Rovers cannot procreate and ensure the longevity of the human species. At some point, some of the eggs have to leave this single, vulnerable basket we're all in and start a second basket.
"Water becomes more abundant the further out in the solar system you go."
But MUCH harder to melt, in most places.
Any long-term mission or colonization effort is almost certain to rely on some variation of a nuclear power source, either a RTG or a full-on PWR. Solar doesn't provide enough juice for anything big, especially the farther you move from the Sun. Either nuclear solution is going to produce waste heat on the order of hundreds (most likely thousands) of watts. Finding a way to melt ice won't be an issue no matter if you're on Mars or Titan...or Pluto for that matter.
'Earn' doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. The idea that someone could 'earn' a billion dollars is... hilarious.
Hilarious doesn't mean what you think it does, either. Suppose I come up with an invention today that allows practical, sustainable, affordable, safe nuclear fusion. Such an idea would not just revolutionize an industry or a country, it would revolutionize the world. How much is that idea worth? Why, it would be worth whatever someone would be willing to pay for it. Most intelligent people would agree such an idea would be worth not just hundreds of billions, but perhaps *trillions* of dollars. And me, as the sole person who holds the idea in his head, could sell it to whoever I choose for whatever I want. Even if someone paid me $100 billion for it, they'd have gotten a bargain. But nevermind. According to you, nobody and nothing is worth that kind of money.
At what point do you just get honest and admit this whole "kill the rich" fascination of yours has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with envy and jealousy?
I have a problem with 95% being poor and 5% being rich.
Then you have no problem, because that's not the case. Not in the US anyway. And let's not forget that the "poor" in the US enjoy a higher standard of living than the middle classes of most other countries.
However between the 1940's and 1970's people could basically afford to purchase homes at reasonable prices, make a good living and support their families, and have a reasonable expectation that if one works hard, they will get rewarded. This doesn't happen anymore.
I work hard, make a good living, and support my family. It is hard to do, however, because people like you keep wanting to take away my hard-earned money and, through redistribution, give it to others who haven't worked as hard or to bail out others who've made poor decisions in their lives.
The problem is there is a large proportion of the super rich where there is no risk involved. They screw up and we bail them out. Then they give each other million dollar bonuses because even with their screwups they still made money.
The "no risk" applies to *everyone* when you think about it. Consider this: you run up your credit cards to the max, buy a big house, new car, and in general live beyond your means. Then the bills start coming in and you can't pay them. You go to bankruptcy court, file Chapter 7, and your debt is now erased. All your creditors are left screwed while you get to start over fresh. Sounds a lot like a bailout, doesn't it?
Some how society has decided that these bastards deserve even more rewards because they did really good for a short while.
No, society has done no such thing. Most companies have Boards that decide how to reward the executives, not "society." It's these Boards who give million-dollar golden parachutes out. Blame them? Well, actually, the Boards *are* accountable to someone. They're called "stockholders." So, much like how "society" is responsible for electing useless, corrupt politicians (thus we get the government we deserve), stockholders who sit idly by and allow Boards such behavior get what they deserve as well.
As uncomfortable as it is, if you follow the chain of responsibility, you usually end up finding out the problem is the many of us, not the few of them.
Don't forget that companies quite often buy some of themselves back, especially if they're sitting on a pile of cash and expect profits to push the stock price up later. Then they can re-sell said shares for a profit.
And, for those who claim investments aren't earned income and should be "redistributed," go for it...so long as you redistribute losses at the same time. No having your cake and eating it here, bub. Somehow I think your tune will change a bit, though, when you get hit with the bill.
I was alive then, and interested. And even my 12 year old brain could tell that global cooling was bullshit created by a magazine publisher, rather than something that large number of scientists were predicting.
Do you not realize that 30 years from now, some 42-year-old could say the same thing about global warming? Hindsight is so wonderfully clear. Foresight is somewhat less so despite your protestations otherwise.
How about a tax scale that accounts for the current unemployment rate? Higher unemployment = higher taxes for corporations and rich, lower unemployment is lower taxes for corporations and the rich. Hell of an incentive to create jobs.
Yes, because we all know the reason corporations aren't creating jobs is because taxes are too low.
Jeez, do you even *think* about what you're saying before you post it?
This is very true. The wealthy can simply afford to hoard their money,
How silly. Rich people don't "hoard" their money; they *spend* it. That's what identifies them as rich in the first place. A rich person who never spends their money is effectively a poor person. Money is only valuable if you *do* something with it, and I challenge you to find anyone who can reasonably considered to be "rich" that doesn't spend their money. And, by spending said money, they provide jobs and wages for countless businesses who employ countless others.
There is a misconception that the rich are job creators. The real job creators are the middle class that can't afford lavish trips abroad or expensive goods manufactured offshore and instead spend their money closer to home.
You've obviously never profiled the average investor or venture capitalist. Jobs are "created" when new businesses are created or new markets are exploited. Both of these activities entail risk and require capital. Your reviled "rich person" is usually the person that takes his or her money and, far from "hoarding" it, *invests* it with a hope of a return on said investment. The greater the risk, the greater the potential reward must be to entice the investor. Remove or regulate that enticement into oblivion and you remove the investor, which stagnates growth, which leads to fewer jobs, lower tax revenues, and declining social services standards.
Look, Bill Gates is worth billions, but those billions are not sitting in some vault somewhere where he cackles with drooling, maniacal glee over gold bars all day long. Those billions are out there *invested* in all manner of things, creating jobs and opportunities for countless thousands -- perhaps millions -- of people. Poor people don't create jobs. Middle-income people may create some jobs, but not a lot. The "rich" are the only ones left in the equation with the capability to do it.
The whole argument can be put in even simpler terms: rich people *spend* more money than poor or middle-income people. Anti-capitalists may hate their huge mansions, their megayachtsm and their corporate jets, but how many people have *jobs* because someone had to build those mansions, maintain those yachts, and fly those jets? Imagine how many people are *indirectly* employed just on what Bill Gates spends. Now imagine if Bill Gates was taxed or regulated to the point where he ceased that activity or, worse, chose to spend his billions in some other nation without such onerous taxes and regulations. The latter is definitely not the ideal situation for people already employed domestically.
If I gave you the names of climate scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on AGW, and are nonetheless employed at universities and are well funded -- then would that change your mind on the conspiracy theory?
You can't possibly provide anyone with any such names because the scientific community is unified in their belief in AGW. After all, the party line is that anyone who questions AGW is an idiot or a corporate shill and therefore is not to be treated as a valid scientist.
Or are you admitting there are reputable, employed, funded scientists who even now dare to oppose the "settled question" of AGW? Kinda punctures the whole "settled" part of the question don't you think?
The idea that we were worried about global cooling is a common denialist tactic.
Yes, that's the problem with all these denialists: they keep citing the unquestionable correctness promulgated by the previous scientific consensus. You know, the one where all the scientists were absolutely sure we were headed for another ice age and anyone who thought otherwise was in denial. But *today* we're sure we're right. This time. For sure. Really. We mean it. Not like the last time when we said we were sure. This time we *are* sure, even if we sound exactly the same as we did the last time we said we were totally sure. And if you don't agree, you're an idiot, so go away. Can I have some more grant money, please?
There's a parable about crying wolf in here somewhere, but I just can't bring myself to point it out. Nope, not gonna do it.
For example, can I run a river of hydrochloric acid right next to your property? Technically, it's not touching your property.
And again, the libertarian utopia falls apart when applied to reality.
Really? I find your conclusion to be woefully lacking. According to Libertarianism, if you can run a river of hydrochloric acid right next to my property in a manner that doesn't impact my property, I'd have no problem with you doing so. If you spill something, I'd come after you to fix it and make me and my property whole again. If you're unable to fix it then you're prima facie affecting my property and I have standing to make you stop.
See? Not so hard when you don't start with the preconceived notion that Libertarianism is an unworkable ideal. You should try it sometime.
Funny how scientists have had to "throw out the whole model" more than once in recorded history on a variety of incredibly important subjects. People get attached to models sometimes, and the longer they exist, the more solidly the "scientific community" sometimes clings to them. Then along comes some upstart with a totally new model and, guess what? The "scientific community" derides, minimalizes, and shuns this fellow. They claim he's a denier, or impugn his credentials, ignore him, or accuse him of heresy. There was a time when even Einstein was considered a fool by the "scientific community." They were just as sure *then* about his theories being wrong as you are today about AGW being *right*. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it sure as hell doesn't mean you're right either.
This is what the most damaging of the denialists do. Sow doubt.
Yes, I can see where sowing doubt is damaging to people who prefer an audience that merely nods up and down on cue without questioning The Obviously Important Person At The Podium With The Fancy Charts. As a scientist, you of all people should *welcome* questions, *welcome* doubters, *welcome* deniers. If your data is as ironclad, conclusive, and unassailable as you claim, you'll defeat them handily and put this whole business to rest once and for all. After the applause dies down you can head home and spend the rest of your life polishing your Nobel prize. The only people who are afraid of questioners and skeptics are those who know they don't have all the answers needed to shut them up.
You say the degree of human responsibility is "not [sic] longer an open question" and then go on to correlate CO2 increases with temperature increases. Yet CO2 is not the only agent that can cause an increase in global temperatures. There are myriad factors involved from surface albedo to water vapor, with more variables involved than we can understand much less count. Is it possible that anthropogenic CO2 increases are solely responsible for global temperature increases? Yes. But can you prove it? No, you can't, nor can anyone else because our understanding of the climate itself is woefully, hideously inadequate. As a scientist, you of all people should -- indeed *must* -- admit that the "open question" you claim doesn't exist is, in fact, still very open and still very much a question.
You've made up your mind; that is clear. But that doesn't make you right. You may be right. You may also be wrong. But you can't make a definitive claim based on the evidence you provide any more than I can make a counterclaim by saying the same little green men that are causing the melting of the polar caps on Mars are causing our planet to heat up.
It doesn't seem very green to cancel your nuclear plants only to keep buying nuclear power from your neighbor.
Ah, but you're assuming Germany's anti-nuclear stance is evidence of a desire to follow a Green policy or to make power generation safer. It is not. It does, however, make for great political theater for the brainless masses to consume. "Nuclear BAD!" has become so ingrained on the consciousness of the masses that they just believe it without thinking.
The only justification for interference is when they directly and unambiguously threaten us. The whole problem with the US is that it loves to meddle.
This "meddling" you abhor is intended to head off the germination of groups and governments that can eventually "directly and unambiguously threaten us." And by "threaten" I mean militarily, politically, or economically. The alternative is to allow a potential threat to grow unchallenged until it's so big that it can't be stopped without massive casualties, consequences, or costs (or all three). The last time everybody sat around and let a threat grow unchallenged, about 60 million people died in a war that lasted the better part of six years. Isolationism's been tried before. It doesn't work very well for the defender. It does, however, work very, very well for those planning to do harm to others.
Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves.
Which would explain why Massachusetts, above and beyond all other states, put such an idiotic law in place in the first place. Any state that would send Ted Kennedy to the Senate for 47 years has a vested interest in protecting liars, cheats, and thieves.
Sometimes they are going to be wrong, and we're going to see a whole lot of that in footage, analyzed thoroughly over days, when the officers in question had only milliseconds to make their analysis.
You hit upon a salient point with this sentence: sometimes, people in positions of authority must act quickly, without all the facts, or without hours (or days) of time to mull over all the possible permutations and implications of an action that *must* be taken -- usually when lives are at stake. Sometimes, those decisions are going to be wrong. I'm all for cutting people slack for making a bad call if they were trying to do the right thing. Shit happens. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. There is no way you're ever going to invent any human that will always make the right decision all the time. It doesn't mean you stop making said decisions.
The line is drawn, however, when individuals *clearly know* what they're doing is wrong and they do it anyway. I find it ridiculous to believe the officer who arrested Mr. Glik thought he was being "secretly" recorded and thus within his capacity to arrest Mr. Glik. His conduct -- clearly recorded and available on YouTube -- shows an arrogant, power-tripping police officer annoyed at having his possibly-questionable behavior recorded by a civilian. It shows that same officer abusing his authority, intimidating and then arresting Mr. Glik. The chutzpah of the DA is also without bounds, using a wiretapping statute that clearly does not apply and I'm damned sure the DA knew it. But they couldn't admit they'd done something wrong. They had to try to save face instead, hence the idiotic -- and now discredited -- wiretapping claim. The same would go for a Marine shooting an obviously-harmless civilian in cold blood, only with much greater penalties. You cannot defend the indefensible, and you only look like more of an asshat when you try to do so with a straight face.
Being a former Marine myself, I can speak on this subject with some experience.
First, Marines are indoctrinated from the very beginning that harming civilians -- aka "collateral damage" -- is something to be avoided as much as is humanly possible. Expecting perfect, rational judgment by everyone, everywhere, all the time, while having bullets zipping past you and RPG's exploding a few yards away is unrealistic, but the deliberate fragging of a civilian is not only frowned upon, it's considered cowardly, dishonorable, and unbecoming of a Marine. Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. military doesn't want a bunch of bullies running around with rank and weapons. Boot camp exists to weed out the weak *and* the morally questionable types. Some slip through; no system is perfect. But the *intention* is this kind of "person" never makes it to a point where he can be a power-tripping, gun-toting threat to an otherwise-harmless civilian.
That being said, I personally know of many instances in Iraq and Afghanistan where enemy combatants -- not in uniform, thus indistinguishable from civilians -- pretend to surrender, even going so far as to carry white flags. When Marines try to accept their surrender, they drop the flag and open fire, or their buddies open fire from concealed positions elsewhere. The use of women and children as human shields is the norm, not the exception. There are instances where women and children have turned up dead in areas where no Allied forces have operated, yet their deaths are blamed on Allied forces, the 7.62mm bullets in their bodies blamed on Allied troops wielding clandestine AK-47's instead of the 5.56mm NATO rounds in our M4's. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to divine there's probably more than a little "embellishment" coming from an opposition that knows civilian casualties cause all sorts of bad press for Western forces when a sympathetic press picks up and carries such photos without ever bothering to find out the circumstances under which they were obtained.
I agree with you that any Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman who willingly, knowingly, maliciously kills -- or attempts to kill -- an unarmed, non-threatening civilian is deserving of the harshest punishment the UCMJ can mete out and then some. Such actions tarnish all of us and make a difficult mission even harder. That said, do not be so quick to rush to judge the Marine and idolize the reporter. There's a lot more to the story than can be communicated in a headline. Never forget a reporter's best interests are served by stories that generate the maximum amount of controversy, whether that controversy is deserved or not. Unless you were there, in the room, and knew everything that the Marine knew when he pulled the trigger, you know nothing more than what the reporter told you. Knowing half the facts is often worse than knowing none of them.
The problem we have now is that the guy pushing the button doesn't get the million dollars either, the absentee owner does.
And who put up the capital to start up the business? Who takes the risks of taking a product to market? In short, who's the guy to made hiring the "button pusher" possible in the first place? Oh, yeah, it's that "absentee owner" who you're so busy denigrating.
Big risks require big rewards in order to justify people taking said risks in the first place. If you denigrate that reward, tax it or regulate it into oblivion, or remove it entirely, progress stops.
Slashdot Mirror
Rovers cannot procreate and ensure the longevity of the human species. At some point, some of the eggs have to leave this single, vulnerable basket we're all in and start a second basket.
"Water becomes more abundant the further out in the solar system you go."
But MUCH harder to melt, in most places.
Any long-term mission or colonization effort is almost certain to rely on some variation of a nuclear power source, either a RTG or a full-on PWR. Solar doesn't provide enough juice for anything big, especially the farther you move from the Sun. Either nuclear solution is going to produce waste heat on the order of hundreds (most likely thousands) of watts. Finding a way to melt ice won't be an issue no matter if you're on Mars or Titan...or Pluto for that matter.
+1 Mod Insightful
'Earn' doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. The idea that someone could 'earn' a billion dollars is ... hilarious.
Hilarious doesn't mean what you think it does, either. Suppose I come up with an invention today that allows practical, sustainable, affordable, safe nuclear fusion. Such an idea would not just revolutionize an industry or a country, it would revolutionize the world. How much is that idea worth? Why, it would be worth whatever someone would be willing to pay for it. Most intelligent people would agree such an idea would be worth not just hundreds of billions, but perhaps *trillions* of dollars. And me, as the sole person who holds the idea in his head, could sell it to whoever I choose for whatever I want. Even if someone paid me $100 billion for it, they'd have gotten a bargain. But nevermind. According to you, nobody and nothing is worth that kind of money.
At what point do you just get honest and admit this whole "kill the rich" fascination of yours has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with envy and jealousy?
I have a problem with 95% being poor and 5% being rich.
Then you have no problem, because that's not the case. Not in the US anyway. And let's not forget that the "poor" in the US enjoy a higher standard of living than the middle classes of most other countries.
However between the 1940's and 1970's people could basically afford to purchase homes at reasonable prices, make a good living and support their families, and have a reasonable expectation that if one works hard, they will get rewarded. This doesn't happen anymore.
I work hard, make a good living, and support my family. It is hard to do, however, because people like you keep wanting to take away my hard-earned money and, through redistribution, give it to others who haven't worked as hard or to bail out others who've made poor decisions in their lives.
The problem is there is a large proportion of the super rich where there is no risk involved. They screw up and we bail them out. Then they give each other million dollar bonuses because even with their screwups they still made money.
The "no risk" applies to *everyone* when you think about it. Consider this: you run up your credit cards to the max, buy a big house, new car, and in general live beyond your means. Then the bills start coming in and you can't pay them. You go to bankruptcy court, file Chapter 7, and your debt is now erased. All your creditors are left screwed while you get to start over fresh. Sounds a lot like a bailout, doesn't it?
Some how society has decided that these bastards deserve even more rewards because they did really good for a short while.
No, society has done no such thing. Most companies have Boards that decide how to reward the executives, not "society." It's these Boards who give million-dollar golden parachutes out. Blame them? Well, actually, the Boards *are* accountable to someone. They're called "stockholders." So, much like how "society" is responsible for electing useless, corrupt politicians (thus we get the government we deserve), stockholders who sit idly by and allow Boards such behavior get what they deserve as well.
As uncomfortable as it is, if you follow the chain of responsibility, you usually end up finding out the problem is the many of us, not the few of them.
Don't forget that companies quite often buy some of themselves back, especially if they're sitting on a pile of cash and expect profits to push the stock price up later. Then they can re-sell said shares for a profit.
And, for those who claim investments aren't earned income and should be "redistributed," go for it...so long as you redistribute losses at the same time. No having your cake and eating it here, bub. Somehow I think your tune will change a bit, though, when you get hit with the bill.
I was alive then, and interested. And even my 12 year old brain could tell that global cooling was bullshit created by a magazine publisher, rather than something that large number of scientists were predicting.
Do you not realize that 30 years from now, some 42-year-old could say the same thing about global warming? Hindsight is so wonderfully clear. Foresight is somewhat less so despite your protestations otherwise.
How about a tax scale that accounts for the current unemployment rate? Higher unemployment = higher taxes for corporations and rich, lower unemployment is lower taxes for corporations and the rich. Hell of an incentive to create jobs.
Yes, because we all know the reason corporations aren't creating jobs is because taxes are too low.
Jeez, do you even *think* about what you're saying before you post it?
This is very true. The wealthy can simply afford to hoard their money,
How silly. Rich people don't "hoard" their money; they *spend* it. That's what identifies them as rich in the first place. A rich person who never spends their money is effectively a poor person. Money is only valuable if you *do* something with it, and I challenge you to find anyone who can reasonably considered to be "rich" that doesn't spend their money. And, by spending said money, they provide jobs and wages for countless businesses who employ countless others.
There is a misconception that the rich are job creators. The real job creators are the middle class that can't afford lavish trips abroad or expensive goods manufactured offshore and instead spend their money closer to home.
You've obviously never profiled the average investor or venture capitalist. Jobs are "created" when new businesses are created or new markets are exploited. Both of these activities entail risk and require capital. Your reviled "rich person" is usually the person that takes his or her money and, far from "hoarding" it, *invests* it with a hope of a return on said investment. The greater the risk, the greater the potential reward must be to entice the investor. Remove or regulate that enticement into oblivion and you remove the investor, which stagnates growth, which leads to fewer jobs, lower tax revenues, and declining social services standards.
Look, Bill Gates is worth billions, but those billions are not sitting in some vault somewhere where he cackles with drooling, maniacal glee over gold bars all day long. Those billions are out there *invested* in all manner of things, creating jobs and opportunities for countless thousands -- perhaps millions -- of people. Poor people don't create jobs. Middle-income people may create some jobs, but not a lot. The "rich" are the only ones left in the equation with the capability to do it.
The whole argument can be put in even simpler terms: rich people *spend* more money than poor or middle-income people. Anti-capitalists may hate their huge mansions, their megayachtsm and their corporate jets, but how many people have *jobs* because someone had to build those mansions, maintain those yachts, and fly those jets? Imagine how many people are *indirectly* employed just on what Bill Gates spends. Now imagine if Bill Gates was taxed or regulated to the point where he ceased that activity or, worse, chose to spend his billions in some other nation without such onerous taxes and regulations. The latter is definitely not the ideal situation for people already employed domestically.
If I gave you the names of climate scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on AGW, and are nonetheless employed at universities and are well funded -- then would that change your mind on the conspiracy theory?
You can't possibly provide anyone with any such names because the scientific community is unified in their belief in AGW. After all, the party line is that anyone who questions AGW is an idiot or a corporate shill and therefore is not to be treated as a valid scientist.
Or are you admitting there are reputable, employed, funded scientists who even now dare to oppose the "settled question" of AGW? Kinda punctures the whole "settled" part of the question don't you think?
The idea that we were worried about global cooling is a common denialist tactic.
Yes, that's the problem with all these denialists: they keep citing the unquestionable correctness promulgated by the previous scientific consensus. You know, the one where all the scientists were absolutely sure we were headed for another ice age and anyone who thought otherwise was in denial. But *today* we're sure we're right. This time. For sure. Really. We mean it. Not like the last time when we said we were sure. This time we *are* sure, even if we sound exactly the same as we did the last time we said we were totally sure. And if you don't agree, you're an idiot, so go away. Can I have some more grant money, please?
There's a parable about crying wolf in here somewhere, but I just can't bring myself to point it out. Nope, not gonna do it.
For example, can I run a river of hydrochloric acid right next to your property? Technically, it's not touching your property.
And again, the libertarian utopia falls apart when applied to reality.
Really? I find your conclusion to be woefully lacking. According to Libertarianism, if you can run a river of hydrochloric acid right next to my property in a manner that doesn't impact my property, I'd have no problem with you doing so. If you spill something, I'd come after you to fix it and make me and my property whole again. If you're unable to fix it then you're prima facie affecting my property and I have standing to make you stop.
See? Not so hard when you don't start with the preconceived notion that Libertarianism is an unworkable ideal. You should try it sometime.
Funny how scientists have had to "throw out the whole model" more than once in recorded history on a variety of incredibly important subjects. People get attached to models sometimes, and the longer they exist, the more solidly the "scientific community" sometimes clings to them. Then along comes some upstart with a totally new model and, guess what? The "scientific community" derides, minimalizes, and shuns this fellow. They claim he's a denier, or impugn his credentials, ignore him, or accuse him of heresy. There was a time when even Einstein was considered a fool by the "scientific community." They were just as sure *then* about his theories being wrong as you are today about AGW being *right*. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it sure as hell doesn't mean you're right either.
This is what the most damaging of the denialists do. Sow doubt.
Yes, I can see where sowing doubt is damaging to people who prefer an audience that merely nods up and down on cue without questioning The Obviously Important Person At The Podium With The Fancy Charts. As a scientist, you of all people should *welcome* questions, *welcome* doubters, *welcome* deniers. If your data is as ironclad, conclusive, and unassailable as you claim, you'll defeat them handily and put this whole business to rest once and for all. After the applause dies down you can head home and spend the rest of your life polishing your Nobel prize. The only people who are afraid of questioners and skeptics are those who know they don't have all the answers needed to shut them up.
You say the degree of human responsibility is "not [sic] longer an open question" and then go on to correlate CO2 increases with temperature increases. Yet CO2 is not the only agent that can cause an increase in global temperatures. There are myriad factors involved from surface albedo to water vapor, with more variables involved than we can understand much less count. Is it possible that anthropogenic CO2 increases are solely responsible for global temperature increases? Yes. But can you prove it? No, you can't, nor can anyone else because our understanding of the climate itself is woefully, hideously inadequate. As a scientist, you of all people should -- indeed *must* -- admit that the "open question" you claim doesn't exist is, in fact, still very open and still very much a question.
You've made up your mind; that is clear. But that doesn't make you right. You may be right. You may also be wrong. But you can't make a definitive claim based on the evidence you provide any more than I can make a counterclaim by saying the same little green men that are causing the melting of the polar caps on Mars are causing our planet to heat up.
It doesn't seem very green to cancel your nuclear plants only to keep buying nuclear power from your neighbor.
Ah, but you're assuming Germany's anti-nuclear stance is evidence of a desire to follow a Green policy or to make power generation safer. It is not. It does, however, make for great political theater for the brainless masses to consume. "Nuclear BAD!" has become so ingrained on the consciousness of the masses that they just believe it without thinking.
The only justification for interference is when they directly and unambiguously threaten us. The whole problem with the US is that it loves to meddle.
This "meddling" you abhor is intended to head off the germination of groups and governments that can eventually "directly and unambiguously threaten us." And by "threaten" I mean militarily, politically, or economically. The alternative is to allow a potential threat to grow unchallenged until it's so big that it can't be stopped without massive casualties, consequences, or costs (or all three). The last time everybody sat around and let a threat grow unchallenged, about 60 million people died in a war that lasted the better part of six years. Isolationism's been tried before. It doesn't work very well for the defender. It does, however, work very, very well for those planning to do harm to others.
It's not like the US government isn't trying to subvert foreign governments worldwide.
You make this statement as if the U.S. has a monopoly on such tactics. I'm sure you think China is above this kind of stuff.
Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves.
Which would explain why Massachusetts, above and beyond all other states, put such an idiotic law in place in the first place. Any state that would send Ted Kennedy to the Senate for 47 years has a vested interest in protecting liars, cheats, and thieves.
How do you know he didn't do that already and the case is still stuck on a docket somewhere?
Sometimes they are going to be wrong, and we're going to see a whole lot of that in footage, analyzed thoroughly over days, when the officers in question had only milliseconds to make their analysis.
You hit upon a salient point with this sentence: sometimes, people in positions of authority must act quickly, without all the facts, or without hours (or days) of time to mull over all the possible permutations and implications of an action that *must* be taken -- usually when lives are at stake. Sometimes, those decisions are going to be wrong. I'm all for cutting people slack for making a bad call if they were trying to do the right thing. Shit happens. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. There is no way you're ever going to invent any human that will always make the right decision all the time. It doesn't mean you stop making said decisions.
The line is drawn, however, when individuals *clearly know* what they're doing is wrong and they do it anyway. I find it ridiculous to believe the officer who arrested Mr. Glik thought he was being "secretly" recorded and thus within his capacity to arrest Mr. Glik. His conduct -- clearly recorded and available on YouTube -- shows an arrogant, power-tripping police officer annoyed at having his possibly-questionable behavior recorded by a civilian. It shows that same officer abusing his authority, intimidating and then arresting Mr. Glik. The chutzpah of the DA is also without bounds, using a wiretapping statute that clearly does not apply and I'm damned sure the DA knew it. But they couldn't admit they'd done something wrong. They had to try to save face instead, hence the idiotic -- and now discredited -- wiretapping claim. The same would go for a Marine shooting an obviously-harmless civilian in cold blood, only with much greater penalties. You cannot defend the indefensible, and you only look like more of an asshat when you try to do so with a straight face.
Being a former Marine myself, I can speak on this subject with some experience.
First, Marines are indoctrinated from the very beginning that harming civilians -- aka "collateral damage" -- is something to be avoided as much as is humanly possible. Expecting perfect, rational judgment by everyone, everywhere, all the time, while having bullets zipping past you and RPG's exploding a few yards away is unrealistic, but the deliberate fragging of a civilian is not only frowned upon, it's considered cowardly, dishonorable, and unbecoming of a Marine. Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. military doesn't want a bunch of bullies running around with rank and weapons. Boot camp exists to weed out the weak *and* the morally questionable types. Some slip through; no system is perfect. But the *intention* is this kind of "person" never makes it to a point where he can be a power-tripping, gun-toting threat to an otherwise-harmless civilian.
That being said, I personally know of many instances in Iraq and Afghanistan where enemy combatants -- not in uniform, thus indistinguishable from civilians -- pretend to surrender, even going so far as to carry white flags. When Marines try to accept their surrender, they drop the flag and open fire, or their buddies open fire from concealed positions elsewhere. The use of women and children as human shields is the norm, not the exception. There are instances where women and children have turned up dead in areas where no Allied forces have operated, yet their deaths are blamed on Allied forces, the 7.62mm bullets in their bodies blamed on Allied troops wielding clandestine AK-47's instead of the 5.56mm NATO rounds in our M4's. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to divine there's probably more than a little "embellishment" coming from an opposition that knows civilian casualties cause all sorts of bad press for Western forces when a sympathetic press picks up and carries such photos without ever bothering to find out the circumstances under which they were obtained.
I agree with you that any Marine, soldier, sailor, or airman who willingly, knowingly, maliciously kills -- or attempts to kill -- an unarmed, non-threatening civilian is deserving of the harshest punishment the UCMJ can mete out and then some. Such actions tarnish all of us and make a difficult mission even harder. That said, do not be so quick to rush to judge the Marine and idolize the reporter. There's a lot more to the story than can be communicated in a headline. Never forget a reporter's best interests are served by stories that generate the maximum amount of controversy, whether that controversy is deserved or not. Unless you were there, in the room, and knew everything that the Marine knew when he pulled the trigger, you know nothing more than what the reporter told you. Knowing half the facts is often worse than knowing none of them.
Semper Fi
The problem we have now is that the guy pushing the button doesn't get the million dollars either, the absentee owner does.
And who put up the capital to start up the business? Who takes the risks of taking a product to market? In short, who's the guy to made hiring the "button pusher" possible in the first place? Oh, yeah, it's that "absentee owner" who you're so busy denigrating.
Big risks require big rewards in order to justify people taking said risks in the first place. If you denigrate that reward, tax it or regulate it into oblivion, or remove it entirely, progress stops.