My feeling though is that people hate to sacrifice even to save themselves and we'll just have to have a real climate hell before anything changes. Sort of like the guy who ignores his health until he has a heart attack despite all the warnings.
The guy who pays attention to his health can avoid a heart attack.
Alas, nothing the UK government can do will have any impact on Global Warming.
EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE has to do something about AGW, or it won't matter at all.
Face it, if every country that had an obligation to limit carbon emissions under Kyoto were to stop using any fossil fuels tomorrow afternoon, it wouldn't do much beyond delay the inevitable by a few years.
Why does it take three friggin' days to dock with the ISS? I never quite understood why it takes so long to do that sort of thing? Seems to me that orbital mechanics is well understood and computer processing speeds are fast enough to handle navigation with maneuvering thrusters.
Well, one reason is that matcing orbit quickly requires more deltaV than they're willing or able to spend.
I was referring to the Assault Weapon Ban put in place by Clinton. Which is most interesting in the list of exceptions at the end of the law (including, for instance the Mini-14).
When that law was sent to the President, I looked at my Mini-14, read the text of the law, and went out and bought a new stock and front-sight assembly, in order to turn my completely inconsequential rifle into an "evil assault weapon".
Alas, my wife, who had read farther into the law than I had, pointed out to me that the mini-14 was specifically exempted from being considered an "assault weapon" (as far as I can tell, this was done because a reporter pointed out to one of the bill's supporters that the congresscritter's mini-14 would fit the definition of "assault weapon" in the law he was trying to pass).
So I went out and bought a MAK-90, which is basically a semi-auto clone of an AK-47 refitted to not have the "evil pistol grip" and "evil bayonet lug" that distinguish an "evil assault weapon" from a hunting rifle.
Fortunately, in spite of the lack of the "evil pistol grip" and "evil bayonet lug", it was still considered an "assault weapon" under the definition of the law...
Note that my mini-14 STILL has the characteristics of an "evil assault weapon"...if only it weren't specifically exempted from the law....
What, did you just fail to notice that any time some law comes up restricting or banning the importation of foreign guns or ammunition for domestic sale, the NRA doesn't give a damn? They're in the pocket of American arms manufacturers. They don't care how high the price of ammunition gets for the consumer as long as there's a protectionist market on it.
Hmm, would that be like the "assault weapon ban" that Clinton put into place? The one that outlawed a great many foreign-made firearms while specifically exempting American-made firearms that functioned in exactly the same way?
Which was opposed by the NRA, by the way....
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I can't actually think of a single law restricting or banning the importation of of foreign guns that was supported by the NRA.
Here's how it would work. All the states would agree to be bound by a rule that when a company considers locating a facility in more than one place, none of those jurisdictions can offer it a tax break without the consent of all the others.
How does your "union" propose to prevent, say, Ireland from offering a tax break to your hypothetical company?
All this idiocy would do is move the problem from a State v. State thing to a Nation v. Nation thing.
Especially for those businesses that really don't have to be any particular place in order to function. Note that Amazon doesn't actually have to have a business presence anywhere in particular - your town, my town, Kim's town, makes no real difference....
Because according to the 2012 budget, the total outlay will be around $1.3 trillion discretionary and $2.3 trillion mandatory.
Most education spending in the USA happens at State and Local level, not Federal.
You spend 7 times as much on murdering brown people as you do educating your children.
This is true of the Feds. On the other hand, police departments in your country don't spend much money on schools either. In the USA, the Federal government isn't even supposed to be in the Education business (that's what States and counties are for), but it does have that Constitutional mandate to do the military...
Your education system has failed due to religious pressure, infighting and almost complete lack of funding.
Umm, no.
Religious pressure has very little impact on our schools, for all that the media tries to suggest it's a major factor. My daughter went to a private school run by a Church, and religion didn't even matter much there...
As to the lack of funding, I think if you check you'll find that American schools have some of the HIGHEST per-student funding in the world. And still produce no more than fair results...
the drug cartels like to hang out with semiautomatic rifles
You say that like "semiautomatic rifles" are somehow different than "hunting rifles".
The only difference is that semiautomatic rifles are a subset of hunting rifles (there are also, for example, lever-action, bolt-action, and single shot).
Note that I own three semiautomatic rifles. And three bolt action rifles. Want to guess which ones were actual military weapons?
Yep, the bolt actions (one SMLE, one Mauser, one Russian service rifle) were all military rifles.
The three semiautomatics were and are just hunting rifles....
so why should people living hundreds of miles away pay your town's taxes?
Probably for much the same reason as a business based in another State should be required to collect your town's taxes...isn't that the argument that was made in order to get Amazon to collect CA sales taxes at all?
I'm forced to agree: texting while driving is safer than not texting while driving! That's some sound reasoning you've got there.
Of course, there's always the idiot approach...
That said, try to find some way of actually showing that [new activity to hate] is hideously dangerous while at the same time showing that [new activity to hate] during the increase of [new activity to hate], actual deaths decreased.
Or are you just silly enough to say that without people texting while driving, traffic fatalities would have plummeted even faster than they did?
If so, perhaps you have some proof?
Face it, for all the people screaming that texting while driving (which, frankly, striked me as silly, but I think the same of texting period) is terribly dangerous, there is NOT a measurable spike in deaths.
Unless, of course, you count a 9% DECLINE as a "spike in deaths"....
Texting while driving is being vilified because it's extremely dangerous and extremely common.
So, how much has the traffic death rate increased as a result of this "extremely dangerous and extremely common" activity?
From what I can see, traffic fatalities have plummeted during the period that texting while driving has been increasing. It's really hard to justify a "this new activity is incredibly dangerous to everyone around" when FEWER people are being killed in traffic accidents every year....
One-half of one penny of every tax dollar. That's what the NASA budget is.
Umm, no.
What it is is one half of one penny of every dollar SPENT by the Federal government. Since we take in 63 cents for every dollar we spend, it's a bit large a fraction of our tax dollars.
Which is not to suggest that your sentiment is wrong - just your numbers...
My only counter-point to your post is "if there is no intention to achieve a global monopoly on solar cell production, why is the Chinese gov't allowing heavily subsidized solar cells to be exported in such high quantities if they have set such a lofty goal for solar production/use in China?"
Because selling lots of panels, to whomever you sell it, encourages manufacturers to increase capacity?
Note the biggest problem with the "they're going to put everyone out of business and then raise prices"argument - solar isn't mandatory.
If the price of solar panels go up enough, people will just stop buying them. It's not like rare-earths, which are pretty much mandatory - solar is a luxury right now....
Which means we can just stop buying them when the prices go up, start up our own solar manufactories just to force China to lower prices, then buy at the lower prices again.
Given the number of times one experts study is tossed out by another experts study why should I trust this 1 study, and what kind of assurances does anyone have that their isn't some kind of error and will be tossed out or ignored with the next study. How am I to know if this study wan't done to justify low level back scatter scanners at air port, and has fallen victim to confirmation bias of one form or anther?
So, why should you believe that 8x normal level is a reasonable limit? It's not like there's any evidence that 8x is meaningfully better than 9x, or meaningfully worse than 7x....
The article says low levels of exposure for five weeks resulted in no DNA damage. Five weeks is nothing, people living in contaminated areas will be there for years, and once radioactive material gets inside them it will be there for the rest of their lives.
They also said 400x normal, rather than 8x normal.
Slashdot Mirror
The guy who pays attention to his health can avoid a heart attack.
Alas, nothing the UK government can do will have any impact on Global Warming.
EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE has to do something about AGW, or it won't matter at all.
Face it, if every country that had an obligation to limit carbon emissions under Kyoto were to stop using any fossil fuels tomorrow afternoon, it wouldn't do much beyond delay the inevitable by a few years.
Which makes your analogy a bad one.
Best case scenario?
It's SUBORBITAL - there's no way in hell it'll ever get into orbit, and if it did, there's no way in hell it would be able to survive reentry.
Well, one reason is that matcing orbit quickly requires more deltaV than they're willing or able to spend.
The good reason being that it's illegal to launch anywhere else in the USA?
Well, if I lived in a place where "basement" was more than just a word in a dictionary, I wouldn't mind it at all.
I was referring to the Assault Weapon Ban put in place by Clinton. Which is most interesting in the list of exceptions at the end of the law (including, for instance the Mini-14).
When that law was sent to the President, I looked at my Mini-14, read the text of the law, and went out and bought a new stock and front-sight assembly, in order to turn my completely inconsequential rifle into an "evil assault weapon".
Alas, my wife, who had read farther into the law than I had, pointed out to me that the mini-14 was specifically exempted from being considered an "assault weapon" (as far as I can tell, this was done because a reporter pointed out to one of the bill's supporters that the congresscritter's mini-14 would fit the definition of "assault weapon" in the law he was trying to pass).
So I went out and bought a MAK-90, which is basically a semi-auto clone of an AK-47 refitted to not have the "evil pistol grip" and "evil bayonet lug" that distinguish an "evil assault weapon" from a hunting rifle.
Fortunately, in spite of the lack of the "evil pistol grip" and "evil bayonet lug", it was still considered an "assault weapon" under the definition of the law...
Note that my mini-14 STILL has the characteristics of an "evil assault weapon"...if only it weren't specifically exempted from the law....
Which law hasn't actually been passed, much less been enforced...
No, it's actually fairly broadly defined - if it's not specifically allowed to the Federal Government as an enumerated power, it's unconstitutional.
Alas, FDR pretty much put an end to that when he decided he needed essentially dictatorial powers to save the USA in the Great Depression.
Hmm, would that be like the "assault weapon ban" that Clinton put into place? The one that outlawed a great many foreign-made firearms while specifically exempting American-made firearms that functioned in exactly the same way?
Which was opposed by the NRA, by the way....
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I can't actually think of a single law restricting or banning the importation of of foreign guns that was supported by the NRA.
In other words, citation, please?
Umm, no.
There are religions that do not endorse this view. Zen Buddhism, for one, where the basic tenet is "every man for himself"....
Depends, I suppose, in whether the shareholders want to sell any of their own shares....
If you were a shareholder pre-IPO (say, one of the people getting paid partially in shares), then the value of your FB holdings went down today.
And if they continue to go down, well, you were working for a lot less than you thought you were, now weren't you?
How does your "union" propose to prevent, say, Ireland from offering a tax break to your hypothetical company?
All this idiocy would do is move the problem from a State v. State thing to a Nation v. Nation thing.
Especially for those businesses that really don't have to be any particular place in order to function. Note that Amazon doesn't actually have to have a business presence anywhere in particular - your town, my town, Kim's town, makes no real difference....
Most education spending in the USA happens at State and Local level, not Federal.
This is true of the Feds. On the other hand, police departments in your country don't spend much money on schools either. In the USA, the Federal government isn't even supposed to be in the Education business (that's what States and counties are for), but it does have that Constitutional mandate to do the military...
Umm, no.
Religious pressure has very little impact on our schools, for all that the media tries to suggest it's a major factor. My daughter went to a private school run by a Church, and religion didn't even matter much there...
As to the lack of funding, I think if you check you'll find that American schools have some of the HIGHEST per-student funding in the world. And still produce no more than fair results...
Umm, no.
Check wikipedia sometime. Most Federal taxes are spent on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Welfare programs.
Less than 25% is spent on war-related costs, including the War on (some) Drugs.
Not that I disagree that most of our taxes are wasted, but most of them are wasted on other things than wars....
You say that like "semiautomatic rifles" are somehow different than "hunting rifles".
The only difference is that semiautomatic rifles are a subset of hunting rifles (there are also, for example, lever-action, bolt-action, and single shot).
Note that I own three semiautomatic rifles. And three bolt action rifles. Want to guess which ones were actual military weapons?
Yep, the bolt actions (one SMLE, one Mauser, one Russian service rifle) were all military rifles.
The three semiautomatics were and are just hunting rifles....
Probably for much the same reason as a business based in another State should be required to collect your town's taxes...isn't that the argument that was made in order to get Amazon to collect CA sales taxes at all?
Of course, there's always the idiot approach...
That said, try to find some way of actually showing that [new activity to hate] is hideously dangerous while at the same time showing that [new activity to hate] during the increase of [new activity to hate], actual deaths decreased.
Or are you just silly enough to say that without people texting while driving, traffic fatalities would have plummeted even faster than they did?
If so, perhaps you have some proof?
Face it, for all the people screaming that texting while driving (which, frankly, striked me as silly, but I think the same of texting period) is terribly dangerous, there is NOT a measurable spike in deaths.
Unless, of course, you count a 9% DECLINE as a "spike in deaths"....
So, how much has the traffic death rate increased as a result of this "extremely dangerous and extremely common" activity?
From what I can see, traffic fatalities have plummeted during the period that texting while driving has been increasing. It's really hard to justify a "this new activity is incredibly dangerous to everyone around" when FEWER people are being killed in traffic accidents every year....
Umm, no.
What it is is one half of one penny of every dollar SPENT by the Federal government. Since we take in 63 cents for every dollar we spend, it's a bit large a fraction of our tax dollars.
Which is not to suggest that your sentiment is wrong - just your numbers...
Because selling lots of panels, to whomever you sell it, encourages manufacturers to increase capacity?
Note the biggest problem with the "they're going to put everyone out of business and then raise prices"argument - solar isn't mandatory.
If the price of solar panels go up enough, people will just stop buying them. It's not like rare-earths, which are pretty much mandatory - solar is a luxury right now....
Which means we can just stop buying them when the prices go up, start up our own solar manufactories just to force China to lower prices, then buy at the lower prices again.
Lather, rinse, repeat....
True enough.
Alas, renouncing your citizenship to avoid taxes is not tax evasion either.
Espically when you consider that the programmer who "copied it" for Google is the programmer who originally wrote it for Sun....
So, why should you believe that 8x normal level is a reasonable limit? It's not like there's any evidence that 8x is meaningfully better than 9x, or meaningfully worse than 7x....
They also said 400x normal, rather than 8x normal.