd probably need this for a few years. I think they've already had success with tests at Groom Lake, Texas. I don't know if that's public knowledge, or even true, correct information just sticks in my head... so I figure this speculation is likely -- it makes too much sense.
>> The other big advantage is you can make lot's of bricks out of moon dust. As you bake out the oxygen and aluminum you need, the refuse is fused into a large block that can be used for construction.
>> The fuel expense can be lowered by using rail gun catapults to throw the heavy components into a moon orbit. The delicate equipment could be brought up with a normal shuttle type rocket along with the people, and then they rendezvous with the space ship body or payload in orbit around the moon.
>> The TINY advantage of orbiting debris or using a moonlet like Phobos is "outweighed" (pun totally by accident) by the advantages of a "shirtsleeve environment" on the moon. Human's still need some gravity for long-term projects. The moon is the perfect stepping stone to the solar system as long as we are dependent on rockets for travel.
Well, as long as nobody finds the gyro-magnetic propulsion system in my basement, that is... ;-)
So that means if we start using Seaweed for Ethanol, you won't have enough left for a Sushi roll after we've used up perhaps a trillion metric shit-tons of seaweed!
I think the main problem would be competing with the already strained food-chain in the ocean... but that's going to be a problem after a million metric shit tons of seaweed are used.
... not believing in Gravity?
The less proof someone has of a strongly held belief, the more vigorously they defend it.
>> If God wanted everyone to believe in him with merely faith, he wouldn't have put Religion in the hands of people who club to death a person who doesn't believe -- he'd put Religion in the hands of people who were so good and inspiring, that everyone would be drawn to them.
Either there is no God, or He just doesn't care to interfere with the messengers -- which means these religious vigilantes are screwed either way.
It's simpler than that;
Educating engineers in this country requires SOMEONE to pay. Only people who don't need money right away can survive a 1 year internship to "sacrifice for opportunity."
Since the Chinese engineer was educated on someone else's dime, he's the perfect "lowest cost input" for a globalist. The problem is that he's eventually going to take this knowledge and first hand experience back to his/her own country -- since the US is less tolerant now and not as attractive a become of hope that makes people want to stay.
China's economy is doing everything the OPPOSITE of what our Globalist said to do; it pays for a lot of social things, it does government stimulus projects (but sure, they need the roads and dams), and it has very high tariffs on imports.
The corporations that sold us the concept of "high efficiency and global competitiveness" will either move to China or be replaced by a start-up created by someone entrepreneurial that they trained instead of an American.
America will be left with a generation of under-educated, or worse; expensively educated on their own dime people who have to pay off the debts the companies left when they shipped the assets and ownership but left the cost of the leveraged buyouts. It's not as bad as you put it -- it's going to be worse. This is like allowing a private company to own the rights to your sports team after your taxes paid the bill for the stadium they ran into the ground and never paid for. The Jersey fan is either going to pick up a new sport or move to Denver.
The UPSIDE of this media orchestrated ridicule is that more and more people don't think the Media is legitimate -- other than of course fans of Fox News who think CNN is somehow "Liberal" because it's less obviously for pinheads.
When I hear from OWS and other groups like them -- they sound legitimate. Legitimacy is becoming more and more a social media networking experiment -- echoing the "small town" of long ago. I'm sure that's why Facebook is so important -- but I'd caution anyone trying to manipulate public opinion here too; In order for people to LISTEN, they need to get value from the exchange. If people don't have jobs, justice, or opportunity -- you cannot tell them that their friend's sister said "this is the best of all possible worlds." The skunk gets defriended pretty quickly.
The moment for me where the Media became the annoying drunken uncle was when Howard Dean's innocuous "Yeehaw" was sampled and broadcast on almost every TV station about 2000 times per channel for two weeks. The normal staid and thoughtful Dean was instantly painted as a kook.
The DOWNSIDE of the "friendly network news" system is the creation of Bubble realities. IF you are an intelligent design scientist with part time membership in a militia and your greatest fear is Canadians crossing the border to steal our jobs -- there is likely a group of like-minded individuals ready to listen to your sage echo of their own thoughts.
>> Americans have been used and abused by commercial messages and our government has been bought and sold, and the people who "buy into it" are going to be in the minority soon. It's got to be disappointing that after Clear Channel got 80% of the radio stations and News Corp built their empire, they've got a majority stake in that annoying buzzing sound we tune out.
I like to call this blowback from the "will of the governed."
When the Justice Department closed for business, and avowed War Criminals get to walk around after having playing cards made for people they wanted to assassinate without the benefit of a Nuremberg or even military trial. When Wall Street and Oil companies paid off their regulators and ran their own game.
Well, THAT is what creates Anonymous and things like it in the digital age.
See, Corporate taxes are now below 7% of the government's revenue now when they used to be about 40%. But what those fans of a "police state" don't realize, is that their NEW tax is going to be paying for body guards, bullet proof glass everywhere, and some hacker they cannot trust to watch the programmer they cannot trust to protect them from a million Anonymous script kiddies with mayhem in mind because now everyone is as ruthless as they are.
It's all fun and profits when YOU are the only rat bastard.
Anonymous likely has never hurt any corporation or entity that didn't also do the same thing to someone else -- only those stories don't get printed in the sponsor driven papers.
The idea that america is "loaded" with spies implies a call for change in government policy. Even your anecdotes don't rise to the level that requires government action - if you knew that guy was plotting espionage than tell your boss, get him fired and the problem is solved.
I'm a Progressive, and I figure MOST wars are for profit and a scam. I'm not big on the Security State or the Pentagon.
Having said that... are you fricken' kidding me? The only reason nobody cares if some Chinese national is stealing their stuff is if the whole thing is corrupt and security is a farce for our benefit.
Why are we bothering to spy on every American and sniff every shoe traveling on an airplane, if ANY imported worker could be working against a company that is doing work that is vital to national security? And by any measure, the Fed is vital to national security.
If nobody cares, that means they already have one foot out the door and don't care who does what. I'd say this was an instance of arguing over deck chairs on the Titanic -- but someone already sold them.
Not just Chinese spies ... America is LOADED with Mossad and AIPAC agents. Turkish agents. Saudi princes ready to party. Ukrainian mafia probably put about a Billion dollars in the coffers of the Bush family -- likely they are rolling in Opium today. It's all up for grabs...
Nobody is going to attack America if they can merely bid for the Speaker of the House. I'm wondering when Christies is going to quit playing with the chump change million dollar art auctions and organize this mayhem into a profitable enterprise.
Via looking the other way because EVERYONE was corrupt, Washington has become the fricken' UN. I can imagine that most of the work for Chinese intelligence is sifting through the crap that they already stole, and sorting that from the crap that already came in a diplomatic pouch.
When Sibel Edmonds blew the whistle about Nuclear weapons secrets that she translated from Turkish intelligence communications -- she was ignored and told to sit down and shut up. Going higher only got her in trouble. She also claimed that Dennis Hastert was on Turkey's payroll -- nothing happened. Now D H is a highly paid consultant for Turkey -- he's probably giving them million dollar history lessons like Newt gave Fannie Mae.
I'm not talking about guild or innocence here but; They outsourced this important coding job to a Chinese man. Is he the only one who could do it, or was he the cheapest?
If Americans are given good jobs, opportunity and hope for the future -- there's a good chance to expect loyalty and honor from happy citizens.
If you want to replace that model with; "We will bargain you down to the lowest common-denominator on the planet" then you really, really have to beef up security because you can trust them only slightly more than they can trust you. Holy crap!
>> When November of 2008 financial collapse rolled around (inevitably), some Bonds rating companies were giving their consulting clients AAA ratings on whatever they pushed out because consulting made more money than bond rating. The Big Banks got around protections for consumers by using smaller banks to collect the sub-par loans with no questions asked (they were not forced in the SLIGHTEST by anti-red lining laws, contrary to Rush Limbaugh and his minions).
Ultimately, all these "Job Creators" can't really trust each other -- because there are no suckers left. It's only sharks in them thar waters and there is nothing left for bottom feeders but the blood.
>> The Federal Reserve (which has no oversight and isn't government), outsourced a job to a non-American, and likely he already sent a good portion of the code and the Fed's security procedures to China. Dig in fella's, this is how you enjoy just desserts -- and you thought you only had to worry about Occupy Wall Street? Heh.
Wow, kudos sir on some of the most elegant Weasel Words I've seen to use the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law.
If he Cops don't need a warrant to place a GPS on your car, then the cops don't need a warrant to secretly "place" a GPS pill in your hamburger and have you swallow it. I mean, I can place a Penny on the hood of your car -- but if you swallow that GPS/penny -- you've basically interacted with it and chosen to participate in this voluntary measure. Since the GPS device is LEGAL -- and you are ignorant of it -- ignorance of the law is no excuse. Ipso Facto; cops don't need a law to tag and release you.
I'm actually sure that you will go far with this sort of logic, because Weasels are in high demand.
>> IF you ignore intent - then there isn't ANYTHING you cannot justify if you phrase things in the right way. Which is why your comment is so scary.
Your comment sounds really thoughtful.... ... which is why the Supreme court will consider none of this.
They will look at case law, previous misinterpretations, and situations where a hypothetical GPS device would avert Nuclear war to come down fairly on the side of whatever keeps the population under control.
Unless someone from OWS can hire Clarence Thomas' wife as a consultant, it's going to be a 5 to 4 ruling to allow GPS without a warrant.
The decision will be ghost written and handed in as if it were actually the opinion of the court, from a Law Firm recommended by the US Chamber of Commerce.
>> I think we all need to update how this Legal stuff works ... you were obviously hindered by some education in law.
I read the title as; "Copyright Claims Set Back Cognition: Impaired Testers."
Actually, sometimes a Freudian Slip is more insightful than the actual statement.
If I'm a "BUG" and you gave me a low dose -- that means MORE of me survive, right?
If it's capable of reducing some "bugs" in the gut, isn't that basically digestion - meaning, the animal doesn't digest as quickly so it stores more of the food as fat?
When humans take anti-biotics, we take mega-doses and we are supposed to take a full course -- why? Because even if we get healthy, we don't want weakened but "educated" bugs to come back and make us sick again -- thus making the antibiotic useless.
Also, there are OTHER things going on here, that are perhaps going to cause problems -- but there is no money in figuring that out. We can fake meat with soy beans, we can put saw dust in bread, we can add fillers and additives but in the end -- the further we "process" food, or make animals unhealthy, the further we get from the very complex system we evolved as part of.
The low doses to me, sound like a great way to inoculate the bugs. And FOOD is too complicated to leave it up to profit margins to decide what is "adequate."
The ONLY reason we have antibiotics in lifestock feed, is because it is profitable. We have high unemployment now because it is profitable. WE don't have family farms -- instead we have huge conglomerated factory farms that treat livestock as part of a conveyor belt of efficiency.
Efficiency is no good to the vast majority of people. Sure, we want to use some modern equipment instead of plowing by Ox, but we've doubled production only to make a product with 1/10th the real nutrition and half the value.
We have a world of make-work, accounting practices, regulations, lawsuits, stock trades, leveraged buyouts, and fucking useless MBAs and Hedge Fund Managers creating scarcity with Futures Contracts.
>> Antibiotics MIGHT be safe -- but who really, really knows? It's not in the interest in the multi-billion dollar industry to look at 50 year impacts, or quality of life. Nobody else has the resources or incentive if they had the resources to look into it. Everyone else with the money and power, is busy diminishing life for others to enhance their own when you get right down to it.
The Antibiotics come on top of genetic engineering, cloned meat, animals so closely packed they can die standing up. It's on top of "Clean Coal" and fracking for Oil. It's on top of modified Soy Beans that produce more estrogen which only amplifies the plastics that do the same. It's on top of a thousand other profit-driven cuts and insults to what we are adapted to.
I don't think we know enough about nutrition, to say that 16 essential vitamins and 12 proteins is all that we need. Not by a long shot.
You don't really know, and I don't really know -- so the fundamental question is; Since we don't REALLY benefit from having such efficiencies in food production -- why not stop messing with nature? Those who once complained about irradiated foods -- maybe they were wrong. Maybe they were slightly right. But eventually, we've got an out house built on a deck of cards.
no, no... you got it wrong Clint, Gatzke really did learn that in his textbooks from Middle School... ... however, he was home schooled, so that would explain how you BOTH might be right.
>> But I honestly seriously doubt the Middle School textbooks did much beyond mentioning past ice ages.
There are a million excuses to do the wrong thing, and there are a million fathers of success.
Leonard Nimoy didn't start the fire -- it's been always burning since the worlds been turning!
The only way to get the Useful Idiots on the side of Global Warming, is to tell them they are fucking geniuses, great Americans, and after a good blow job, say; "It sure was a great idea that you helped us stop Global Warming by putting up that fake fight against GW and thus making the scientists do their homework!"
This has never been a discussion -- it has always been about people with small minds and small dicks fucking up the world because someone knew how to tell them they weren't losers. And I hate the concept of "winners and losers" but that is the world they live in.
Not only will I NOT look up that Liberal propaganda fom the link yu provided -- I will be repeating the tooth that they scientists were saying the globe was going to freeze and now they say it's going to burn up. /That Deniar guy, who won't fucking listen to shit that didn't come from the guy who told him he was genius for seeing the tooth.
The problem is, that the CIA often uses charity and peace corps operations -- they either embed or convince someone in their ranks to do their country "a favor."
Because of the abuse of the Peace Corps -- foreign nations are very suspicious of them in general. The "setup" is likely due to the KNB being convinced by some behavior that this member was working for the CIA and is frustrated -- so they are perhaps manufacturing the evidence -- as police are wont to do when they are convinced of someone's guilt.
It's entirely possible for this Peace Corps member to be working for the CIA, however, and Kazakhstan has strategic significance -- at least as some chew toy for India and Pakistan to pretend fight over so that they can keep their populations focused on an external threat.
>> Just remember, in the dance of nations; you are either a resource to be exploited, or a pretend enemy. The REAL enemy is your citizens. Once you understand that the CIA works to procure for Transnational corporations -- it starts to make sense.
Last week I would have agreed with you,...
but now Obama has allowed the latest "Enabling Act" to pass. He has to check which way the conventional wind is blowing to decide if he is for or against the Pipeline XL project.
Sure Ron Paul is a occasionally bat shit crazy, but occasionally, he does the right thing.
I've given up on "change I can believe in" and now I merely want "change that involves a monkey wrench."
Ron Paul could just be that monkey wrench.
You know, when you can't fix a machine but need a plausible excuse to replace it under warrantee? That's why I may vote for Ron Paul -- break things and see what happens.
/ I may ALREADY be in violation of the NDAA
I agree with what you are saying.
My wife wanted to be a Nutritionist, and then a Physical Therapists, however, it's almost as much work as becoming a doctor.
>> The ULTIMATE problem here in the USA, is that Doctors are getting vilified by the groups that are sucking the profits out of the system; Health Insurers, Drug Companies, and HMOs. While doctors blame lawsuits, and patients blame bad doctors -- the AMA doesn't remove the bad doctors, the hospitals cover for them and the GOOD doctors pay the price. But the insurance rates doctors pay have LITTLE to do with actual costs, as states with Torte Reform show only about a 2% difference in fees.
The solution is Single Payer -- it always has been. Until a doctor could proscribe "burdock root, and some Vyvance" -- meaning, prescriptions that are based on the BEST and most cost effective solution, rather than the profit-inspired treatments we have, these problems will only get worse.
The big costs are dumped on the taxpayer now.
The patients pay through the nose for health insurance, and it still isn't cheap to go to a hospital -- what are they supposed to do when a treatment doesn't work, it's not like people can get a refund?
The insurance companies like when patients and doctors blame each other, so they can collect one of every two dollars in the system.
If nobody had to PAY for medical care, lawsuits would only be based on really bad cases -- rather than as a way to SURVIVE the costs of more treatments.
And the AMA needs to lower the bar on non-critical care, and perhaps find ways to make LEARNING MEDICINE easier. The current system of perfect grades, hazing and high fees doesn't necessarily produce the best medicine -- just the fewest doctors. Doctors should also collaborate more and use telemedicine with an on-site practitioner to reduce costs -- but that won't happen until we can reduce liability. And we can't reduce liability until we take the costs and profits out of medicine. And we can't do that until we can fix our election system. And we can't do that until we can get Public financing of elections.... ... OK, face it -- it all comes down to Occupy Wall Street and either getting social justice or letting this system collapse. EVERY problem comes back to the parasites who profit rigging the system to fail expensively for most Americans. WE keep blaming each other rather than following the money. And it really SUCKS to be a doctor these days.