The fact that there is liberal bias in the media should be evident by the fact that this effeort is being proposed by a liberal democratic congress and administration. You can bet this vote will go down party lines. I can only hope there are some forward thinking democrats who will kill this.
It couldn't be more different than this. The majority of print newspapers are run by spineless liberals: it reflects in their reporting, and that's one of the reasons the papers are failing. People don't care to buy something they can get online without the commentary. Why do you suppose this is being pushed under this administration? The papers should die, if they can't sell, then they aren't being reponsive to the market.
Beyond this, the proposal has the potential to further influence what is reported on. We live in what is essentially a two party system. So if the papers critisize one candidate, does that constitute endorsement of the other? It's a dangerous road to start down. Newpapers are not non-profit organizations.
What! I was losing against my Sinclair Spectrum +2 as long ago as 1987.
Ditto for me on my original 4.77Mhz, or something like that, IBM PC -- and that was on the easy setting. I had much better luck against people. I thought he'd be the remembered for being the only person able to beat a supercomputer. In fact I think he lost most of the matches, didn't he?
It seems to me it would be kind of pointless to play against a modern computer.
The Light Sport catagory requires half the flight time of a private pilots licence and you still have to pass a written exam. It's still somewhat expensive to get that airtime (~$3000), so not everyone is going to want to get one. In addition, the aircraft themselves are prohibitively expensive for most.
If you want to fly in controlled airspace or land at an airport under controlled airspace, you will still need to be certified to do so. I would imagine that this would also include having a radio to recieve ATC direction. Even VFR aircraft require a minimum set of instrumentation for this purpose.
One thing that did concern me, though I haven't researched it completely, is that there appears to be no flight time maintenance requirement or re-testing requirement for licencees.
I think it's a waste of time. The logistics involved with actually having a non-trivial number of these things up in the air over urban areas without mass casualties are just too difficult.
More accurately, it's a waste of money. I don't think you'll have to worry about traffic problems. These things are too expensive to be worthwhile to anyone who doesn't have money to burn. In fact, even ultra-lights which are much less regulated, are still too expensive for the average consumer.
In other words, you can't find one shred of evidence to support the notion - which was all I was rebutting - that Richard Dawkins is more intolerant than Christians.
His claim was that Dawkins was more intolerant than "most Christians". Most people who claim to be Christian aren't even Christian and yet you selected only the worst cases of those to make your arguement. One could easily go the other way and argue the best of cases agaist Dawkins, but that wouldn't prove much either.
However, if one looked at the data on the whole, most people who claim to be Christian don't care about whether or not someone is athiest, let only attack them. Most people who are Christian don't actively attack atheism unless it attacks them.
I don't know much about how the govt in the UK operates, but if it's anything like it is in the US, and I suspect it is, it's because there is very little difference between the govt, and it's lobbyists. You get the govt by proxy where the candidates play favor to their supporters instead of doing what the people pay them to do.
Just because we don't consider it worth our health to use nasty chemicals to reclaim metals from scrap boards, doesn't mean no one should want to do it.
They also sold their own into slavery. Just because somebody wants to do it, doesn't necessarily make it right.
Whether its because google becomes capital-E evil, or it simply goes bankrupt, the government shouldn't rely on a 'free service' for the retention and public distribution of its records.
This is especially true if net neutrality goes out the window. Somehow the govt. would need to subsidize the provider to guarantee equal access to all. I've always thought the govt. should secure its own bandwidth to digital media to ensure data quality, security, and availability.
Imagine a new disease discovered and resistant human cell/DNA, being manufactured within a couple of weeks.
I'm reminded of a former MD I had who lamented over the prospect of widespread use of anti-bacterial soaps which are now ubiquitous on store shelves. I suspect it wont be long 'till the next super-bacterium is discovered to be causing a range of new diseases.
Historically speaking, every generation has thought that it's latest scientific advancement would bring the cure to it's diseases. However, it has borne true that diseases have a way of evolving just as fast as the scientific advancements. I see no reason why it wouldn't be the same in the realm of genetics. The planet couldn't sustain life free of disease, I don't think our society can adapt to the changes that would be required to get there -- and I'm sure someone is running the show.
That still sounds like an amoral argue to me. I find myself wondering if maybe there is a connection between the failures here, and the inability of differing species to produce offspring via natural means. To me such would seem like evidence for intelligent design, from whence come implications which shouldn't be ignored.
FYI, I'm also mostly a vegetarian primarily because I don't agree with the way animals are treated by industry as simply sources of food.
Considering that the diesel Golf and Bora/Jetta actually handle, drive, etc like (ie have basically the same dynamics as) the normal fun-to-drive gas versions, and in fact, often actually feeling peppier around town due to their power being more at lower rpms than higher rpms as with gas engines...
I think you meant lower speeds, not rpm's. Old diesels like the OP had were sluggish at low rpms, though modern turbo-diesels run at higher rpm's where they generate more power.
None of the weird mixing of brake pads and weak regenerative braking (since batteries can only be recharged so fast) + then getting 15hp or whatever electric motors to integrate well with an 80%+ power-by-gas-engine drivetrain while lugging around all the weight of the redundant drive system, all the 20% losses (due to maximums of about 80% efficiency) at every form of energy conversion (mechanical to electrical to chemical and back etc) versus just the one of chemical to mechanical of diesel engines, etc etc that are intrinsic to "hybrids".
Well appearently the charging system is capable enough. Hybrids like the prius force charge themselves to maintain a 30-70% level for battery life cycle purposes. Furthermore, much of the energy used to recharge the batteries would be otherwise completely lost in a non-hybrid system. The question is, does the system pay for itself over it's useable lifetime. AFAIK, the car manufactures have determined that it is worthwhile; my guess is that the kind of people who would buy these cars would ask these kinds of questions.
In fact, if you look at the hybrid versions of vehicles that are offered both as hybrids and as simple gasoline versions with equivalent performance, you almost never see more than 2-5 mpg improvements with the hybrid.
Are you talking about trucks or SUV's? Cars with hybrid engines tuned for efficiency get three times better mileage than that. When I was looking at hybrids (about 3 years ago) the calculations I ran showed it to pay for itself over about an 11 year period.
The european turbo diesel cars don't get anywhere near that. And the Prius would do even better with a smaller turbocharged engine, say about 1.0L Turbo gasoline engine making those 76HP. Its more efficient and lighter in weight.
Conversely I bet that eurodiesels could do even better than the prius if they incorporated prius style electric tech with their coventional engines. Instead, hybrid tech is ridiculed.
I don't understand why turbo-diesels weren't used in the current hybrids sold here in the US. Diesel engines generate most of their power at high rpm's where they best compliment electric engines. I'm guessing it has something to do with the reason(s) why diesels in general don't do well here, but it's a mystery to me.
So what you are saying is that the govt. is paying farmers to do things that are not in their own economic interest to do any way. That just doesn't make much sence. I understand the public interest in the provision of basic commodities, but if farmers can't be relied upon to use their land responsibly, then the govt. should be given the power to reglate the industry in such a way as to avoid spending money while getting nothing in return.
That doesn't mean it has no value as wild habitat or as a buffer zone against suburban development. Politically in the states, "subsidies to the family farm" is an easier sell than a government-owned "land trust."
I find this doubtful as well. The county in which I live has been given the authority to purchase land for ecological purposes, and to offer tax incentives to private owners to encourage them to avoid developing their land in ways that would negatively impact the ecology.
If you can afford beer, red meat, and personal motor transport you aren't really "low wage" on any serious scale.
This is also a presumptive statement. Generally speaking, people in that class simply have different priorities on what they spend their money on; they might scrimp in other areas to feed habits.
but the punchline is that it costs money to affect the environment, and people who have money generally do so.
On this you are correct. In fact the increased cost may be due to modifications in sourcing and production made specifically to *reduce* the enviromental impact. Even China has signed on to Kyoto (I don't want to debate compliance here though). So enviromental costs could be negative. The entire point of my post was to point out that product cost is a poor means of of judging environmental cost.
Because those who have are responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the conditions of those who do not have.
The problem is that you have to be working to earn money, and clearly this is something many people are tired of doing.
No, people are tired of working more and getting less from it. The US is primarily responsible for perpetuating a global economy in which people are asked to work in poor working conditions for low wages. Multinationals buy up foriegn resources and convert traditional agricultural economies to industrial ones. They do so with the cooperation of corrupt govt officials who decouple govt from the market so that these companies can become economical competitive. The people of those countries suffer as a result.
In fact we are seeing much of the same happening locally. The immigration problem here has it's roots in just such a system. Latin American farmers are seeing their lands go into the hands of US and multination business interests who mechanize the industry and produce crap GM products which are less healthy for the environment and the people. Jobs get transferred to new mutlinational corporate owned factories where the people are expoited while the govt turns a blind eye to their plight 'cause they took back door 'economic aid' from corporate representatives of foriegn governments like the US. Workers who complain are often threatened by the companies and/or local police or govt authorities. Sometimes, paramiltary groups are used as proxy organiztions to 'take care of the problem', funded in part by US aid money.
So you have people upset with the way they are treated in their home country having to choose between joining local paramilitaries, growing illegal crops, working for a crime boss, trying to go it on their own, or crossing the border. Those people who really need the work come here where they can get fake green cards that our government rejects but then accepts because they need the tax money. These people know they are tagged as illegals and thus wont be collecting any benefits from their earnings, nor will they be persuing legal recourse against their employers for low wages or poor treatment.
As a result of this influx of workers, Americans are seeing their jobs dissappear and their wages not going up. However, the corporate elite are raking in record profits at the same time. On top of this we have ill informed Americans who don't know the issues and selfish Americans who don't give a crap about anyone but themselves saying that these immigrants don't even deserve what they have, and the poor just don't want to work! How disgusting.
I don't think there really is a media outlet with a left-bias in the US...
It's actually quite the opposite. The media in the US has traditionally been controlled by liberal financial interests. As a result, there really aren't any truely conservative major news outlets. Even Fox News is more neo-con than conservative. The whole world is moving to the left, and has been or several decades I think. Popularly I think this shift is a reaction to globalism, but really both liberals and neo-cons have their own financial interests to play to, and none of the power grabbers really care about the little guy -- but people will keep buying "change" and "new" from the same old sources with new faces.
Might it just be that some earmarks actually serve a valid purpose...
The problem is that earmarks are abused. What you have is a system where ridiculous stuff gets passed as a result of last minute backroom comprimises. Without earmarks, measures that would and should not get passed are more likely to never make it to the floor.
You made a broad generalization based simply on economic considerations. The fact is that there are many factors that impact the price of a good that have little to no environmental impact. You mentioned some of these factors yourself, though curiously you left out the state of maturity of a product (both in terms of tech advancement and manufacturing). In addition some products simply require higher wage workers to develop and produce.
Even the class of people required to make it - the expensive people will tend to have SUVs, four TVs, eat lots of meat and basically use more energy and resources, whereas the cheap people won't.
Really? I thought it was only liberal elites that were into veganism and hybrid cars, while low wage beer guzzling rednecks preffered red meat, muscle cars and monster trucks.
Perhaps you are prone to making too many assumptions.
You can also find 60 watt foldable solar panels that compact into a case about the size of a 17 inch laptop bag. They'll run you about $1000 though, and supposedly they last for about 10 years, so they aren't really viable for anyone but off grid workers.
You can often have a good idea from the price tag if it's close enough to the cost of making it.
He was asking about the environmental cost, not the impact on ones personal balance sheet.
To determine the environmental cost, you have to compare the "environmetal" performance of the tech with whatever is current being used. In this case I'd say there is a significant negative environmental cost in comparison to using batteries, even rechargeable ones since you can in some cases use portable solar and/or battery backed mechanical generators to provide operational power to portable devices.
For small consuming devices like cell phones, a hand crank might be good enough. However, there aren't any practical hand crank solutions for high consumption devices like laptops. The OLPC project abandond hand cranks due to the fact that children wouldn't be able to use them to effectively power the laptops.
Foot cranks are getting there, and there are some already on the market, like this one: http://www.freeplayenergy.com/product/weza
Not really good enough for a gaming notebook, but probably acceptable for small 13 inch or less models.
Slashdot Mirror
There's still some debate as to whether traveling on ice or land will be faster.
I think if it weighs a ton, I could probably answer this question...
The fact that there is liberal bias in the media should be evident by the fact that this effeort is being proposed by a liberal democratic congress and administration. You can bet this vote will go down party lines. I can only hope there are some forward thinking democrats who will kill this.
It couldn't be more different than this. The majority of print newspapers are run by spineless liberals: it reflects in their reporting, and that's one of the reasons the papers are failing. People don't care to buy something they can get online without the commentary. Why do you suppose this is being pushed under this administration? The papers should die, if they can't sell, then they aren't being reponsive to the market.
Beyond this, the proposal has the potential to further influence what is reported on. We live in what is essentially a two party system. So if the papers critisize one candidate, does that constitute endorsement of the other? It's a dangerous road to start down. Newpapers are not non-profit organizations.
What! I was losing against my Sinclair Spectrum +2 as long ago as 1987.
Ditto for me on my original 4.77Mhz, or something like that, IBM PC -- and that was on the easy setting. I had much better luck against people. I thought he'd be the remembered for being the only person able to beat a supercomputer. In fact I think he lost most of the matches, didn't he?
It seems to me it would be kind of pointless to play against a modern computer.
The Light Sport catagory requires half the flight time of a private pilots licence and you still have to pass a written exam. It's still somewhat expensive to get that airtime (~$3000), so not everyone is going to want to get one. In addition, the aircraft themselves are prohibitively expensive for most.
If you want to fly in controlled airspace or land at an airport under controlled airspace, you will still need to be certified to do so. I would imagine that this would also include having a radio to recieve ATC direction. Even VFR aircraft require a minimum set of instrumentation for this purpose.
One thing that did concern me, though I haven't researched it completely, is that there appears to be no flight time maintenance requirement or re-testing requirement for licencees.
I think it's a waste of time. The logistics involved with actually having a non-trivial number of these things up in the air over urban areas without mass casualties are just too difficult.
More accurately, it's a waste of money. I don't think you'll have to worry about traffic problems. These things are too expensive to be worthwhile to anyone who doesn't have money to burn. In fact, even ultra-lights which are much less regulated, are still too expensive for the average consumer.
In other words, you can't find one shred of evidence to support the notion - which was all I was rebutting - that Richard Dawkins is more intolerant than Christians.
His claim was that Dawkins was more intolerant than "most Christians". Most people who claim to be Christian aren't even Christian and yet you selected only the worst cases of those to make your arguement. One could easily go the other way and argue the best of cases agaist Dawkins, but that wouldn't prove much either.
However, if one looked at the data on the whole, most people who claim to be Christian don't care about whether or not someone is athiest, let only attack them. Most people who are Christian don't actively attack atheism unless it attacks them.
I don't know why my government is doing this,
I don't know much about how the govt in the UK operates, but if it's anything like it is in the US, and I suspect it is, it's because there is very little difference between the govt, and it's lobbyists. You get the govt by proxy where the candidates play favor to their supporters instead of doing what the people pay them to do.
Just because we don't consider it worth our health to use nasty chemicals to reclaim metals from scrap boards, doesn't mean no one should want to do it.
They also sold their own into slavery. Just because somebody wants to do it, doesn't necessarily make it right.
Whether its because google becomes capital-E evil, or it simply goes bankrupt, the government shouldn't rely on a 'free service' for the retention and public distribution of its records.
This is especially true if net neutrality goes out the window. Somehow the govt. would need to subsidize the provider to guarantee equal access to all. I've always thought the govt. should secure its own bandwidth to digital media to ensure data quality, security, and availability.
Imagine a new disease discovered and resistant human cell/DNA, being manufactured within a couple of weeks.
I'm reminded of a former MD I had who lamented over the prospect of widespread use of anti-bacterial soaps which are now ubiquitous on store shelves. I suspect it wont be long 'till the next super-bacterium is discovered to be causing a range of new diseases.
Historically speaking, every generation has thought that it's latest scientific advancement would bring the cure to it's diseases. However, it has borne true that diseases have a way of evolving just as fast as the scientific advancements. I see no reason why it wouldn't be the same in the realm of genetics. The planet couldn't sustain life free of disease, I don't think our society can adapt to the changes that would be required to get there -- and I'm sure someone is running the show.
That still sounds like an amoral argue to me. I find myself wondering if maybe there is a connection between the failures here, and the inability of differing species to produce offspring via natural means. To me such would seem like evidence for intelligent design, from whence come implications which shouldn't be ignored.
FYI, I'm also mostly a vegetarian primarily because I don't agree with the way animals are treated by industry as simply sources of food.
Considering that the diesel Golf and Bora/Jetta actually handle, drive, etc like (ie have basically the same dynamics as) the normal fun-to-drive gas versions, and in fact, often actually feeling peppier around town due to their power being more at lower rpms than higher rpms as with gas engines...
I think you meant lower speeds, not rpm's. Old diesels like the OP had were sluggish at low rpms, though modern turbo-diesels run at higher rpm's where they generate more power.
None of the weird mixing of brake pads and weak regenerative braking (since batteries can only be recharged so fast) + then getting 15hp or whatever electric motors to integrate well with an 80%+ power-by-gas-engine drivetrain while lugging around all the weight of the redundant drive system, all the 20% losses (due to maximums of about 80% efficiency) at every form of energy conversion (mechanical to electrical to chemical and back etc) versus just the one of chemical to mechanical of diesel engines, etc etc that are intrinsic to "hybrids".
Well appearently the charging system is capable enough. Hybrids like the prius force charge themselves to maintain a 30-70% level for battery life cycle purposes. Furthermore, much of the energy used to recharge the batteries would be otherwise completely lost in a non-hybrid system. The question is, does the system pay for itself over it's useable lifetime. AFAIK, the car manufactures have determined that it is worthwhile; my guess is that the kind of people who would buy these cars would ask these kinds of questions.
In fact, if you look at the hybrid versions of vehicles that are offered both as hybrids and as simple gasoline versions with equivalent performance, you almost never see more than 2-5 mpg improvements with the hybrid.
Are you talking about trucks or SUV's? Cars with hybrid engines tuned for efficiency get three times better mileage than that. When I was looking at hybrids (about 3 years ago) the calculations I ran showed it to pay for itself over about an 11 year period.
The european turbo diesel cars don't get anywhere near that. And the Prius would do even better with a smaller turbocharged engine, say about 1.0L Turbo gasoline engine making those 76HP. Its more efficient and lighter in weight.
Conversely I bet that eurodiesels could do even better than the prius if they incorporated prius style electric tech with their coventional engines. Instead, hybrid tech is ridiculed.
I don't understand why turbo-diesels weren't used in the current hybrids sold here in the US. Diesel engines generate most of their power at high rpm's where they best compliment electric engines. I'm guessing it has something to do with the reason(s) why diesels in general don't do well here, but it's a mystery to me.
That doesn't mean it has no value as wild habitat or as a buffer zone against suburban development. Politically in the states, "subsidies to the family farm" is an easier sell than a government-owned "land trust."
I find this doubtful as well. The county in which I live has been given the authority to purchase land for ecological purposes, and to offer tax incentives to private owners to encourage them to avoid developing their land in ways that would negatively impact the ecology.
If you can afford beer, red meat, and personal motor transport you aren't really "low wage" on any serious scale.
This is also a presumptive statement. Generally speaking, people in that class simply have different priorities on what they spend their money on; they might scrimp in other areas to feed habits.
but the punchline is that it costs money to affect the environment, and people who have money generally do so.
On this you are correct. In fact the increased cost may be due to modifications in sourcing and production made specifically to *reduce* the enviromental impact. Even China has signed on to Kyoto (I don't want to debate compliance here though). So enviromental costs could be negative. The entire point of my post was to point out that product cost is a poor means of of judging environmental cost.
Ah yes. That would be the Illuminati. Best keep that one quiet.
Actually, he's pretty accurate. This is a case study on the abusive effects of global economic liberalization. The document exposes the underlying causes and driving forces for this 'new world order': http://www.suedwind-institut.de/downloads/ALDI-publ_engl_2007-08.pdf
WHY?
Because those who have are responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the conditions of those who do not have.
The problem is that you have to be working to earn money, and clearly this is something many people are tired of doing.
No, people are tired of working more and getting less from it. The US is primarily responsible for perpetuating a global economy in which people are asked to work in poor working conditions for low wages. Multinationals buy up foriegn resources and convert traditional agricultural economies to industrial ones. They do so with the cooperation of corrupt govt officials who decouple govt from the market so that these companies can become economical competitive. The people of those countries suffer as a result.
In fact we are seeing much of the same happening locally. The immigration problem here has it's roots in just such a system. Latin American farmers are seeing their lands go into the hands of US and multination business interests who mechanize the industry and produce crap GM products which are less healthy for the environment and the people. Jobs get transferred to new mutlinational corporate owned factories where the people are expoited while the govt turns a blind eye to their plight 'cause they took back door 'economic aid' from corporate representatives of foriegn governments like the US. Workers who complain are often threatened by the companies and/or local police or govt authorities. Sometimes, paramiltary groups are used as proxy organiztions to 'take care of the problem', funded in part by US aid money.
So you have people upset with the way they are treated in their home country having to choose between joining local paramilitaries, growing illegal crops, working for a crime boss, trying to go it on their own, or crossing the border. Those people who really need the work come here where they can get fake green cards that our government rejects but then accepts because they need the tax money. These people know they are tagged as illegals and thus wont be collecting any benefits from their earnings, nor will they be persuing legal recourse against their employers for low wages or poor treatment.
As a result of this influx of workers, Americans are seeing their jobs dissappear and their wages not going up. However, the corporate elite are raking in record profits at the same time. On top of this we have ill informed Americans who don't know the issues and selfish Americans who don't give a crap about anyone but themselves saying that these immigrants don't even deserve what they have, and the poor just don't want to work! How disgusting.
so your attitudes as reflected through your media are of great interest to everyone else in the world.
Oh Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
I don't think there really is a media outlet with a left-bias in the US...
It's actually quite the opposite. The media in the US has traditionally been controlled by liberal financial interests. As a result, there really aren't any truely conservative major news outlets. Even Fox News is more neo-con than conservative. The whole world is moving to the left, and has been or several decades I think. Popularly I think this shift is a reaction to globalism, but really both liberals and neo-cons have their own financial interests to play to, and none of the power grabbers really care about the little guy -- but people will keep buying "change" and "new" from the same old sources with new faces.
Might it just be that some earmarks actually serve a valid purpose...
The problem is that earmarks are abused. What you have is a system where ridiculous stuff gets passed as a result of last minute backroom comprimises. Without earmarks, measures that would and should not get passed are more likely to never make it to the floor.
Even the class of people required to make it - the expensive people will tend to have SUVs, four TVs, eat lots of meat and basically use more energy and resources, whereas the cheap people won't.
Really? I thought it was only liberal elites that were into veganism and hybrid cars, while low wage beer guzzling rednecks preffered red meat, muscle cars and monster trucks. Perhaps you are prone to making too many assumptions.
You can also find 60 watt foldable solar panels that compact into a case about the size of a 17 inch laptop bag. They'll run you about $1000 though, and supposedly they last for about 10 years, so they aren't really viable for anyone but off grid workers.
You can often have a good idea from the price tag if it's close enough to the cost of making it.
He was asking about the environmental cost, not the impact on ones personal balance sheet.
To determine the environmental cost, you have to compare the "environmetal" performance of the tech with whatever is current being used. In this case I'd say there is a significant negative environmental cost in comparison to using batteries, even rechargeable ones since you can in some cases use portable solar and/or battery backed mechanical generators to provide operational power to portable devices.
For small consuming devices like cell phones, a hand crank might be good enough. However, there aren't any practical hand crank solutions for high consumption devices like laptops. The OLPC project abandond hand cranks due to the fact that children wouldn't be able to use them to effectively power the laptops.
Foot cranks are getting there, and there are some already on the market, like this one: http://www.freeplayenergy.com/product/weza
Not really good enough for a gaming notebook, but probably acceptable for small 13 inch or less models.