I've tried the patch, the gums, even managed to quit without any nicotinic surrogate (which being the only period totally off nicotine I consider my only true success) for as much as 8 months but I've always relapsed.
Ask your doctor for some Wellbutrin. (sorry...tried to look up a link for you but all I get from Google is online pharmacy ads) It's a mood elevator but it appears to be very good at relieving nicotine cravings. I know people who have used it to quit smoking and said that it was totally effective.
...and no, I'm not shilling for a pharmaceutical company. I think they're evil, democracy-destroying bastards, actually. Not as evil as tobacco corporations, though. The 9/11 hijackers killed about 3000 people a couple of years ago. Tobacco corporations kill that many people every two-and-a-half days. Who are the real terrorists?
...but neither have I spent several million dollars to discover that feet are not meters.
Neither has anyone else. What's your point? I'm pretty sure most scientists (and laypeople for that matter) already knew that feet are not meters. I don't think anyone spent much money researching that. A mission to Mars was foiled by a mistake involving mismatched measurement units, but equating that to spending money to "discover that feet are not meters" is just hyperbole. Stop being a troll.
...but they can't put a damn thing on surface or orbit of mars and the one time they did it was all screwed up?
Exactly how many craft have you landed on Mars, screwed up or otherwise? If you think it's so easy why don't you do it yourself?
It's easy to be a critic and bash scientists and governments but it's a whole lot harder to actually design, plan, and execute these missions. These people are trying to do something important and extremely difficult. They need support, not armchair rocket scientists.
Now I know I scored a direct hit. The parent post was obviously forwarded to one of the right-wing slashdotter clearing houses where you pool your mod points. Now I see that you've posted a mod shadow on me.
Excellent.
You could pay me no higher compliment. It means I'm effective against your abusive and misleading rhetoric. I knew my skill at seeing directly through bullshit would come to some use. I love the taste of right-winger mod points. If you're using them against me then there are that many fewer of your points to go around. Keep 'em coming. You make my heart swell with pride.
He sat down (interestingly, I never saw this man again)...
Hmmm. Must've been a magic chair.
...and another lawyer stood up and gave us our plans...
Ahh. There's what happened. You didn't say whether you had ever seen this man before the first disappeared. I think it was probably a parlor trick. Like SCO's lawsuits.
Which shows that plants are much smarter than you.
Which plants would those be? Do you mean those extinct plants? The ones that went extinct because they changed their climate? Yeah, I'm pretty sure those are the ones you're talking about.
(The point here, for those of you that really ARE dumber than plants, is that the Earth has never ever been a stable system, so parent poster is terminally clueless.)
How abusive and arrogant you are. So full of yourself and your own certainty. Hopefully, one day you will see that your ideology is ruling your thoughts. You're not thinking. You're simply reacting according to your ideological programming.
Ooo. Nice retort. You really showed me. Why'd you post AC if you're so brilliant and righteous?
If you stop removing methane and CO2 from the atmosphere, you don't know what'll happen.
What are you talking about? I'm not aware that anyone is removing methane or CO2 from the atmosphere and I certainly didn't make a case to stop it. Now who's the "foolish moron?"
You're just trying to slam the side of the debate you don't personally agree with using this "experiment" propaganda.
Yeah, right. If you don't think making major changes to the composition of the atmosphere without any thought for the consequences is an experiment then your mind is warped by your own ideology. If you feel slammed then that just means you are taking a side in the debate that is opposed to the one I'm taking. (Yes! Direct hit! It must be your weak spot.) What makes your side better? Just because you're winning? Or is it because somebody is making money and your ideology says that those who make money are right, by definition? I'm arguing on the merits, not ideology.
Scientists don't know how the global climate works.
You're making my case for me. If even the scientists don't know how the global climate works then it's downright crazy to go around altering the composition of the atmosphere. That's what makes it an experiment. We don't know what the outcome will be for an action we are taking.
You're the one proposing that everyone should change now to suit your wishes, consequences be damned.
Oh, it's all about me now, huh? You right-wing nuts can't believe anyone would have a streak of altruism because it's such a foreign concept to you. It's all "ME ME ME" with you guys. It's actually western society and the Industrial Revolution that proposed, and accomplished, a huge change in the way we relate to and alter the atmosphere. It's an uncontrolled experiment that has been going on for a couple of hundred years -- gradually, at first, but accelerating exponentially. We're just now beginning to realize what a profound effect we're having, but some (like yourself) are slow to recognize it and reluctant to challenge their own assumptions and prejudices.
It's scientific fact that the world's climate changes over time. It's been hotter than it is now, and it's been colder than it is now.
No doubt about that. That doesn't give us a license to go around blindly changing things that, by your own admission, we don't fully understand, though. Especially when those changes could be detrimental to life as we know it. Do you not realize that, in each of the climate changes Earth has experienced, many species went extinct. We're not magically immune to that effect. Keep on changing the climate and watch.
Your proposal that we start trying to control these changes is ridiculous on its face, but moreso because nobody has any data on what the changes would do.
Hmmm. Because we don't have any data we shouldn't try to control the effect we're having on a system we don't understand??? That's a pretty illogical statement.
Actually, if you read some of the studies done on this subject, its been found that plants tend to grow bigger and be more resistant to stress when CO2 is incresed. Most likely, if the CO2 levels continue to rise, we will see an increse in vegitation, which will work to strip CO2 back out of the atmosphere.
Maybe-- but we don't know that, do we? Isn't that what atmospheric-change proponents keep saying? The science isn't exact so you can't claim that as a benefit. Don't be a hypocrite.
Like most changes on Earth, things tend to balance themselves back out after time.
Another unsupported theory. Care to back that up with unassailable facts and research? Didn't think so.
Now this isn't to say that we should just go hog wild and pollute as much as we want...
But that's what we are doing, and you're defending it.
but let's not go abandoning the advantages of an industrial society, just becuase it may change the climate a bit.
No need to. Just put the proper policies in place and the market and technology mix will adjust to match. Most of the technologies that would reduce atmospheric change already exist. We just need to give them equal footing with high-polluting technologies. We can't keep privatizing the profit of these old technologies while we socialize the costs. That distorts the mechanisms of capitalism.
Remember, climate change happenes with our without us, we just nudge it a bit now and again.
Or we nudge it a lot -- and only now in our history. We just don't know, do we? Let the experiment continue...
Another one is that you don't experiment on production systems without some kind of backup. Do you have a backup atmosphere somewhere that we can use if the methane and CO2 we're adding to this one cause it to break? If not, then it's time to put a halt to the experiment.
So what should be done? Throttle all industrial production for first-world nations, and leave third-world nations exempt. Riiiiiiight...makes sense to me.
Since you admit that we aren't sure what the exact causes of climate change are and what the consequences are of our reformulation of the atmosphere then you might want to consider the idea of putting a halt to our experimentation on it.
"Hmmm. I wonder what happens if we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?" "Shhhhhh! We really don't want to know the answer to that. It might hurt business."
You know, we kind of need a properly functioning atmosphere in order to live and I'm not especially keen on the idea of waiting for something to break before we shut down the experiment. "Ooops, we're sorry" doesn't cut it when you're environment collapses and there's no food or water.
So we should just keep blindly changing the composition of our only atmosphere (the one we need to survive) just because we don't know absolutely everything there is to know about the climate? If we don't know everthing about it then the proper response would be to stop messing it up.
Yeah, environmental groups are the ones infiltrating and skewing scientific study -- that's a laugh. Only if that time capsule came from the future of Bizarro World. Back here in the real world it's corporate whore science that's steering the results to match their profit motives and corporate whore politicians who edit even those findings to paint pretty pictures for the uninformed. Environmental groups have been effectively silenced and marginalized, just as the corporations would have it. Wake up and smell the exhaust fumes.
What a bizarre and convoluted argument. I'm a big Monty Python fan so I'm used to parsing absurdities, but that one really takes the cake. Good luck taking it into court. I notice that you posted AC so that means you're not even willing to stand behind it. It looks like it breaks down right here:
respecting (to relate or refer to; concern) an establishment of religion, or prohibiting (note; only prohibiting. It's opposite, permiting, is not banned.) the free exercise thereof.
respect
1. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem.
2. To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit.
3. To relate or refer to; concern.
See how you chose the third definition for respect(ing) while completely ignoring the first two? That's an intentional distortion of the facts on your part. Using the first definition, Congress is prohibited from writing a law that shows deference or regard for or holds in esteem a particular religion. So "permiting" is, indeed, banned, contrary to your manipulative interpretation. The fourteenth amendment doesn't apply because it's just puting the states on notice that they can't take away rights that the federal constitution guarantees. So if Congress is prohibited from respecting the establishment of a religion, then county school boards and schools (which are granted no power under the Constitution) are most certainly prohibited from doing the same. By no right could a powerless agency be allowed to do something that an empowered agency is prohibited from doing.
...my children cannot exercise their 1st Amendment rights in a public school because they are Christians.
Bullshit. Your children are free to pray in school at any time as long as they don't interfere with school activity. What you really want is organized religious activity in school. That's using government to force your religion on others which is unconstitutional. Either deal with it or organize to excise the first amendment from the constitution.
Since Atheism is also a Faith lets outlaw the expressions of statements that support your philosophical position.
Using schools to promote atheism is already outlawed by the first amendment. What you're opposed to is actually called secularism which makes you a religious extremist, alligned with groups such as the Taliban and al Quaida who also oppose secular governments.
The Framers knew what they meant and they practiced what they meant...
The framers were primarily Deists, not Christians.
...as did everyone else for nearly 200 years, until the Extreme Left Wing judges started seeing Marxist ideology in the shadows of the penumbra of the Constitution.
You're a total extremist, dude. You have severe hardening of the ideologies and need immediate treatment by your psychiatrist.
We don't need regulators constantly watching them just because they might do something wrong. All we need is to punish them if they do something wrong.
A simple analogy will show you how foolish that approach is. Let's take all the traffic cops off the highways. Then, when big crashes happen, we'll punish the person who caused it (if they survived it.) You need monitoring to discover the wrongdoing. How do we discover or control abuse of the system without regulators?
Do you really believe the government pays any attention to the constitution?
That's our fault. If we don't keep an eye on what they're doing and elect those who work in our interest and follow the constitution, then we don't deserve proper representation. And if you think government doesn't pay attention to the constitution, just watch how well the corporate pirates respect the constitution now that they are in power. At least with government, we have a chance. Corporations will just keep herding us into cheap labor pools for their benefit. Just watch. It's all about cheap labor. Slavery would be an ideal outcome for them. Keep defending corporate power and you'll find out the hard way.
Here you are practically quoting Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini, and not even realizing it. Oh well...
You know you're bat-shit insane, don't you? Are you trying to tell me that Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were in favor of putting power in the hands of the citizens? To quote Ren Hoek, "You've really lost it this time, Stimpy."
Sorry to pick on you so much today.
Oh, you were picking on me? I wish I would have noticed so I could have responded more appropriately. Your arguments were so weak (especially this last one -- man, that's a hoot) that it seemed more like you were flailing in the dark recesses of an already discredited ideology -- kind of like a bearded patient, shouting from the dripping, dark basement of the Old Robber Barron's Convalescent Home. Maybe someone will get you a train set for Christmas and you can pretend you're a tycoon.
>>And are you really that threatened by blow jobs? When I'm paying for it, hell yeah.
Isn't the president on duty 24x7? Are you saying that the president should never be able to get a blow job until he leaves office? That could be four or even eight years! Eight years without a blow job! Man you're harsh!
Spit it out. It was the FUCKING democrats that made Reagan turn his back on Hussein. Reagan was his good friend. If it wasnt for pulling out completely and letting HIS guys get killed, we would have never have to go back in there to clean up.
Oh. You're saying we shouldn't have turned our back on Saddam? We should have kept arming him with US taxpayer money? That's insane, dude. Reagan should never have been arming him in the first place. And what, exactly, did we need to clean up? What great urgency was there that required the expenditure of so many thousands of civilian lives and so many BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars? Really -- why was that task so important?
You just can't stand to live by rules. Just admit it. You think you're above the rules of society. We can't function as a society without rules. Stop being so childish. You just aren't that special. You aren't above all this. Either we come to agreements about how we live together or we battle each other like Afghan warlords.
Lori Anderson would not be happy with what you're doing under the name of her song. "Sun's comming up, like a big bald head."
And there's the real problem. You want power.
You Libertarians always fall back on that crap. As if someone who wants power to be in the hands of the people is somehow advocating that they be installed as dictator. That's just straight-up hyperbole and you know it. Get serious if you want people to take you seriously.
If decentralized government is so good for the power of people then why are corporations some of its biggest advocates? By turning power over to the states, we make the corporations located in those states into huge fish in a small pond. State government is much cheaper to buy than the federal government and most corporations are located in only one or a few states. Take West Virginia, for example. It's a modern-day colony of coal mining corporations. They completely own the state government. We need to erect a wall between corporation and state similar to the wall between church and state. Corporations should be free to pursue their profits, but they should be strictly barred from participating in government. We should end this charade that considers corporations as "persons." If we do that, then we can talk about decentralizing, but I'm pretty sure the Civil War already settled that question. That's really what's going on here. We de-Nazified Germany. We're de-Baathifying Iraq. But we never de-Dixified the US. We still have subversive forces in this country who don't accept it's authority. If you want to fight the Civil War again then lets get it started so we can kick your butts again. Where are Grant and Sherman when you need them?
I have equated the assertion that "the people are the government" to communism. It's still not true, of course, but that is the only ideology to try to make that claim.
That's like saying, "I'm not saying it, but I'm saying it." You're equivocating on your extremism. Either way, you're demonstrably wrong. Have you ever heard of a political system called democracy? That's a system of rule by the people. For proof, just look up any criminal court case in US history. They're titled, "The People vs. the accused". Who is the court referring to when they say "The People?"
"You guys?" How many people do you think I am?
I'm talking about all you right-wing Clinton-haters who still can't stop bitching about Clinton. Hell, I didn't care for the guy much and I'm still just amazed at how you guys just can't seem to stop blaming Clinton for everything from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Code Red worm. Just let it go, man. He was just a middle-of-the-road politician.
Both corporations and government are run by people acting in their own self interest.
That's not necessarily true. Good government is transparent and we can hold our representatives' feet to the fire if we remain vigilant (which is a requirement in a democracy). There's no easy form of government, except maybe a benevolent dictatorship. Good luck finding a benevolent dictator.
Corporations will act in my interest if they think they will profit. Government will act in my interest if it thinks it can get my vote.
Well, if a government that is only acting in its own self-interest gets your vote then you deserve, and are in fact asking for, bad government.
90% of the people in Washington DC are NOT controlled by my vote.
Really? That low? I would think it would be higher than that. It's a little self-centered to think that your personal vote would affect even ten percent of a government that represents almost three hundred million people in a republican format.
You don't say how we can "pry the corporate hands off of government". I well tell you how: smaller, decentralized government.
Well, that's one approach, but I don't think that will work. Smaller government means less regulation. Less regulation means more corporate shenanigans. Where there's money to be made there will be crooks to exploit and twist the system to their advantage. A better way is to end corporate personhood. Our founding fathers were a pretty sharp bunch but they never anticipated that corporations would become so rich and powerful or that a court would one day define them as "persons". They erected a wall between church and state to prevent the aquisition of one by the other. We need to erect a wall between corporation and state to prevent the same.
In a smaller, decentralized government, where more power is in the hands of state and local governments, the voter has much more power. His vote matters more for the people who have the power. Corporations still have lots of money, but it would be diluted because they have to spread it far and wide to people who are paying more attention to the voters.
No. No. No. Corporations are one of the prime advocates of decentralized government because state governments are cheaper to control than the federal government. I can verify that through personal experience. I live in West Virgina, which is a modern-day colony for coal mining corporations -- America's energy sacrifice zone. We are the ones who pay the real cost for the eastern US's cheap electricity. Most states let the EPA regulate their mining operations but here we have the Department of Environmental Protection which actually uses taxpayer money to defend the mining corporations when the citizens file suit to stop their abusive behavior. Corporations are very fond of decentralized power because their operations are usually concentrated in just a few localities. They become huge fish in a small pond instead of j
So you're telling me that the satellite providers were squashed by cable?
No. I'm saying that personal C-Band satellite receiving units (those big old-style dishes) were killed off by cable companies who saw them as a threat to their monopoly.
As for water -- no I don't want necessarily two water providers, I just want it privatized and not run by city unions.
What kind of free market is that? That's just one of those government granted monopolies you decry. Let the people run it for the people's benefit. There's no reason to bring profiteering (especially monopolistic profiteering) into the realm of our basic necessities of survival.
John Stossel...
Oh, you lost me right there. John Stossel is an ideological, sensationalist nutbag. You might as well be citing the Weekly World News. "Give me a break."
Your ideological certainty is pure faith. Without going into detail on each case, keep in mind that the system we developed after the Great Depression (The New Deal) gave a rising tide across the board while still allowing capitalism to flourish to such an extent that we became the richest country on earth -- BY FAR. To somehow say that a system that created such great wealth and prosperity while still providing things like education to ALL people (not just those who could afford it) is broken and needs to be torn down is pure folly. It's just selfishness. You're so afraid that someone might be able to slide by and ride the system that you're willing to destroy the whole thing. The society you envision is not a pretty one. It would reward the greediest and vilest among us with the greatest rewards (we're already very close to that system now). Do you really want a system where the cruelest among us are the most admired and emulated -- where money is the sole measure of a man's worth? God help us all if you get what you want.
Corporations are owned by people. Those owners are allowed to look at the books.
You mean the books that they're allowed to cook due to deregulation? And the owners have a vested interest in cheating.
If the owners aren't, why did they invest? Duh.
You tell me. They kept investing in Enron, Worldcom, and Adelphia didn't they? Why didn't the books show investors their problems? Could it be that the regulatory dogs had been called off and they were free to cheat?
The government doesn't allow us to look at any of its secrets. The PATRIOT Act has now cemented that ability. Freedom of Information Act requests go unanswered all the time.
Well, now you're talking about corruption. This could be remedied by giving control of government back to the people. There's theory and then there's practice. The people must remain vigilant to make government work for them.
If a corporation you own stock in doesn't give you an answer, you can sell your stock. You can stop buying their product. You can offer a better product at a better value. You can't do that with government mandates and regulations.
In a government of the people, we have something much more powerful: control of the mandates and regulations that are proscribed. That's a much better sort of control than the indirect type of controls we have on corporations. It sounds to me like you just don't want to have any rules. That's just juvenile.
You believe you can't control big business, but you can control government. That is definitely and obviously not the case.
Why do you believe we can't control government when it's written right there in the Constitution that we can? That just defeatism. If we take those words seriously and exercise our power we can make government work for us instead of the moneyed interests who are now at the wheel.
Slashdot Mirror
I've tried the patch, the gums, even managed to quit without any nicotinic surrogate (which being the only period totally off nicotine I consider my only true success) for as much as 8 months but I've always relapsed.
Ask your doctor for some Wellbutrin. (sorry...tried to look up a link for you but all I get from Google is online pharmacy ads) It's a mood elevator but it appears to be very good at relieving nicotine cravings. I know people who have used it to quit smoking and said that it was totally effective.
...and no, I'm not shilling for a pharmaceutical company. I think they're evil, democracy-destroying bastards, actually. Not as evil as tobacco corporations, though. The 9/11 hijackers killed about 3000 people a couple of years ago. Tobacco corporations kill that many people every two-and-a-half days . Who are the real terrorists?
Neither has anyone else. What's your point? I'm pretty sure most scientists (and laypeople for that matter) already knew that feet are not meters. I don't think anyone spent much money researching that. A mission to Mars was foiled by a mistake involving mismatched measurement units, but equating that to spending money to "discover that feet are not meters" is just hyperbole. Stop being a troll.
Exactly how many craft have you landed on Mars, screwed up or otherwise? If you think it's so easy why don't you do it yourself?
It's easy to be a critic and bash scientists and governments but it's a whole lot harder to actually design, plan, and execute these missions. These people are trying to do something important and extremely difficult. They need support, not armchair rocket scientists.
Now I know I scored a direct hit. The parent post was obviously forwarded to one of the right-wing slashdotter clearing houses where you pool your mod points. Now I see that you've posted a mod shadow on me.
Excellent.
You could pay me no higher compliment. It means I'm effective against your abusive and misleading rhetoric. I knew my skill at seeing directly through bullshit would come to some use. I love the taste of right-winger mod points. If you're using them against me then there are that many fewer of your points to go around. Keep 'em coming. You make my heart swell with pride.
He sat down (interestingly, I never saw this man again)...
Hmmm. Must've been a magic chair.
Ahh. There's what happened. You didn't say whether you had ever seen this man before the first disappeared. I think it was probably a parlor trick.
Like SCO's lawsuits.
Which shows that plants are much smarter than you.
Which plants would those be? Do you mean those extinct plants? The ones that went extinct because they changed their climate? Yeah, I'm pretty sure those are the ones you're talking about.
(The point here, for those of you that really ARE dumber than plants, is that the Earth has never ever been a stable system, so parent poster is terminally clueless.)
How abusive and arrogant you are. So full of yourself and your own certainty. Hopefully, one day you will see that your ideology is ruling your thoughts. You're not thinking. You're simply reacting according to your ideological programming.
Foolish moron.
Ooo. Nice retort. You really showed me. Why'd you post AC if you're so brilliant and righteous?
If you stop removing methane and CO2 from the atmosphere, you don't know what'll happen.
What are you talking about? I'm not aware that anyone is removing methane or CO2 from the atmosphere and I certainly didn't make a case to stop it. Now who's the "foolish moron?"
You're just trying to slam the side of the debate you don't personally agree with using this "experiment" propaganda.
Yeah, right. If you don't think making major changes to the composition of the atmosphere without any thought for the consequences is an experiment then your mind is warped by your own ideology. If you feel slammed then that just means you are taking a side in the debate that is opposed to the one I'm taking. (Yes! Direct hit! It must be your weak spot.) What makes your side better? Just because you're winning? Or is it because somebody is making money and your ideology says that those who make money are right, by definition? I'm arguing on the merits, not ideology.
Scientists don't know how the global climate works.
You're making my case for me. If even the scientists don't know how the global climate works then it's downright crazy to go around altering the composition of the atmosphere. That's what makes it an experiment. We don't know what the outcome will be for an action we are taking.
You're the one proposing that everyone should change now to suit your wishes, consequences be damned.
Oh, it's all about me now, huh? You right-wing nuts can't believe anyone would have a streak of altruism because it's such a foreign concept to you. It's all "ME ME ME" with you guys. It's actually western society and the Industrial Revolution that proposed, and accomplished, a huge change in the way we relate to and alter the atmosphere. It's an uncontrolled experiment that has been going on for a couple of hundred years -- gradually, at first, but accelerating exponentially. We're just now beginning to realize what a profound effect we're having, but some (like yourself) are slow to recognize it and reluctant to challenge their own assumptions and prejudices.
It's scientific fact that the world's climate changes over time. It's been hotter than it is now, and it's been colder than it is now.
No doubt about that. That doesn't give us a license to go around blindly changing things that, by your own admission, we don't fully understand, though. Especially when those changes could be detrimental to life as we know it. Do you not realize that, in each of the climate changes Earth has experienced, many species went extinct. We're not magically immune to that effect. Keep on changing the climate and watch.
Your proposal that we start trying to control these changes is ridiculous on its face, but moreso because nobody has any data on what the changes would do.
Hmmm. Because we don't have any data we shouldn't try to control the effect we're having on a system we don't understand??? That's a pretty illogical statement.
Actually, if you read some of the studies done on this subject, its been found that plants tend to grow bigger and be more resistant to stress when CO2 is incresed. Most likely, if the CO2 levels continue to rise, we will see an increse in vegitation, which will work to strip CO2 back out of the atmosphere.
Maybe-- but we don't know that, do we? Isn't that what atmospheric-change proponents keep saying? The science isn't exact so you can't claim that as a benefit. Don't be a hypocrite.
Like most changes on Earth, things tend to balance themselves back out after time.
Another unsupported theory. Care to back that up with unassailable facts and research? Didn't think so.
Now this isn't to say that we should just go hog wild and pollute as much as we want...
But that's what we are doing, and you're defending it.
but let's not go abandoning the advantages of an industrial society, just becuase it may change the climate a bit.
No need to. Just put the proper policies in place and the market and technology mix will adjust to match. Most of the technologies that would reduce atmospheric change already exist. We just need to give them equal footing with high-polluting technologies. We can't keep privatizing the profit of these old technologies while we socialize the costs. That distorts the mechanisms of capitalism.
Remember, climate change happenes with our without us, we just nudge it a bit now and again.
Or we nudge it a lot -- and only now in our history. We just don't know, do we? Let the experiment continue...
Correlation != Causation
That's a solid scientific principle.
Another one is that you don't experiment on production systems without some kind of backup. Do you have a backup atmosphere somewhere that we can use if the methane and CO2 we're adding to this one cause it to break? If not, then it's time to put a halt to the experiment.
So what should be done? Throttle all industrial production for first-world nations, and leave third-world nations exempt.
Riiiiiiight...makes sense to me.
Since you admit that we aren't sure what the exact causes of climate change are and what the consequences are of our reformulation of the atmosphere then you might want to consider the idea of putting a halt to our experimentation on it.
"Hmmm. I wonder what happens if we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?" "Shhhhhh! We really don't want to know the answer to that. It might hurt business."
You know, we kind of need a properly functioning atmosphere in order to live and I'm not especially keen on the idea of waiting for something to break before we shut down the experiment. "Ooops, we're sorry" doesn't cut it when you're environment collapses and there's no food or water.
So we should just keep blindly changing the composition of our only atmosphere (the one we need to survive) just because we don't know absolutely everything there is to know about the climate? If we don't know everthing about it then the proper response would be to stop messing it up.
Yeah, environmental groups are the ones infiltrating and skewing scientific study -- that's a laugh. Only if that time capsule came from the future of Bizarro World. Back here in the real world it's corporate whore science that's steering the results to match their profit motives and corporate whore politicians who edit even those findings to paint pretty pictures for the uninformed. Environmental groups have been effectively silenced and marginalized, just as the corporations would have it. Wake up and smell the exhaust fumes.
Don't worry. The new Medicare bill will take care of those trouble-makers.
What a bizarre and convoluted argument. I'm a big Monty Python fan so I'm used to parsing absurdities, but that one really takes the cake. Good luck taking it into court. I notice that you posted AC so that means you're not even willing to stand behind it. It looks like it breaks down right here:
respecting (to relate or refer to; concern) an establishment of religion, or prohibiting (note; only prohibiting. It's opposite, permiting, is not banned.) the free exercise thereof.
respect
1. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem.
2. To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit.
3. To relate or refer to; concern.
See how you chose the third definition for respect(ing) while completely ignoring the first two? That's an intentional distortion of the facts on your part. Using the first definition, Congress is prohibited from writing a law that shows deference or regard for or holds in esteem a particular religion. So "permiting" is, indeed, banned, contrary to your manipulative interpretation. The fourteenth amendment doesn't apply because it's just puting the states on notice that they can't take away rights that the federal constitution guarantees. So if Congress is prohibited from respecting the establishment of a religion, then county school boards and schools (which are granted no power under the Constitution) are most certainly prohibited from doing the same. By no right could a powerless agency be allowed to do something that an empowered agency is prohibited from doing.
Bullshit. Your children are free to pray in school at any time as long as they don't interfere with school activity. What you really want is organized religious activity in school. That's using government to force your religion on others which is unconstitutional. Either deal with it or organize to excise the first amendment from the constitution.
Since Atheism is also a Faith lets outlaw the expressions of statements that support your philosophical position.
Using schools to promote atheism is already outlawed by the first amendment. What you're opposed to is actually called secularism which makes you a religious extremist, alligned with groups such as the Taliban and al Quaida who also oppose secular governments.
The Framers knew what they meant and they practiced what they meant...
The framers were primarily Deists, not Christians.
You're a total extremist, dude. You have severe hardening of the ideologies and need immediate treatment by your psychiatrist.
You're assuming he could do the math to figure that out.
We don't need regulators constantly watching them just because they might do something wrong. All we need is to punish them if they do something wrong.
A simple analogy will show you how foolish that approach is. Let's take all the traffic cops off the highways. Then, when big crashes happen, we'll punish the person who caused it (if they survived it.) You need monitoring to discover the wrongdoing. How do we discover or control abuse of the system without regulators?
Do you really believe the government pays any attention to the constitution?
That's our fault. If we don't keep an eye on what they're doing and elect those who work in our interest and follow the constitution, then we don't deserve proper representation. And if you think government doesn't pay attention to the constitution, just watch how well the corporate pirates respect the constitution now that they are in power. At least with government, we have a chance. Corporations will just keep herding us into cheap labor pools for their benefit. Just watch. It's all about cheap labor. Slavery would be an ideal outcome for them. Keep defending corporate power and you'll find out the hard way.
Here you are practically quoting Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini, and not even realizing it. Oh well...
You know you're bat-shit insane, don't you? Are you trying to tell me that Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were in favor of putting power in the hands of the citizens? To quote Ren Hoek, "You've really lost it this time, Stimpy."
Sorry to pick on you so much today.
Oh, you were picking on me? I wish I would have noticed so I could have responded more appropriately. Your arguments were so weak (especially this last one -- man, that's a hoot) that it seemed more like you were flailing in the dark recesses of an already discredited ideology -- kind of like a bearded patient, shouting from the dripping, dark basement of the Old Robber Barron's Convalescent Home. Maybe someone will get you a train set for Christmas and you can pretend you're a tycoon.
>>And are you really that threatened by blow jobs?
When I'm paying for it, hell yeah.
Isn't the president on duty 24x7? Are you saying that the president should never be able to get a blow job until he leaves office? That could be four or even eight years! Eight years without a blow job! Man you're harsh!
Spit it out. It was the FUCKING democrats that made Reagan turn his back on Hussein. Reagan was his good friend. If it wasnt for pulling out completely and letting HIS guys get killed, we would have never have to go back in there to clean up.
Oh. You're saying we shouldn't have turned our back on Saddam? We should have kept arming him with US taxpayer money? That's insane, dude. Reagan should never have been arming him in the first place. And what, exactly, did we need to clean up? What great urgency was there that required the expenditure of so many thousands of civilian lives and so many BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars? Really -- why was that task so important?
You just can't stand to live by rules. Just admit it. You think you're above the rules of society. We can't function as a society without rules. Stop being so childish. You just aren't that special. You aren't above all this. Either we come to agreements about how we live together or we battle each other like Afghan warlords.
Lori Anderson would not be happy with what you're doing under the name of her song.
"Sun's comming up, like a big bald head."
And there's the real problem. You want power.
You Libertarians always fall back on that crap. As if someone who wants power to be in the hands of the people is somehow advocating that they be installed as dictator. That's just straight-up hyperbole and you know it. Get serious if you want people to take you seriously.
If decentralized government is so good for the power of people then why are corporations some of its biggest advocates? By turning power over to the states, we make the corporations located in those states into huge fish in a small pond. State government is much cheaper to buy than the federal government and most corporations are located in only one or a few states. Take West Virginia, for example. It's a modern-day colony of coal mining corporations. They completely own the state government. We need to erect a wall between corporation and state similar to the wall between church and state. Corporations should be free to pursue their profits, but they should be strictly barred from participating in government. We should end this charade that considers corporations as "persons." If we do that, then we can talk about decentralizing, but I'm pretty sure the Civil War already settled that question. That's really what's going on here. We de-Nazified Germany. We're de-Baathifying Iraq. But we never de-Dixified the US. We still have subversive forces in this country who don't accept it's authority. If you want to fight the Civil War again then lets get it started so we can kick your butts again. Where are Grant and Sherman when you need them?
I have equated the assertion that "the people are the government" to communism. It's still not true, of course, but that is the only ideology to try to make that claim.
That's like saying, "I'm not saying it, but I'm saying it." You're equivocating on your extremism. Either way, you're demonstrably wrong. Have you ever heard of a political system called democracy? That's a system of rule by the people. For proof, just look up any criminal court case in US history. They're titled, "The People vs. the accused". Who is the court referring to when they say "The People?"
"You guys?" How many people do you think I am?
I'm talking about all you right-wing Clinton-haters who still can't stop bitching about Clinton. Hell, I didn't care for the guy much and I'm still just amazed at how you guys just can't seem to stop blaming Clinton for everything from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Code Red worm. Just let it go, man. He was just a middle-of-the-road politician.
Both corporations and government are run by people acting in their own self interest.
That's not necessarily true. Good government is transparent and we can hold our representatives' feet to the fire if we remain vigilant (which is a requirement in a democracy). There's no easy form of government, except maybe a benevolent dictatorship. Good luck finding a benevolent dictator.
Corporations will act in my interest if they think they will profit. Government will act in my interest if it thinks it can get my vote.
Well, if a government that is only acting in its own self-interest gets your vote then you deserve, and are in fact asking for, bad government.
90% of the people in Washington DC are NOT controlled by my vote.
Really? That low? I would think it would be higher than that. It's a little self-centered to think that your personal vote would affect even ten percent of a government that represents almost three hundred million people in a republican format.
You don't say how we can "pry the corporate hands off of government". I well tell you how: smaller, decentralized government.
Well, that's one approach, but I don't think that will work. Smaller government means less regulation. Less regulation means more corporate shenanigans. Where there's money to be made there will be crooks to exploit and twist the system to their advantage. A better way is to end corporate personhood. Our founding fathers were a pretty sharp bunch but they never anticipated that corporations would become so rich and powerful or that a court would one day define them as "persons". They erected a wall between church and state to prevent the aquisition of one by the other. We need to erect a wall between corporation and state to prevent the same.
In a smaller, decentralized government, where more power is in the hands of state and local governments, the voter has much more power. His vote matters more for the people who have the power. Corporations still have lots of money, but it would be diluted because they have to spread it far and wide to people who are paying more attention to the voters.
No. No. No. Corporations are one of the prime advocates of decentralized government because state governments are cheaper to control than the federal government. I can verify that through personal experience. I live in West Virgina, which is a modern-day colony for coal mining corporations -- America's energy sacrifice zone. We are the ones who pay the real cost for the eastern US's cheap electricity. Most states let the EPA regulate their mining operations but here we have the Department of Environmental Protection which actually uses taxpayer money to defend the mining corporations when the citizens file suit to stop their abusive behavior. Corporations are very fond of decentralized power because their operations are usually concentrated in just a few localities. They become huge fish in a small pond instead of j
So you're telling me that the satellite providers were squashed by cable?
No. I'm saying that personal C-Band satellite receiving units (those big old-style dishes) were killed off by cable companies who saw them as a threat to their monopoly.
As for water -- no I don't want necessarily two water providers, I just want it privatized and not run by city unions.
What kind of free market is that? That's just one of those government granted monopolies you decry. Let the people run it for the people's benefit. There's no reason to bring profiteering (especially monopolistic profiteering) into the realm of our basic necessities of survival.
John Stossel...
Oh, you lost me right there. John Stossel is an ideological, sensationalist nutbag. You might as well be citing the Weekly World News. "Give me a break."
Private this...Private that...Private...Private...Private...
Your ideological certainty is pure faith. Without going into detail on each case, keep in mind that the system we developed after the Great Depression (The New Deal) gave a rising tide across the board while still allowing capitalism to flourish to such an extent that we became the richest country on earth -- BY FAR. To somehow say that a system that created such great wealth and prosperity while still providing things like education to ALL people (not just those who could afford it) is broken and needs to be torn down is pure folly. It's just selfishness. You're so afraid that someone might be able to slide by and ride the system that you're willing to destroy the whole thing. The society you envision is not a pretty one. It would reward the greediest and vilest among us with the greatest rewards (we're already very close to that system now). Do you really want a system where the cruelest among us are the most admired and emulated -- where money is the sole measure of a man's worth? God help us all if you get what you want.
Look, ma! He doesn't know anything about science OR government!
I'm glad to see your mom is helping you get these posts out. Otherwise, who knows what kind of garbage you'd be posting.
Grow up, Mr. Literalist.
Corporations are owned by people. Those owners are allowed to look at the books.
You mean the books that they're allowed to cook due to deregulation? And the owners have a vested interest in cheating.
If the owners aren't, why did they invest? Duh.
You tell me. They kept investing in Enron, Worldcom, and Adelphia didn't they? Why didn't the books show investors their problems? Could it be that the regulatory dogs had been called off and they were free to cheat?
The government doesn't allow us to look at any of its secrets. The PATRIOT Act has now cemented that ability. Freedom of Information Act requests go unanswered all the time.
Well, now you're talking about corruption. This could be remedied by giving control of government back to the people. There's theory and then there's practice. The people must remain vigilant to make government work for them.
If a corporation you own stock in doesn't give you an answer, you can sell your stock. You can stop buying their product. You can offer a better product at a better value. You can't do that with government mandates and regulations.
In a government of the people, we have something much more powerful: control of the mandates and regulations that are proscribed. That's a much better sort of control than the indirect type of controls we have on corporations. It sounds to me like you just don't want to have any rules. That's just juvenile.
You believe you can't control big business, but you can control government. That is definitely and obviously not the case.
Why do you believe we can't control government when it's written right there in the Constitution that we can? That just defeatism. If we take those words seriously and exercise our power we can make government work for us instead of the moneyed interests who are now at the wheel.