Why go back to the Moon? The Apollo missions were fine, just to show the world that the US was first -- but there's nothing there. It doesn't really have any valuable or useful minerals that we can't easily get on Earth, and it's pretty difficult to operate on its surface due to the low gravity and lack of atmosphere. There's absolutely no point in going back there. It costs a fortune, and we would get nothing from it.
My friend had a great idea: we should nuke the Moon. It would be totally spectacular to see something like that at night, and it would provide a use for all these nuclear weapons that are sitting around doing nothing.
Cops are dicks.
They always have been and always will be. I can count on one hand the number of run-ins I've had with cops that have been anything other than shitty - and no, I'm not a criminal.
Cops need to be distrustful and hard-assed. Everywhere they go, there are criminals trying to get away with something. Cops are the way they are because society tolerates wrongdoing.
People cheat, steal, and murder because they believe they can get away with it -- or, at the very least, get a light punishment that makes the crime "worth it". And they're right.
If a cop is caught abusing his power, violating the law, or anything of that nature, he needs to be fired ASAP. No cushy desk job, no paid leave, gone. We as a society have become far too accepting of crooked cops and the police community is far to protective of its own, even when they are giving all a bad name.
Agree. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who would claim that a cop was abusing his/her power just because they were trying to get away with something.
Did you even read what I wrote? By definition, "world" refers to a celestial body, which may be a planet, but may also be a moon. This definition isn't exactly open to debate. If you like, you can rephrase what I said earlier: The United States is the only country to ever have landed a human on another celestial body.
I consider our reliance on oil much more "evil" than our reliance on electronics. PDA's aren't killing the earth quite as fast as cars are
Um... the fact than an electric car is "electronic" doesn't have anything to do with it. It still needs a lot of energy to move. Besides, if cars were actually killing the Earth, wouldn't it be more likely due to the fact that they require orders of magnitude more energy than PDAs?
With and electric car, instead of merely having the mechanical and heat losses of the internal combustion engine working against us, we'd have the efficiency losses involved in spinning a turbine to generate electricity, the transmission loss on the line to get the electricity to consumers, the loss due to chemical batteries being imperfect, and the final efficiency loss in converting the electricity back into mechanical motion. Plus, we'd still have the resistance due to imperfect wheel bearings, tires, and road surfaces that we have today.
It doesn't matter at all whether or not anyone can "see" past today. Infrastructures do not change overnight, and you'd be a naive fool if you didn't plan for that.
Well it's not america you idiot, unless you're counting a moon as a planet:P
Did I say "planet"? Nope. I said "world", which is defined as "a celestial body". The Moon is a celetial body. The US is the only country to have landed a human on another world.
To think that dumping billions of tons of CO2 (and slightly less H20) into the atmosphere over the last 30 years alone (rough calculations indicate around 130 billion tons from early 70s to early 00s), while simultaneously deforesting much of the world's forests as fast as they can be cut, has little to no effect on the environment is the height of ignorance.
You should note that 5 billion tons of CO2 is several orders of magnitude less than the total mass of the Earth's atmosphere. Also, please cite sources for these estimates.
That isn't even the question. The question is whether they play a significant part. Of course they play a part, but this is one hell of a lot of atmosphere that you're suggesting we've affected. Do you know how many tons of air are over us right now?
And I don't think it is, in this case. If you look at the history for that article, you'll see that it was created well after the global warming hysteria started, and that early comments on edits to it pertain to attempts to give the article a "neutral" feel. If this was pure science instead of politically-fueled junk-science, there wouldn't be a need for this point-of-view manipulation.
Do you do all that, or do you get out of the frigging way first and then run your analysis?
That is a false analogy. Getting out of the way of the truck would cost you nothing, but doing whatever we speculate might be necessary to avoid any global warming would cost us dearly.
Further, the idea that there is an order to which things adhere by which you can make reasonable predictions again implies design
Stop right there. That's just wrong. The only thing implied is that the universe is goverened by a set of physical laws, and that's all. No design or designer required.
Welcome to America. Land of the free.*
*Term and Conditions Apply
Um. Obviously. Only an idiot would think that "free" meant "free to do absolutely anything you want". Of course I'm not free to kill people. I'm not even free to say absolutely anything I want, because some things interfere with the rights of others and/or harm society. That said, yes, welcome to America, land of the free.
So here's a question for you: Is murder ok as long as it's done by the State?
Um... if you're talking about the death penalty, that's not murder. From WikiPedia: "In criminal law, murder is the crime where one or more human beings causes the death of others, without lawful excuse" -- the 'without lawful excuse' part is key. In states with capital punishment, it's totally lawful. Furthermore, at wartime, killing engaged enemy combatants is also totally lawful.
While you might be allowed to leave and join a different club, it's not free.. the IRS can still demand you pay income taxes for the next ten years, even if you renounce your US citizenship. While they might not send the goons to go kidnap you and bring you back, the next time you visit the US (say, for a family funeral or a friend's wedding) you can expect to be met at the airport. Search for [expatriation tax].
When I said that you're "free" to leave, I didn't mean "it doesn't cost anything to leave". I meant "you have the freedom to leave". An expatriation tax has nothing to do with the fact that no one will stop you from leaving this country and establishing citizenship elsewhere.
I don't recall personally signing any documents stating this agreement. If you have it I would gladly like to see. Thanks.
I never signed anything stating that I wouldn't murder people. But I'd be fucking stupid if I thought I could get away with murder just because I never signed a document like that.
So you've never broken a speed limit, lied to get out of jury duty, consumed alcohol before the age of 21, had sex before the age of 18, smoked a joint, or witnessed anyone else doing any of these things and not reported it (thereby aiding and abetting)?
Actually, I have. But you know what would have stopped me from doing any of those things? Harsh punishment. That's why it's called "punishment" -- you're supposed to be afraid of it happening to you. The very-low crime rate in Singapore comes to mind.
By the way, in addition to the common law tradition that punishment should be proportional to the crime, the men who wrote the US constitution probably thought it was worth emphasising because each and every one of them were criminals--terrorists, in fact. Insurgents against their own British government. But obviously you don't think the protection should have been extended to them--so I guess maybe the constitution shouldn't have been written in the first place?
Most things aren't perfect. This includes the Constitution.
Slashdot Mirror
Why go back to the Moon? The Apollo missions were fine, just to show the world that the US was first -- but there's nothing there. It doesn't really have any valuable or useful minerals that we can't easily get on Earth, and it's pretty difficult to operate on its surface due to the low gravity and lack of atmosphere. There's absolutely no point in going back there. It costs a fortune, and we would get nothing from it.
My friend had a great idea: we should nuke the Moon. It would be totally spectacular to see something like that at night, and it would provide a use for all these nuclear weapons that are sitting around doing nothing.
Cops need to be distrustful and hard-assed. Everywhere they go, there are criminals trying to get away with something. Cops are the way they are because society tolerates wrongdoing.
People cheat, steal, and murder because they believe they can get away with it -- or, at the very least, get a light punishment that makes the crime "worth it". And they're right.
Did you even read what I wrote? By definition, "world" refers to a celestial body, which may be a planet, but may also be a moon. This definition isn't exactly open to debate. If you like, you can rephrase what I said earlier: The United States is the only country to ever have landed a human on another celestial body.
With and electric car, instead of merely having the mechanical and heat losses of the internal combustion engine working against us, we'd have the efficiency losses involved in spinning a turbine to generate electricity, the transmission loss on the line to get the electricity to consumers, the loss due to chemical batteries being imperfect, and the final efficiency loss in converting the electricity back into mechanical motion. Plus, we'd still have the resistance due to imperfect wheel bearings, tires, and road surfaces that we have today.
Electric cars are a pretty awful idea.
It doesn't matter at all whether or not anyone can "see" past today. Infrastructures do not change overnight, and you'd be a naive fool if you didn't plan for that.
Who's the idiot now? Hint: you.
Um... because they're not falsifiable? That should be reason enough.
Baseless, hm? What's the only country to ever land a human on another world? That's right.
I know, seriously. Today it's reading public web pages, tomorrow it's random execution of citizens. No doubt.