Please find a new and original template, as the one you have been using is getting a bit tired.
The over use of this template may have made this variable troll rather funny some time ago (circa 1998-99), but it has become so overused that it no longer has the strength of parody that once made it seem humorous, and it has been ages since anyone has been taken in by the "Holy War" troll (except in the manner that I am now, but I don't believe that a criticism of your trolling style can legitimately be considered a response to the troll).
Unless you've discovered a new plateau for the Trolling artform that I am too simple to understand, this troll has fallen to a great low in terms of respectability, and one who habitually uses this should consider refreshing thier knowledge of trolling art history beginning with the great cross cultural classic known as "Pull My Finger".
I don't think that anyone would disagree with your statement. The problems arise in the details.
Should a business be permitted to make closed source changes to GPL software? No.
Should a business be permitted to patent the use of OSS for a particular purpose? No.
Is there anything that prevents businesses from making software that runs on top of OSS using library calls, or prevents a business from using OSS to offer services that they can charge for? No.
I fail to see what the problem that so many businesses have with OSS and I fail to see why OSS becomes such a "hot button" issue among users.
Debian was developed specifically to counter "Linux Companies,"
I don't believe that there was much comercialization of Free Software in 1993. IIRC, the only distributions available before Debian were (something Nordic that I no longer remember how to spell) and Slackware.
I'm pretty sure that the motivation was to make "an OS that Does Not Suck", which can only be accomplished if the development process can be distanced from the conflicting interests that arise when the focus is not on creating a quality OS, but on making money.
Don't blame the software companies for the "sh*t quality of their software"
Then who is to blame for the sh*t-quality of the OS, or for the zero-day exploit that takes down the next reactor?
blame the system administrator
Agreed, the Administrator is responsible for applying patches, now please explain to me why one of my user's Office 2000 install (on XP) started munging document merges after I applied the latest security patches from Microsoft. (Why only this machine? Why not the other XP machine? Why?)
You can still filter packets on that link, even if all you are doing is dropping known viruses and exploits. There is no such thing as a "trusted" network, especially one you have no control over. Filtering everything at your routers (policies designed according to the "required capabilities" vs "possible security measures" balance) is not overly difficult, but it is tedious and time consuming to set up. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to packet filter at the individual hosts.
I think that too many proffessionals have a too limited view of what firewalls are and can be. I've worked with consultants who argue that a firewall between the server and the workstations would make the network inoperable (they "won" the argument, because of thier "qualifications" and I'm still lobbying to have this corrected).
Why no periodic antivirus scanning of all storage media in the facility
Why are the control systems on the same network as the business network?
Why not completely isolsate the control systems from any network connected to "the wild"?
Why is there no oversight of security masures that subcontractors use on connected networks?
Why no continuous security training of the network and system admins? (could be done on work time, in house, etc)
Why use the same OS for routers, firewalls, and control systems as you are using on the desktops?
Of course we know the answer, all of those things would take time and cost money, and why spend money on something that may not ever happen.
It seems that they were too busy thinking about "business" when they should have been thinking about minimum security requirements and what could go wrong, even if it as yet has not. I'm sure it was "more profitable" for them to do things this way.
I may have thanked you too soon, but of course I'm not certain.
Is not the speed of light through a medium subject to the forces exerted by the atoms in the medium as can be measured in the forms of electrical permittivity and magnetic permiablility?
Or does it depend on where you're standing?
Also your "car analogy" is discredited by the already acknowleged fact of light travelling at a constant rate (either a constant for the given medium as I was taught, or a universal constant as you seem to be arguing). The light does not need to accelerate or decelerate in order to start or stop, thus a car is not like a photon in the slightest.
Remember, you can be certain that the cat is dead when he stops yowling to be let out.
We're not testing the students on what they're supposed to know to progress to the next grade.
Standardized testing is being implemented throughout the United States, and has been leading to curiculums that are entirely dictated by the tests. "Teaching to the test" is unacceptable because it prevents qualified educators (see my last comment in this post) from using thier educated opinions in judging what the students need to learn. A lack of standardisation leads to the unacceptable end where unqualified teachers can get away with either teaching the students wrongly or not teaching what is necessary. There is no either/or in this situation, but a middle ground must be found where the schools provide what the teachers require (money) to keep thier qualifications and knowledge of thier subjects up to date AND there is some oversight to ensure that the students are learning both what is necessary and what they are capable of.
Can YOU tell me the 9 rules for the use of Capital Letters? Can you name all the republics of Europe and give their capitals?
I know a parrot that can do both, but I doubt he understands what any of it means.
but if you're going to go on strike because they won't give it to you, then be prepared to be fired.
At times a strike is the only way to make the public aware of the salary problem. The school boards are usually elected, and must answer to the voters, who, contrary to popular misconception, do not always vote for a tax cut. If the right to strike or the right to form a union is banned, then you have violated the right to free assembly.
I've got a lot of friends going to school for teaching degrees
IMHO, "teaching degrees" should be only for those who will be teaching elementary education. By the time students are in High School, they need science taught by people who studied science, math by people who studied mathematics, social studies by people who studied history or political science, and english by people who studied literature and writing, etc.What good is it for someone to teach a specific subject if all they've studied is how to teach. I'm not saying that these people shouldn't be educated in the feild of education as well, but that thier primary focus should be in the subject that they will be hired to teach.
In Pennsylvania, teachers are the 2nd highest paying profession.
You must live in a different Pennsylvania than the one I know about, where do you get your statistics (I bet you used a lot of toilet paper finding them).
I know a few teachers who should be out on their asses.
You forgot that the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States.
You then changed your argument to this:
I'm just taking the dates that each one of the Constitutions was initially enacted, not the date they won their independence, for good reason.
It seems that the only "good reason" is that your previous argument was indefensible. Changing the argument does not strengthen you position, nor does implying that your opponent is supporting Stalinism by drawing inapropriate examples into the argument as you did here:
Remember the 80's, when the USSR was touted as having the best health care system in the world, since it was all free? I mean, the government paid for it, but it was free! And all the doctors were women! It was like a democrat's wet dream. But then the Berlin wall came down, and the USSR collapsed in on itself... and we learned the truth. They had third-world style hospitals and most people never got the care they needed. But obviously that was something that was specific to the USSR, and the same thing would never happen here, right?
While I agree with you in your dissaproval of Stalinism (and Marxism in general), I would rather not be associated with your implication that a health care garauntee would lead to the same result, nor would I agree with your (implied) assumption that all forms of Liberalism would lead to such a totalitarian state. Many Liberal movements are not anti-capitolist, but are anti-authoritarian and are just as fearful of a new Stalin as they are of a new Mussolini.
But back to the post that I'm responding to:
The United States Constitution is the oldest document in the world that governs a country.Magna Carta which was enacted as the supreme governing act in 1215, during the rule of King John. A Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689, as was "the Act of Toleration" (I haven'yt found an accessable copy, if you find one I'd apreciate a link). The Trennial Act of 1691 further solidified the rule of law over the government.
The law required almost 1,000,000 signatures, and they got twice as many. At last count, I heard they had 1.7 million. If they did get 1.75 million, out of "a state of 35+ million", that would be 5%.
Last I heard, it cost them $1.8 Million to get the signatures they needed.
Adolf Hitler's government certainly wasn't "instable"... until the United States kicked his ass.
It's been a testbed for liberalism for several years...
The political method you call liberalism has as little resemblance to actual Liberalim as the current Republican philosophy does to acual conservatism.
try to find something in California that didn't go the way of the Left. Try to prove me wrong.
The "deregulation" of the electrical energy market that left only the few municipally owned power systems lit during the California energy crisis. If you like, I'm sure that I can find more for you.
Despite what it says in your chart, the speed of light in a medium DOES equal the speed of light in a vacuum.
Then why is the speed of light different when being measured in the atmosphere than it is when measured in a vacuum?
When measuring the speed of light in a medium, they are not measuring the actual speed at which the light particles are travelling, but simply the time it takes for the light to pass through the medium.
1. What is the difference between the rate of travel (distance / time) in a medium and the time it takes to pas through a medium (distance / time)? It seems that the two are the same.
2. When measuring the speed of light in a medium from a reference point in that medium, how do you mark entering and leaving that medium, and how is this different from measuring the speed of light in a vacuum from within that vacuum (aside from the difficulty of locality)?
The light is then re-emitted in a fairly random direction after a very short duration. This gives us the _apparent_ slowing of light. It also gives us refraction.
How does the light being "re-emitted in a fairly random direction" give us refraction, which is a predictable phenomenon that is analagous to the effect observed when a round projectile travels through mediums of differing density (such as carefully prepared gelatin layers, or from the atmosphere into water)?
I am not a physicist, but I do have experience repairing optical equipment, such as these, these, and these along with other less glamorous but nonetheless important optical equipment.
It's an issue for taxpayer as well. The DEArecieved $1,897,300,000.00 for FY2003. The FBI spent $474,119,000.00 fighting "domestic sources of drugs" (see Goal Five). How much do you think your State Police are spending on helicopters to find the growers? How much are your local police spending to bust the pot smokers? How effective have these measures been? Are there fewer pot smokers than there were in 1973 (the year the DEA was established)? Even if we agree that many addicting drugs should be illegal, is it worth it to spend huge amounts of money on combatting the marijuana trade when that money could be spent keeping cocaine and heroine from crossing the borders?
You like spending money on (ineffective) prohibition? Go ahead, just quit spending mine.
You always sound so sure of yourself that I'm sure you must be joking.
the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States.
Read the Factbook and youl find that there's many republics in the world. Such as Ireland, Germany, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Republic of the Congo, and manymanymore (although thcountry in that last link seems likely to lose its "republic" status, considering the forced resignation of thier popularly elected president)
Also, technically the US government is not termed a "Representative Republic", but instead a "Federal Republic" (I'll let you look that one up yourself, now that you know where to look). Representational government is assumed when one is speaking of a republic.
I really believe that many folks take advantage of the system due to low accountability and the fallacy that substance abuse is entirely a medical problem.
And if these people fail your accountability test, what then?
Even if substance abuse is not a medical problem, how do we handle those who clearly have a problem?
What about the people who choose to not participate at all? Many people do not hold steady jobs, but do not collect benefits either. Often these are the people who are the most discriminated against, as in "they must be getting over somehow?"
And how do you determine who is "taking advantage" of the system?
Are the people who make lots of dough from government handouts, white collar crime, and profiteering from unecessary wars that were fought to defend us from non-existant Weopons of Mass Destruction (Cheney, Carlucci, others) that they advised the president about not "scamming the system" to a greater degree than the homeless?
How can we claim that universal healthcare is unaffordable when our government not only promisses such healthcare to the Iraqis but also gives foriegn aid in the amount of $2.8 Billion to Israel, which also offers universal health care to its citizens?
Do you think that your father in law really has paid less than $7,000.00 in his whole life as you claim? The maximum benefit for SSI is capped at $558.00 in most states. Or maybe you are talking about the retirement benefit, which is based on how much Social Security tax that you paid during the years that you worked.
First of all, hydrogen gas is not an energy source as it must be separated from water using electrolosis, which is not very efficient and must be powered by another source of energy.
While hydrogen may burn cleanly the large oil and power corporations are expecting to use thier existing carbon monoxide (and sulfer dioxide) producing natural gas, fuel oil, and coal burning power plants to provide the electricity needed to separate the hydrogen, which will allow energy to be stored for late usage but not cut into thier profits earned from America's dependance on fossil fuels. Hydrogen energy storage is only clean if clean sources of energy are used to power the separation of hydrogen from water(such as solar, which IMHO is a good idea).
Natural gas fuel cells are a much better solution for distributed power generation. The infrastructure for providing natural gas is already existant in most urban areas and in many rural areas (such as in OH, western NY, and western PA) it is not unusual for homes to have thier own natural gas wells on the property. Natural gas can be produced from sewage and animal waste, and can also be tapped off of landfills. Fuel cells do not produce the carbon monoxide that is emitted with the incomplete burning of hydrocarbons, and are much more efficient at converting the contained energy into electricity.
As for the explosiveness of hydrogen, this is not much of a problem as hydrogen is lighter than air which allows hydrogen leaks to disperse quickly as long as they are in ventilated areas. Long chain hydrocarbon gasses (such as gasoline vapors, propane, and natural gas) are heavier than air, which allows them to pool in depressions (such as basements) and remain in one place ontil they mix sufficiently with the air to become explosive.
The same techniques canbeapplied to sewage treatment, and the energy produced can reduce or eliminate the cost of sewage treatment, and may possibly produce enough to create a revenue stream for whatever municipalities go this route.
Sewage is not the only source of biogas produced by New York, there is also the 2100 acre Fresh Kills Landfill. Landfill to electric programs are being implemented, as seen by this report on renewable energy sources in Pennsylvania.
As for the proximity of farms to large cities, you'd be surprised, there are large agricultural areas in New York (State), New Jersey, and Connecticut that are much closer to New York than where most of the city's power now comes from.
Renewable resources are never going to eliminate the energy conglomerates, but they may take away a little of thier business, reduce the cost of energy, and possibly help municipalities to balance thier budgets (ie: reduce taxes).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure what you mean, please explain yourself further.
Please find a new and original template, as the one you have been using is getting a bit tired.
The over use of this template may have made this variable troll rather funny some time ago (circa 1998-99), but it has become so overused that it no longer has the strength of parody that once made it seem humorous, and it has been ages since anyone has been taken in by the "Holy War" troll (except in the manner that I am now, but I don't believe that a criticism of your trolling style can legitimately be considered a response to the troll).
Unless you've discovered a new plateau for the Trolling artform that I am too simple to understand, this troll has fallen to a great low in terms of respectability, and one who habitually uses this should consider refreshing thier knowledge of trolling art history beginning with the great cross cultural classic known as "Pull My Finger".
Thanks for the bit of history, I was able to find some references to SLS and a download of the MCC interim release.
I hadn't heard of either of them before your post, although I would have known about SLS if I had been reading the manifesto more carefully.
I don't think that anyone would disagree with your statement. The problems arise in the details.
Should a business be permitted to make closed source changes to GPL software? No.
Should a business be permitted to patent the use of OSS for a particular purpose? No.
Is there anything that prevents businesses from making software that runs on top of OSS using library calls, or prevents a business from using OSS to offer services that they can charge for? No.
I fail to see what the problem that so many businesses have with OSS and I fail to see why OSS becomes such a "hot button" issue among users.
Yep, thats it. My attempts at the spelling weren't even close.
Debian was developed specifically to counter "Linux Companies,"
I don't believe that there was much comercialization of Free Software in 1993. IIRC, the only distributions available before Debian were (something Nordic that I no longer remember how to spell) and Slackware.
I'm pretty sure that the motivation was to make "an OS that Does Not Suck", which can only be accomplished if the development process can be distanced from the conflicting interests that arise when the focus is not on creating a quality OS, but on making money.
What do you mean by "SCO isn't a company."? it most certainly is.
Perhaps it is a stupid, greedy, misguided company, but it is still a company (for the time being).
Don't blame the software companies for the "sh*t quality of their software"
Then who is to blame for the sh*t-quality of the OS, or for the zero-day exploit that takes down the next reactor?
blame the system administrator
Agreed, the Administrator is responsible for applying patches, now please explain to me why one of my user's Office 2000 install (on XP) started munging document merges after I applied the latest security patches from Microsoft. (Why only this machine? Why not the other XP machine? Why?)
You can still filter packets on that link, even if all you are doing is dropping known viruses and exploits. There is no such thing as a "trusted" network, especially one you have no control over. Filtering everything at your routers (policies designed according to the "required capabilities" vs "possible security measures" balance) is not overly difficult, but it is tedious and time consuming to set up. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to packet filter at the individual hosts.
I think that too many proffessionals have a too limited view of what firewalls are and can be. I've worked with consultants who argue that a firewall between the server and the workstations would make the network inoperable (they "won" the argument, because of thier "qualifications" and I'm still lobbying to have this corrected).
Why no packet content filtering on the T1?
On the inernal network?
On each individual hosts?
Why no periodic antivirus scanning of all storage media in the facility
Why are the control systems on the same network as the business network?
Why not completely isolsate the control systems from any network connected to "the wild"?
Why is there no oversight of security masures that subcontractors use on connected networks?
Why no continuous security training of the network and system admins? (could be done on work time, in house, etc)
Why use the same OS for routers, firewalls, and control systems as you are using on the desktops?
Of course we know the answer, all of those things would take time and cost money, and why spend money on something that may not ever happen.
It seems that they were too busy thinking about "business" when they should have been thinking about minimum security requirements and what could go wrong, even if it as yet has not. I'm sure it was "more profitable" for them to do things this way.
I may have thanked you too soon, but of course I'm not certain.
Is not the speed of light through a medium subject to the forces exerted by the atoms in the medium as can be measured in the forms of electrical permittivity and magnetic permiablility?
Or does it depend on where you're standing?
Also your "car analogy" is discredited by the already acknowleged fact of light travelling at a constant rate (either a constant for the given medium as I was taught, or a universal constant as you seem to be arguing). The light does not need to accelerate or decelerate in order to start or stop, thus a car is not like a photon in the slightest.
Remember, you can be certain that the cat is dead when he stops yowling to be let out.
We're not testing the students on what they're supposed to know to progress to the next grade.
Standardized testing is being implemented throughout the United States, and has been leading to curiculums that are entirely dictated by the tests. "Teaching to the test" is unacceptable because it prevents qualified educators (see my last comment in this post) from using thier educated opinions in judging what the students need to learn. A lack of standardisation leads to the unacceptable end where unqualified teachers can get away with either teaching the students wrongly or not teaching what is necessary. There is no either/or in this situation, but a middle ground must be found where the schools provide what the teachers require (money) to keep thier qualifications and knowledge of thier subjects up to date AND there is some oversight to ensure that the students are learning both what is necessary and what they are capable of.
Can YOU tell me the 9 rules for the use of Capital Letters? Can you name all the republics of Europe and give their capitals?
I know a parrot that can do both, but I doubt he understands what any of it means.
but if you're going to go on strike because they won't give it to you, then be prepared to be fired.
At times a strike is the only way to make the public aware of the salary problem. The school boards are usually elected, and must answer to the voters, who, contrary to popular misconception, do not always vote for a tax cut. If the right to strike or the right to form a union is banned, then you have violated the right to free assembly.
I've got a lot of friends going to school for teaching degrees
IMHO, "teaching degrees" should be only for those who will be teaching elementary education. By the time students are in High School, they need science taught by people who studied science, math by people who studied mathematics, social studies by people who studied history or political science, and english by people who studied literature and writing, etc.What good is it for someone to teach a specific subject if all they've studied is how to teach. I'm not saying that these people shouldn't be educated in the feild of education as well, but that thier primary focus should be in the subject that they will be hired to teach.
In Pennsylvania, teachers are the 2nd highest paying profession.
You must live in a different Pennsylvania than the one I know about, where do you get your statistics (I bet you used a lot of toilet paper finding them).
I know a few teachers who should be out on their asses.
Like the ones that failed to teach you rhetoric.
You've changed the context of your challenge:
You forgot that the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States.
You then changed your argument to this:
I'm just taking the dates that each one of the Constitutions was initially enacted, not the date they won their independence, for good reason.
It seems that the only "good reason" is that your previous argument was indefensible. Changing the argument does not strengthen you position, nor does implying that your opponent is supporting Stalinism by drawing inapropriate examples into the argument as you did here:
Remember the 80's, when the USSR was touted as having the best health care system in the world, since it was all free? I mean, the government paid for it, but it was free! And all the doctors were women! It was like a democrat's wet dream. But then the Berlin wall came down, and the USSR collapsed in on itself... and we learned the truth. They had third-world style hospitals and most people never got the care they needed. But obviously that was something that was specific to the USSR, and the same thing would never happen here, right?
While I agree with you in your dissaproval of Stalinism (and Marxism in general), I would rather not be associated with your implication that a health care garauntee would lead to the same result, nor would I agree with your (implied) assumption that all forms of Liberalism would lead to such a totalitarian state. Many Liberal movements are not anti-capitolist, but are anti-authoritarian and are just as fearful of a new Stalin as they are of a new Mussolini.
But back to the post that I'm responding to:
The United States Constitution is the oldest document in the world that governs a country.Magna Carta which was enacted as the supreme governing act in 1215, during the rule of King John. A Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689, as was "the Act of Toleration" (I haven'yt found an accessable copy, if you find one I'd apreciate a link). The Trennial Act of 1691 further solidified the rule of law over the government.
The law required almost 1,000,000 signatures, and they got twice as many. At last count, I heard they had 1.7 million. If they did get 1.75 million, out of "a state of 35+ million", that would be 5%.
Last I heard, it cost them $1.8 Million to get the signatures they needed.
Adolf Hitler's government certainly wasn't "instable"... until the United States kicked his ass.
No, but the government that elected his party to power was, which, I believe, was the point of the argument you are failing to discredit.
It's been a testbed for liberalism for several years...
The political method you call liberalism has as little resemblance to actual Liberalim as the current Republican philosophy does to acual conservatism.
try to find something in California that didn't go the way of the Left. Try to prove me wrong.
The "deregulation" of the electrical energy market that left only the few municipally owned power systems lit during the California energy crisis. If you like, I'm sure that I can find more for you.
Thanks!
Despite what it says in your chart, the speed of light in a medium DOES equal the speed of light in a vacuum.
Then why is the speed of light different when being measured in the atmosphere than it is when measured in a vacuum?
When measuring the speed of light in a medium, they are not measuring the actual speed at which the light particles are travelling, but simply the time it takes for the light to pass through the medium.
1. What is the difference between the rate of travel (distance / time) in a medium and the time it takes to pas through a medium (distance / time)? It seems that the two are the same.
2. When measuring the speed of light in a medium from a reference point in that medium, how do you mark entering and leaving that medium, and how is this different from measuring the speed of light in a vacuum from within that vacuum (aside from the difficulty of locality)?
The light is then re-emitted in a fairly random direction after a very short duration. This gives us the _apparent_ slowing of light. It also gives us refraction.
How does the light being "re-emitted in a fairly random direction" give us refraction, which is a predictable phenomenon that is analagous to the effect observed when a round projectile travels through mediums of differing density (such as carefully prepared gelatin layers, or from the atmosphere into water)?
I am not a physicist, but I do have experience repairing optical equipment, such as these, these, and these along with other less glamorous but nonetheless important optical equipment.
you forgot "corrupt".
3) If she thinks this recall effort is such a sham, then why is she a part of it?!
By your logic, she would have to let those who engineered this scam win in order to remain morally consistant.
I'm not sure I like your logic.
It's only an issue for pot smokers.
It's an issue for taxpayer as well. The DEA recieved $1,897,300,000.00 for FY2003. The FBI spent $474,119,000.00 fighting "domestic sources of drugs" (see Goal Five). How much do you think your State Police are spending on helicopters to find the growers? How much are your local police spending to bust the pot smokers? How effective have these measures been? Are there fewer pot smokers than there were in 1973 (the year the DEA was established)? Even if we agree that many addicting drugs should be illegal, is it worth it to spend huge amounts of money on combatting the marijuana trade when that money could be spent keeping cocaine and heroine from crossing the borders?
You like spending money on (ineffective) prohibition? Go ahead, just quit spending mine.
You always sound so sure of yourself that I'm sure you must be joking.
the only place that had political history (in the last 500 years), as a Representative Republic, was the United States.
Read the Factbook and youl find that there's many republics in the world. Such as Ireland, Germany, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Republic of the Congo, and many many more (although thcountry in that last link seems likely to lose its "republic" status, considering the forced resignation of thier popularly elected president)
Also, technically the US government is not termed a "Representative Republic", but instead a "Federal Republic" (I'll let you look that one up yourself, now that you know where to look). Representational government is assumed when one is speaking of a republic.
And when the power goes out, so does the broadband signal we gave up our ham radio for.
btw: nice parable.
I really believe that many folks take advantage of the system due to low accountability and the fallacy that substance abuse is entirely a medical problem.
And if these people fail your accountability test, what then?
Even if substance abuse is not a medical problem, how do we handle those who clearly have a problem?
What about the people who choose to not participate at all? Many people do not hold steady jobs, but do not collect benefits either. Often these are the people who are the most discriminated against, as in "they must be getting over somehow?"
And how do you determine who is "taking advantage" of the system?
Are the people who make lots of dough from government handouts, white collar crime, and profiteering from unecessary wars that were fought to defend us from non-existant Weopons of Mass Destruction (Cheney, Carlucci, others) that they advised the president about not "scamming the system" to a greater degree than the homeless?
How can we claim that universal healthcare is unaffordable when our government not only promisses such healthcare to the Iraqis but also gives foriegn aid in the amount of $2.8 Billion to Israel, which also offers universal health care to its citizens?
Do you think that your father in law really has paid less than $7,000.00 in his whole life as you claim? The maximum benefit for SSI is capped at $558.00 in most states. Or maybe you are talking about the retirement benefit, which is based on how much Social Security tax that you paid during the years that you worked.
While you may be correct about the parent post's exageration, your dismissal of "That little pipe" is equally misleading.
Oil refineries are also known to burn off large amounts of natural gas. It keeps the price up.
First of all, hydrogen gas is not an energy source as it must be separated from water using electrolosis, which is not very efficient and must be powered by another source of energy.
While hydrogen may burn cleanly the large oil and power corporations are expecting to use thier existing carbon monoxide (and sulfer dioxide) producing natural gas, fuel oil, and coal burning power plants to provide the electricity needed to separate the hydrogen, which will allow energy to be stored for late usage but not cut into thier profits earned from America's dependance on fossil fuels. Hydrogen energy storage is only clean if clean sources of energy are used to power the separation of hydrogen from water(such as solar, which IMHO is a good idea).
Natural gas fuel cells are a much better solution for distributed power generation. The infrastructure for providing natural gas is already existant in most urban areas and in many rural areas (such as in OH, western NY, and western PA) it is not unusual for homes to have thier own natural gas wells on the property. Natural gas can be produced from sewage and animal waste, and can also be tapped off of landfills. Fuel cells do not produce the carbon monoxide that is emitted with the incomplete burning of hydrocarbons, and are much more efficient at converting the contained energy into electricity.
As for the explosiveness of hydrogen, this is not much of a problem as hydrogen is lighter than air which allows hydrogen leaks to disperse quickly as long as they are in ventilated areas. Long chain hydrocarbon gasses (such as gasoline vapors, propane, and natural gas) are heavier than air, which allows them to pool in depressions (such as basements) and remain in one place ontil they mix sufficiently with the air to become explosive.
and they shit alot.
The same techniques can be applied to sewage treatment, and the energy produced can reduce or eliminate the cost of sewage treatment, and may possibly produce enough to create a revenue stream for whatever municipalities go this route.
Sewage is not the only source of biogas produced by New York, there is also the 2100 acre Fresh Kills Landfill. Landfill to electric programs are being implemented, as seen by this report on renewable energy sources in Pennsylvania.
As for the proximity of farms to large cities, you'd be surprised, there are large agricultural areas in New York (State), New Jersey, and Connecticut that are much closer to New York than where most of the city's power now comes from.
Renewable resources are never going to eliminate the energy conglomerates, but they may take away a little of thier business, reduce the cost of energy, and possibly help municipalities to balance thier budgets (ie: reduce taxes).