If they spent the same on education as they did on locking people up per year then maybe you wouldn't have to lock so many people up.
So, your proposal is that they reduce the Education budget by 95% or so?
A quick Google shows that the UK Education budget is ~88 billion Pounds, their Prison budget is ~4 billion Pounds.
Now, perhaps that was really a dig at the USA, and so the UK budgets are meaningless...
Of course, US total Education spending is on the order of one trillion Dollars (including Department of Education, which is a whopping $53 billion of that), while the total spent on prisons (including such off(prison)-budget items as pensions for guards) is ~40 billion Dollars.
Which would again suggest you're in favour of lowering Education budgets in the States by ~95% (more like 96%, but the symmetry is nice).
In other words, can we ditch that tired old trope? It only works because most everyone is ignorant, and most everyone likes to exaggerate for effect, and it gets old real fast once you start googling the numbers....
Looking at the numbers for 2012, I find that 56 million deaths is entirely consistent with the population growth rate (just under 1.1%) and birth rate (1.915%).
This seems counterintuitive to me, since 0.8% of the population dying every year suggests a much higher AVERAGE lifespan than we empirically have.
Nonetheless, the numbers (birthrate, deathrate, and population growth rate) are consistent (assuming they are correct, mind you - no opinions on how accurate estimates of any of these factors is in China, for instance).
WHO reports that in 2012 around 7 million people died - one in eight of total global deaths
This pretty much says that ~56 million people died in 2012.
Given that we have 7 billion people living on this rock, 56 million deaths implies an average lifespan of 125 years. While living to 120+ would be kind of interesting, I somehow doubt that that will be happening too often soon.
While they're at it, why not stopping the blanket collection of voice telephone conversations of NON-US CITIZENS, TOO? See, I'm one of those 96% percent of the world population who are not Americans and kind of don't like being spied on.
The NSA's mandate if FOREIGN Intelligence gathering. Spying on the rest of the world is their job.
If you don't like being spied upon by the NSA, I suggest lobbying your own government to make espionage by foreigners illegal in your country.
Oh, wait! It already is illegal for foreigners to spy in virtually every country in the world. And it hasn't stopped it yet. How peculiar....
If he really wanted to stop this shit, he could issue an executive order stopping this shit. Congress never passed a law requiring the NSA to collect this data; Obama could stop this shit RIGHT NOW if he wanted to.
Just so.
Recently, Congress got upset when it discovered that the CIA was monitoring their use of a certain computer.
When the congresscritters (who were Dems) started yelling about it, Obama's response was that he was going to remain "neutral" in this argument between CIA and Congress.
So, the head guy in the Executive Branch, when the Executive Branch gets into a shouting match with the Legislative Branch is going to be NEUTRAL???
He's either in favour of the CIA behaving as it did (whether the CIA is right or wrong in this case is not relevant), or he's not really in charge of his own branch of government.
Which, in either case, makes him a (let's keep this polite) less-than-good President.
So, this new proposal changes where the records are stored, and not much else? The NSA can still get anything it wants with a warrant from a secret court, but now they won't have to go to the trouble of gathering the data directly.
Plus there's the bit where this new proposal would codify the legality of what the NSA has been doing (and will continue to do).
So about the only real functional change will be that the phone companies will be required to do the work for the NSA, plus the NSA will get a pass from the courts on the legality of the whole business, once it's declared legal by Congress.
(mainly because so many idiots right foot brake, so they never bother taking the left off the accelerator)
Where are you from? In the USA, the brake pedal is on the right of the accelerator, and one is taught to use the right foot for everything except operation of the clutch (if manual tranny).
but we have no ways to actually dispose of it other than to wait for millions of years.
If it has a half-life long enough that it will be around for "millions of years", then it's pretty much harmless.
Note that Pu-239 has a half-life of 24100 years (making it not very radioactive at the best of times), and in a million years 99.99999999997% of it will be gone (in other words, 100,000 tons of it (more than is to be had in the world today by a large margin) will be reduced to 32 micrograms).
I expect that getting beaten up, arrested and the like will make even the worst glasshole realize that what they are doing is completely unacceptable.
I expect that beating up a "glasshole" will get YOU arrested and the like. Note that wearing Google Glass is NOT a crime, nor is it justification for assault & battery.
The Garand M1 rifle is unproven. No infantry clash between two countries near each other in technological terms, one with semi-auto rifles, the other with bolt-repeaters has ever occurred.
Well, except for WW2, in both Germany and Japan.
Yes, both the Germans and Japanese used bolt-repeaters, and both were at technological (though not industrial) parity with the USA.
And Korea, of course. Mustn't forget Korea, though most of the soldiers on both sides were using semi-autos, there were a few, on both sides, using bolt-repeaters (snipers, mostly, but some reservist-types also).
And for the stupid people out there - I hate you all so much. You are the cause of most of the worlds problems. You are petty and greedy, because that is all your simple minds can comprehend. You are the fuckers tailgating me, speeding along the freeway at 80 during rush hour, weaving through traffic in your shitty 500 car. You are the people speeding through the neighborhoods, just waiting to run over our children. You are the dumb fuckers that sign up for stupid shit and get ripped off and cause market collapses. And you are the majority.
Quite a litany of hate there. Though I notice you didn't mention illiterate people in your little screed.
You know, the kind of people who can't make subject and verb agree in a sentence. Sort of like:
If those swiggly math symbols makes the parents confused and angry
Note that the plural "symbols" requires a plural "make" instead of a singular "makes".
In other words, it's frequently a bad idea to be the first to start talking about how stupid other people are....
If you've got a shortlist of 10, or even 100, suspects and no other evidence - yet - don't you think even a rough idea of what that person probably looks like might be helpful?
If you've got a shortlist of 10 people, plus DNA evidence, you don't need to guess what he looks like.
You probably don't need to guess what he looks like if you have 100 people and DNA.
On the other hand, if you have a shortlist of 10 or 100 people and NO other evidence, you have no DNA to fake up a picture.
Y'know, I hate to be saying this (not really, but it seemed appropriate to open this way), but what is "Frozen" that is relevant to this discussion?
No, I don't go to movies often. No, I pay no attention to commercials for same, or reviews of same. The chances of me seeing "Frozen" (or any other movie made this year) are low. The chances of me even buying the DVD for a movie this year are not high.
But I'd still like to know how "Frozen" deals with the various -isms that seem to be the subject of the discussion....
but I do know that we're spending the majority of our income tax dollars on it
Well, no.
2013 Income tax revenue: ~$1.6T.
2013 military budget: $673B.
673 billion is considerably less than half of 1600 billion.
Of course, you might be counting only INDIVIDUAL income taxes, rather than ALL income taxes. In which case, the 2013 income tax revenue is only ~1380 billion.
Of which, 673 billion is still a bit less than half.
Using a time dilation drug does in lieu of actual time served does nothing to help keep them off the street.
On the other hand, using a time dilation drug allows them to serve a 30 year sentence in 3 years (for example), thus allowing them to have a useful post-prison life.
This as opposed to 30 years in jail leaving you with a 50-something....
The NSA needs to be taken apart and gotten rid of. Its almost complete overlap with CIA / FBI. There should be no NSA. We don't need a separate signals intelligence agency without a clearly defined scope.
The NSA has a clearly defined scope.
Alas, much of what it has done in the last few years has been outside that legally defined scope.
Slashdot Mirror
So, your proposal is that they reduce the Education budget by 95% or so?
A quick Google shows that the UK Education budget is ~88 billion Pounds, their Prison budget is ~4 billion Pounds.
Now, perhaps that was really a dig at the USA, and so the UK budgets are meaningless...
Of course, US total Education spending is on the order of one trillion Dollars (including Department of Education, which is a whopping $53 billion of that), while the total spent on prisons (including such off(prison)-budget items as pensions for guards) is ~40 billion Dollars.
Which would again suggest you're in favour of lowering Education budgets in the States by ~95% (more like 96%, but the symmetry is nice).
In other words, can we ditch that tired old trope? It only works because most everyone is ignorant, and most everyone likes to exaggerate for effect, and it gets old real fast once you start googling the numbers....
Okay, so I was wrong.
Looking at the numbers for 2012, I find that 56 million deaths is entirely consistent with the population growth rate (just under 1.1%) and birth rate (1.915%).
This seems counterintuitive to me, since 0.8% of the population dying every year suggests a much higher AVERAGE lifespan than we empirically have.
Nonetheless, the numbers (birthrate, deathrate, and population growth rate) are consistent (assuming they are correct, mind you - no opinions on how accurate estimates of any of these factors is in China, for instance).
This pretty much says that ~56 million people died in 2012.
Given that we have 7 billion people living on this rock, 56 million deaths implies an average lifespan of 125 years. While living to 120+ would be kind of interesting, I somehow doubt that that will be happening too often soon.
"Nations do not have friends, they have interests." ---a lot of politicians throughout history.
So, yes, we'll continue spying on people in Europe and elsewhere.
Just as the Europeans spy on the USA, and other countries spy on the USA. It's one of those things that governments do as a matter of course.
Not a problem. Don't own taxable property, don't have taxable income, grow your own food, don't use electricity, and don't own a TV. Done!
Alas, I'm not a member of your religion, so YOUR requirements aren't binding on me.
In other words, blow me...
The NSA's mandate if FOREIGN Intelligence gathering. Spying on the rest of the world is their job.
If you don't like being spied upon by the NSA, I suggest lobbying your own government to make espionage by foreigners illegal in your country.
Oh, wait! It already is illegal for foreigners to spy in virtually every country in the world. And it hasn't stopped it yet. How peculiar....
Just so.
Recently, Congress got upset when it discovered that the CIA was monitoring their use of a certain computer.
When the congresscritters (who were Dems) started yelling about it, Obama's response was that he was going to remain "neutral" in this argument between CIA and Congress.
So, the head guy in the Executive Branch, when the Executive Branch gets into a shouting match with the Legislative Branch is going to be NEUTRAL???
He's either in favour of the CIA behaving as it did (whether the CIA is right or wrong in this case is not relevant), or he's not really in charge of his own branch of government.
Which, in either case, makes him a (let's keep this polite) less-than-good President.
So, this new proposal changes where the records are stored, and not much else? The NSA can still get anything it wants with a warrant from a secret court, but now they won't have to go to the trouble of gathering the data directly.
Plus there's the bit where this new proposal would codify the legality of what the NSA has been doing (and will continue to do).
So about the only real functional change will be that the phone companies will be required to do the work for the NSA, plus the NSA will get a pass from the courts on the legality of the whole business, once it's declared legal by Congress.
Where are you from? In the USA, the brake pedal is on the right of the accelerator, and one is taught to use the right foot for everything except operation of the clutch (if manual tranny).
If it has a half-life long enough that it will be around for "millions of years", then it's pretty much harmless.
Note that Pu-239 has a half-life of 24100 years (making it not very radioactive at the best of times), and in a million years 99.99999999997% of it will be gone (in other words, 100,000 tons of it (more than is to be had in the world today by a large margin) will be reduced to 32 micrograms).
"Attempts to editing"??
Pot, meet Kettle....
I expect that beating up a "glasshole" will get YOU arrested and the like. Note that wearing Google Glass is NOT a crime, nor is it justification for assault & battery.
Well, except for WW2, in both Germany and Japan.
Yes, both the Germans and Japanese used bolt-repeaters, and both were at technological (though not industrial) parity with the USA.
And Korea, of course. Mustn't forget Korea, though most of the soldiers on both sides were using semi-autos, there were a few, on both sides, using bolt-repeaters (snipers, mostly, but some reservist-types also).
Quite a litany of hate there. Though I notice you didn't mention illiterate people in your little screed.
You know, the kind of people who can't make subject and verb agree in a sentence. Sort of like:
Note that the plural "symbols" requires a plural "make" instead of a singular "makes".
In other words, it's frequently a bad idea to be the first to start talking about how stupid other people are....
If you've got a shortlist of 10 people, plus DNA evidence, you don't need to guess what he looks like.
You probably don't need to guess what he looks like if you have 100 people and DNA.
On the other hand, if you have a shortlist of 10 or 100 people and NO other evidence, you have no DNA to fake up a picture.
No, I don't go to movies often. No, I pay no attention to commercials for same, or reviews of same. The chances of me seeing "Frozen" (or any other movie made this year) are low. The chances of me even buying the DVD for a movie this year are not high.
But I'd still like to know how "Frozen" deals with the various -isms that seem to be the subject of the discussion....
Uranium came into being in supernovae, so, technically, it is also a form of "solar energy" with a sufficiently broad definition of "solar energy".
Mind you, the "solar" isn't OUR star, but so what?
Only most? Frankly, I can't think of a dinosaur in the last 65 million years that wasn't feathered...
Or were you only referring to pre-CT dinosaurs?
On the other hand, using a time dilation drug allows them to serve a 30 year sentence in 3 years (for example), thus allowing them to have a useful post-prison life.
This as opposed to 30 years in jail leaving you with a 50-something....
Got my driver's license about that time, so didn't pay too much attention to that sort of thing, but I remember it from the news.
Yeah, we'll try to do a better job than when we stumbled into WW2 over Poland.
Hypocrites. Again, try to avoid using words you've only heard spoken and have never seen in print.
I suggest you remove yourself from the planet, then. That'll leave us one closer to your ideal number of humans...
What? You thought that OTHER humans were the problem? Ahh, I see....