While I'm a bit skeptical of the study after reading TFA, they avoid that particular pitfall and put their money where their mouth is. They conclude that if things don't change, we're looking at about 15 more years before collapse.
And in 15 years, if anyone still remembers this report, they'll say "well, obviously something changed".
Then they'll say "according to our revised model it'll be fifteen years from now".
but why can't Tesla open their own Tesla dealerships? Have the incumbents rigged that too?
Apparently the definition of "dealership" requires that two or more models be sold. Since Tesla only has the one model, they can't open a "dealership".
The only way this movement is going to die is when a sufficient number of parents watch their non-vaccinated children die or become horribly disfigured from long-since dealt with diseases.
Let's see. Four people have been hospitalized with measles in NYC this year. So far.
NYC has 8.3 million people.
So, three months worth of normal deaths translates to 20-odd thousand deaths in the City so far this year.
Assuming all four of the hospitalized measles victims die, that'll increase the death rate by 0.02% in NYC.
This is not the pandemic you're looking for to produce the effect you're hoping for (lots of anti-vax kids dying so as to convince their parents to give up their evil ways).
The REAL reason why the anti-vax movement is surviving is that it really doesn't matter much if you're pro-vaccination or anti-, so long as most everyone else is pro-. Until the anti-vaxxers become a significant fraction of the population (say, 10%), the side effects of being anti-vax won't be severe enough to be noticed on a societal level.
Bad assumption. They are not growing feed corn. They are growing high value vegetables: endive, arugula, tomatoes, artichokes. Just outside Phoenix, you can grow year round, harvesting continuously.
If high value veggies can produce ~30x the output of a corn crop, the people paying the $100 a month might be getting their money's worth.
I live in San Jose, CA. We also have a long growing season. With a 1/4 acre garden, small orchard, beehive, and a half dozen laying hens, I produce about 80% of my families food by value, and about 50% by calories. We mostly buy bulk cheap stuff like rice, soybeans, flour, and soybean oil, and get everything else from the backyard.
450-odd families on 20 acres isn't a 1/4 acre garden for each family - it's a 0.01 acre garden for each family. Again, if they can make ~30x as much value as a corn crop, it might be worth the price.
Otherwise, it's just HOA dues paid to give them a warm fuzzy.
Note that my parents were from farm families, and we had truck gardens in the backyard growing up, so I've a bit more of a clue than these people seem to have - we grew most of our own vegetables most of the time. But not in a 20x20 foot garden. Nor did we manage to raise free-range chickens in that same area, while also growing our veggies.
I do know what the word means, do you know what both the NSA and FISA courts have been doing which compromises the integrity of our Democratic Republic form of Government? You do not see how smear campaigns based on illegally obtained information breaks the Democracy?
Yes they are treasonous, do some homework.
From TFC (The F**king Constitution):
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Note that "break the Democracy" and "compromises the integrity of our Democratic Republic form of Government" are not mentioned there.
So, no, they're not treasonous.
Even if they were treasonous, finding two witnesses to the same overt act might be a bit tricky, since you'd first have to define a specific overt act that was treasonous, then find two people willing to admit to witnessing the act.
Nah, it was President Roosevelt who put in place the Wage and Price Controls that got us on the employer-provided health insurance bandwagon.
And even if I were inclined to blame the enemy for what was a purely internal issue, I'd blame the Japs - they were the ones who attacked us officially*.
*: While it is true that the proximate cause of our entry into WW2 was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Germans were the first to actually attack the US Navy, sinking the USS Reuben James a month or so before Pearl Harbor. But we let that slide, because we weren't ready for a war just then, and it was low enough profile that we could safely pretend it wasn't an act of war.
Just as we pretended that using the US Navy to protect convoys to a belligerent wasn't an act of war, in and of itself.
Again, no. A semi-automatic rifle that looks just like an M-16 is NOT an ASSAULT RIFLE! It is an ASSAULT WEAPON. There IS a difference, and you insisting that your assault weapons are assault rifles is just wrong.
Bzzzzzt. Wrong. They are perfectly legal and you have no idea what you are talking about. I have many and I don't pay a fee or have an FFL.
Umm, no.
What you are thinking of is an "assault weapon". Which is NOT an "assault rifle", even though both "assault rifles" and "assault weapons" are rifles.
Note that an "assault rifle" is selective fire. An "assault weapon" (what you own, unless you have an FFL) are semi-automatic (AKA self-loading).
The reason is was a stupid law is simple: the only thing that makes a rifle an "assault" rifle instead of a regular rifle is aesthetic characteristics like a bayonet holder, hand carrier, short barrel, etc.
And here you prove that you don't actually own any assault rifles. The Ban you speak of was for "Assault weapons". Read the text of the law very carefully, you'll never see the phrase "assault rifle" used. Because the authors of the Law knew perfectly well that what they were banning were NOT "assault rifles" (like the M-16, M-4, AK-47, AK-74), but were semi-automatic versions of same (in other words, pretty much just like my Mini-14, but scarier looking).
Sure, it's crazy that a state should have some responsibility for it's citizens, even a 10% responsibility. As you say, we should give all responsibility and money and power to the federal government.
If the Federal government mandates something, then sure as hell the Federal government should pay for it.
If a State wants to provide free healthcare for everyone in the State, and can pay for it, I've no issue whatsoever with them doing it.
But I do have an issue with the Feds saying "we want to provide free healthcare to everyone, and we want the State governments to pay for it.
No, "assault rifles" are not perfectly legal, unless you have an FFL and pay the annual fee.
Of course, they probably really meant "assault weapon", a nebulous term that seems to mean (usually) "a scary looking small calibre rifle".
Note that I am an assault weapon owner. As well as the owner of an equally scary looking small calibre rifle that is on the "exempt" list of the original Assault Weapon Ban, as well as the later one that Obama couldn't get past Congress a few years ago.
I'd be very surprised if that wasn't in part because health insurance isn't tied to employment.
Blame WW2 for that. Wage & Price Controls in WW2 made it impossible to compete for talent, so companies started offering free health insurance to sweeten their offers.
It worked, then. Alas, it became so embedded in our culture that getting rid of it is becoming nearly impossible.
I still think that the way to have gone for the ACA was to lower the age of eligibility of Medicare by five years per year, and make anyone under 26 eligible for Medicaid. That would take care of children through college, and phase out private health insurance in eight years.
In its current implementation they have a point sometimes: poor people who aren't poor enough to get subsidies and now have to pay premiums are getting hit hard by them,
Also the poor people who are TOO POOR for subsidies. My daughter (single) comes in just under the income required to get subsidies. And just over the income required for Medicaid.
If she gets a decent raise this year (not a great chance, but possible), she'll be eligible for subsidies, and everything will be fine.
Or if she gets pregnant, since a baby will make her eligible for Medicaid.
If not, she can't afford health insurance and will just have to suck it up and pay the tax penalty. And hope she stays lucky.
mainly Republicans, have refused to expand Medicaid, which provides health insurance for low-income Americans. Although the federal government will pay for the expansion, many governors cited cost, even though the expansion would actually save money.
You must have skipped the fine print on this one.
The Feds will pay for the Medicaid expansion for the FIRST THREE YEARS. After that, the State is on the hook to cover it.
Which is why cost is an issue, since the States are generally in the same shape as the Feds in regards to budgets - not enough money, too many obligations.
The House turns the proposal into a bill, as required by the Constitution, editing it as it sees fit along the way. The executive can not create a bill. The bill then follows the normal constitutional procedure for introduction into the Senate, passage in both houses, reconciliation of the versions, and submittal to the executive for signature or veto.
This is the theory.
In actual practice, both House and Senate do separate budget bills at the same time, which are then reconciled.
and I've never seen any kind of historical (or even statistical) consensus that dropping the bomb saved lives
Hmm, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Yokohama, and Niigata were put on a list of cities that were not to be bombed conventionally, so as to allow for a good analysis of the effects of atomic bombing, if, as and when.
So it's pretty safe to say that the populations of Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata were saved as a result of the decision to use the bomb.
This ignoring that the Tokyo bombings killed more people than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined.
Another thought. How low does a plane need to fly to "drop off the radar"? I appreciate that civil radars might have a lower limit (but how many thousand feet?) but how low can the regional military powers see, and would they be telling anyway?
Radar is line of sight. So a plane at 11000 meters, can be seen about 375 km away from the radar installation, assuming a radar at ground level.
If your radar is within 200km of the plane, the plane would fall below the radar horizon at about 5km altitude.
Given the description of the plane's flight path, if it was being tracked by radar from Kuala Lumpur, then "dropped off the radar" would have been closer to 10km altitude than to 5km.
Slashdot Mirror
And in 15 years, if anyone still remembers this report, they'll say "well, obviously something changed".
Then they'll say "according to our revised model it'll be fifteen years from now".
Apparently the definition of "dealership" requires that two or more models be sold. Since Tesla only has the one model, they can't open a "dealership".
Soviet ways??
This is classic Russian Empire from the 1700's and 1800's. It's not something that Stalin or Lenin thought of all on their own.
Let's see. Four people have been hospitalized with measles in NYC this year. So far.
NYC has 8.3 million people.
So, three months worth of normal deaths translates to 20-odd thousand deaths in the City so far this year.
Assuming all four of the hospitalized measles victims die, that'll increase the death rate by 0.02% in NYC.
This is not the pandemic you're looking for to produce the effect you're hoping for (lots of anti-vax kids dying so as to convince their parents to give up their evil ways).
The REAL reason why the anti-vax movement is surviving is that it really doesn't matter much if you're pro-vaccination or anti-, so long as most everyone else is pro-. Until the anti-vaxxers become a significant fraction of the population (say, 10%), the side effects of being anti-vax won't be severe enough to be noticed on a societal level.
Alas, measles only caused 175 deaths in the USA last year. Out of, oh, four million deaths.
It's hardly going to have the effect of cleaning out the gene pool when it increases the death rate maybe 0.005% at most.
If high value veggies can produce ~30x the output of a corn crop, the people paying the $100 a month might be getting their money's worth.
450-odd families on 20 acres isn't a 1/4 acre garden for each family - it's a 0.01 acre garden for each family. Again, if they can make ~30x as much value as a corn crop, it might be worth the price.
Otherwise, it's just HOA dues paid to give them a warm fuzzy.
Note that my parents were from farm families, and we had truck gardens in the backyard growing up, so I've a bit more of a clue than these people seem to have - we grew most of our own vegetables most of the time. But not in a 20x20 foot garden. Nor did we manage to raise free-range chickens in that same area, while also growing our veggies.
452 families, not people. and 16 acres total.
So, maybe 0.01 acres per person? Sounds more like an Allotment Garden than a working farm...
Hmm, 452 families, $100 each per month. So they're taking in better than $540K a year for the produce from 20 acres?
A professional farmer might make $17K on the same land (assuming he's growing corn, at average production levels and prices).
Sounds like quite a scam to me. Where can I get in on it?
From TFC (The F**king Constitution):
Note that "break the Democracy" and "compromises the integrity of our Democratic Republic form of Government" are not mentioned there.
So, no, they're not treasonous.
Even if they were treasonous, finding two witnesses to the same overt act might be a bit tricky, since you'd first have to define a specific overt act that was treasonous, then find two people willing to admit to witnessing the act.
The Nazis??
Nah, it was President Roosevelt who put in place the Wage and Price Controls that got us on the employer-provided health insurance bandwagon.
And even if I were inclined to blame the enemy for what was a purely internal issue, I'd blame the Japs - they were the ones who attacked us officially*.
*: While it is true that the proximate cause of our entry into WW2 was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Germans were the first to actually attack the US Navy, sinking the USS Reuben James a month or so before Pearl Harbor. But we let that slide, because we weren't ready for a war just then, and it was low enough profile that we could safely pretend it wasn't an act of war.
Just as we pretended that using the US Navy to protect convoys to a belligerent wasn't an act of war, in and of itself.
Again, no. A semi-automatic rifle that looks just like an M-16 is NOT an ASSAULT RIFLE! It is an ASSAULT WEAPON. There IS a difference, and you insisting that your assault weapons are assault rifles is just wrong.
Umm, no.
What you are thinking of is an "assault weapon". Which is NOT an "assault rifle", even though both "assault rifles" and "assault weapons" are rifles.
Note that an "assault rifle" is selective fire. An "assault weapon" (what you own, unless you have an FFL) are semi-automatic (AKA self-loading).
And here you prove that you don't actually own any assault rifles. The Ban you speak of was for "Assault weapons". Read the text of the law very carefully, you'll never see the phrase "assault rifle" used. Because the authors of the Law knew perfectly well that what they were banning were NOT "assault rifles" (like the M-16, M-4, AK-47, AK-74), but were semi-automatic versions of same (in other words, pretty much just like my Mini-14, but scarier looking).
If the Federal government mandates something, then sure as hell the Federal government should pay for it.
If a State wants to provide free healthcare for everyone in the State, and can pay for it, I've no issue whatsoever with them doing it.
But I do have an issue with the Feds saying "we want to provide free healthcare to everyone, and we want the State governments to pay for it.
I'll bite. Which abuses are you talking about?
No, "assault rifles" are not perfectly legal, unless you have an FFL and pay the annual fee.
Of course, they probably really meant "assault weapon", a nebulous term that seems to mean (usually) "a scary looking small calibre rifle".
Note that I am an assault weapon owner. As well as the owner of an equally scary looking small calibre rifle that is on the "exempt" list of the original Assault Weapon Ban, as well as the later one that Obama couldn't get past Congress a few years ago.
Blame WW2 for that. Wage & Price Controls in WW2 made it impossible to compete for talent, so companies started offering free health insurance to sweeten their offers.
It worked, then. Alas, it became so embedded in our culture that getting rid of it is becoming nearly impossible.
I still think that the way to have gone for the ACA was to lower the age of eligibility of Medicare by five years per year, and make anyone under 26 eligible for Medicaid. That would take care of children through college, and phase out private health insurance in eight years.
Also the poor people who are TOO POOR for subsidies. My daughter (single) comes in just under the income required to get subsidies. And just over the income required for Medicaid.
If she gets a decent raise this year (not a great chance, but possible), she'll be eligible for subsidies, and everything will be fine.
Or if she gets pregnant, since a baby will make her eligible for Medicaid.
If not, she can't afford health insurance and will just have to suck it up and pay the tax penalty. And hope she stays lucky.
You must have skipped the fine print on this one.
The Feds will pay for the Medicaid expansion for the FIRST THREE YEARS. After that, the State is on the hook to cover it.
Which is why cost is an issue, since the States are generally in the same shape as the Feds in regards to budgets - not enough money, too many obligations.
Of course, cars haven't improved as much as gaming PCs in the last decade.
And cars tend to cost MORE as time goes along, while gaming PCs tend to cost the same or less for vastly greater performance.
This is the theory.
In actual practice, both House and Senate do separate budget bills at the same time, which are then reconciled.
Hmm, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Yokohama, and Niigata were put on a list of cities that were not to be bombed conventionally, so as to allow for a good analysis of the effects of atomic bombing, if, as and when.
So it's pretty safe to say that the populations of Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata were saved as a result of the decision to use the bomb.
This ignoring that the Tokyo bombings killed more people than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined.
US Constitution, Article 3, Section 3.
Someday, people will learn what "traitor" means in the USA. But probably not soon.
And men are naturally bad at spelling?
Yep. That's been true for decades.
Radar is line of sight. So a plane at 11000 meters, can be seen about 375 km away from the radar installation, assuming a radar at ground level.
If your radar is within 200km of the plane, the plane would fall below the radar horizon at about 5km altitude.
Given the description of the plane's flight path, if it was being tracked by radar from Kuala Lumpur, then "dropped off the radar" would have been closer to 10km altitude than to 5km.