sounds like they proved that a very real security hole exists
Sounds like the came very close to proving that no such hole existed - when you call ahead to tell the police not to shoot your guys, you're not proving much.
And from what I've read so far, the only reason they managed to deploy their banner is that the French snipers were ordered not to take the shots after Greenpeace called and said that they had sent those guys....
Article I read about the event mentioned that Greenpeace called the French authorities and said that their guys were doing this, so the French troops who were about to gun down the "white hats" came within a couple of minutes of reading about this in the obituaries.
Telling the French "oh, yeah, those are our guys, please don't shoot them" doesn't strike me as making nearly as much of a point as Greenpeace would like to think they made.
You mean like this woman who claimed these bullets hit her house:
Well, they could have hit her house - guys drop things all the time, and if you're trying to reload a magazine in a chopper, they're going to come down somewhere....
Note that in common dialogue today, ending the tax break that the extremely wealthy currently enjoy translates into "higher taxes" on the wealthy.
Let's see. Tax rate goes from 35% to 39%. Sounds like an increase to me.
The fallacy of the whole business is that the tax cuts were "temporary". They were "temporary" because the law required spending cuts to match tax cuts, and the only way that they could sell the tax cuts was to make them "temporary".
Of course, everyone involved knew that they were going to make them permanent (much the way they're trying their best to do with SSA taxes right now).
Note that using your "ending the tax break" logic, we can say that DOUBLING taxes on EVERYONE could be considered "ending a tax break", since back in Kennedy's time, tax rates on everyone were more than double what they are now....
One of those interesting bits of historical trivia - before the Civil War, "United States" was plural ("these United States"). Afterwards, it was singular ("the United States").
Which should give you a clue how the Founders intended things.
I don't know. Look at Social Security - a purely financial, and relatively predictable future cost. From Al Gore's 2000 platform, I quote: "Devote all Social Security Surpluses to Social Security and debt reduction. Social Security should not be undermined by a large risky tax cut or other government spending that wastes Social Security surpluses."
It's intriguing that he'd put that in his platform, when he signed Kyoto, wanted to ratify it, and Kyoto would have cost the USA a buttload of cash.
It should also be noted that the only Administration he was part of spent its time using Social Security surpluses to cover up the magnitude of the deficit spending it was doing.
Remember, boys and girls, for all that "Clinton ran a surplus that Bush squandered", the National Debt went UP every single year Clinton was President. And the SS surpluses were used up every single year he was president as well....
The point is that if USA was to sign, it would be MUCH easier to get India and China to sign on as well. Big worldwide agreements like that become easier and easier to get others to join the more big players are in already.
Oddly, your theory suggests that China and India did not, in fact, state that they wouldn't sign a Kyoto follow-on that required them to do something. Because at the time they said that, only ONE country had refused to ratify Kyoto, and that country was, at the time, receptive to a follow-on that required everyone to play ball.
So, the USA says "sure, we'll go along if everyone has to play", the Chines and Indians respond with "we're not playing, no matter what". Which makes the USA the problem, right?
Letting a known problem get worse before doing something about it is not only illogical, it's fucking stupid. And the assumption that "we'll have time" is unfounded.
Let's see. We raised the levees here by two feet over the last five years. That's enough to give us a 200 year grace period at the current rate of sea-level rise.
As to letting problems get worse before doing something about them, I take it that you go to a doctor the very first time you cough? Or do you wait for the problem to get worse?
You're aware that your car is getting worn every time you drive it right? So you put it in the shop to have the engine rebuilt every afternoon after work? Or do you wait for the problem to get worse?
Face it, solving problems is always about tradeoffs - what do I have to do now vs what will it cost me later. Sometimes, the correct answer is to just wait and see. Sometimes it's not.
So far, there is relatively little evidence that ANY activity we do RIGHT NOW will save us much trouble down the road a ways. And in every case, the "down the road" is always "long after you're dead".
And for all of us who aren't religious, the world ends when we die....
And here I would have thought that the biggest obstacle would be one or the other of the two nations that have already stated that they will NOT accept restrictions on CO2 emissions - China and India.
Expecting China and India to abide by a regime wherein they have to trade emission credits with people who have a 100 year head start on the industrial revolution was probably always going to be a non-starter.
So, what you're suggesting is that we can stop AGW cold if the USA reduces its emission by a factor of 10 while the Chinese increase theirs by a factor of 2?
Hint: that's a net increase in global emissions right there, even if it won't bring China to anywhere near parity with the USA or Europe on per-capita emissions.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter why China won't agree to emissions caps. It doesn't matter whether it would be unfair, either. Only thing that'll stop AGW is for EVERYONE to drop emissions below a very low threshold (much lower than worldwide emissions levels have been since the 1800's).
So if China and India won't play ball (for whatever reason), the game is already lost, whatever the rest of us do.
I don't understand why the environmentally-minded folks don't try to talk more about the costs. Basically, speak in a language that Conservatives/Republicans can understand, to get them to take actions in their own interest.
If environmentally minded folks tried to talk more about costs, what would become clear very quickly is that they've got no more than a vague idea what the costs are, and that the costs are well down the road - if you're homeless today, it's hard to get excited by the possibility of a killer hurricane running over you in 17 years.
Imagine 9 out of 10 doctors tell you that you're going to die unless you take some specific actions. Most likely, you'd take those actions, to preserve your future self-interests. Now imagine 9 out of 10 experts on the climate tell you that if you don't stop/reverse global warming by taking some specific steps, you're going to have to spend trillions of dollars to protect or rebuild coastal cities, as well as severe weather situations away from the coast. If you're rational, you'd most likely take those actions, to preserve your future self-interests.
A better parallel. Nine out of ten doctors tell you you're going to be dead in 100 years. You shrug, because you knew that without them telling you. They tell you that if you spend a great deal of money at their clinics right now (in other words, give them a lot of money), there's a small chance you'll still be alive in 100 years...
So, do you spend the money?
If 9 out of 10 climate experts tell you you need to do something that will send your economy into the crapper for the next few decades, and that doing so has a small chance of saving you money in 100 or so years, you look back over the changes of the last 100 years, decide that the problem can be put off for 50 years, and go about your business.
Do keep in mind that the only thing that the climate experts can agree on is that the only way to actually STOP global warming is to shut down every fossil-fuel burning device on this planet right NOW! Kyoto, if you recall, would have resulted in a temperature increase 0.017C lower than without Kyoto. This next Treaty is unlikely to do any better, since the people trying to pass the Treaty don't really want to do what needs to be done to stop climate change, they just want to spend OPM.
Note, by the by, that I don't particularly care one way or the other whether the climate changes or not. I read enough history to know that it happens, with or without human intervention, and I rather suspect that we don't know enough to reliably predict the effects of any deliberate attempts to change the climate (and yes, attempting to stop climate change is also an attempt to change the climate, just in a different direction).
The left spends a decade building up government run services and departments, taxing the rich, introducing more regulation and reigning in the worst aspects of capitalism.
Assuming you're using Clinton as an example, it should be pointed out that he taxed everyone, not just the rich. And introduced more regulations, without reining in any aspects of capitalism - do remember that the changes in regulations that allowed all that fun stuff with mortgages were done on Clinton's watch.
Then the right spends a decade tearing it all down again, selling off government assets, cutting regulation and giving tax breaks to the rich.
I'm curious. What government assets did the Right sell off during Bush's watch? And how many regulations were actually cut? And I don't know about you, but I'm not rich, and got a tax break under Bush...
Face it, government regulations don't decrease over time. Sometimes the rate of increase slows, sometimes it accelerates, but it always increases.
And yes, the cycle is neverending. Mainly because some of us suspect that things wouldn't be perfect if we let the government do everything, and others suspect things wouldn't be perfect if we let the government do nothing. And a very small number think the government should do some things, but keep its nose out of other things.
That would probably be when we signed the original Kyoto treaty. Which doesn't actually imply that we WILL ratify the Treaty, but certainly implies that we'll CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY of ratifying it.
As to a later Treaty, all you need is a receptive President and Senate, and a Treaty that makes sense.
Hint: no Treaty requiring worldwide action makes sense unless it includes EVERYONE.
Excluding rather more than 1/3 of the population of the world before you even start writing the Treaty (China and India saying "no, we won't sign onto a new Treaty" pretty much does that) makes the Treaty meaningless even before it's written.
They start erecting sandbags and levees around New York City and Washington DC. They the US won't just participate, but will be pushing the agenda with the threat of economic sanctions and possibly war to those who continue to pump out the greenhouse gasses.
At the current rate of sea-level increase, in about 100 years, you'll need one row of sandbags around Washington DC or New York. And that's if you assume that both cities get water in the streets at high tide now (hint: they don't).
In other words, that particular problem is so far out in the future as to be safely ignorable right now.
If you are really concerned about AGW, I trust you're pushing for nuclear power plants to replace coal plants worldwide? Unlike entirely too many "environmentalists" who seem to think that electricity just happens, and that banning use of coal will magically cause paradise on earth....
You need to get off your own high horse and realize there are a lot of people that do not have the luxury of paying cash for a CT - scan. Especially when you consider that the cash cost of a CT scan roughly averages about $900. [remakehealth.com]
And yet, I was charged about $200 for mine when I was without health insurance.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I'm NOT talking "theoretical", I'm talking "personal experience" here.
If you believe that, then you make way too much money to have a clue how normal people live, especially if you're talking about CT scans.
My CT Scan was discounted about 80% when I told them I had no health insurance.
Note, by the way, that "see a doctor" isn't quite the same as "get a CT scan". In that context, I was thinking more in terms of "go to a GP or Doc-in-a-Box"....
And here I would have thought that the biggest obstacle would be one or the other of the two nations that have already stated that they will NOT accept restrictions on CO2 emissions - China and India.
The USA isn't really likely to do so, but at least it's admitted of the possibility, unlike China and India.
Since I'm not from the U.S. I might have misunderstood something here, but does the U.S. senate really have the authority to change in employment contracts for the worse?
Well, if you're an EVIL Republican, then they don't really have that power.
On the other hand, if you're a FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE Democrat, then they have the power to do anything they damn well please.
More realistically, if they can get the House and President to go along with it, yes, they can do that, until and unless someone brings a lawsuit as far as the Supreme Court to overturn the law in question.
While there are Constitutional limits on the government in the USA, they've been increasingly ignored since FDR was President, and are routinely flouted today.
On the other hand, if everyone is being told to not enter the intersection because someone might run the red light, then you can more safely run red lights.
his is the easy way to deal with it. You have a "PAYT" (Pay As You Throw) system with recyclables and compost taken for free. You incentivize the behavior you want, instead of mandating it.
This in contrast to the last attempt at curbside recycling they tried where I lived at the time. What the city did was mandate recycling, then charge EXTRA for it.
Oddly enough, people ignored them in droves, and they had to give the program up as a bad idea...
I've been without health insurance several times in my life. Oddly, when I went to a doctor and told them I had no health insurance, I generally got a discount on service.
A quite substantial discount, in the case of the CT-Scan I had to have one time I was without health insurance.
It should also be noted that the choice between eating for a month and going to a doctor is generally a false dichotomy - it doesn't cost that much to see a doctor (okay, it doesn't cost that much to see MY doctor - YMMV).
And people who are poor enough that they have to make that sort of choice are generally eligible for Medicaid, which makes the question of cost moot.
So recycling is mandatory, but people in the US go without healthcare?
No, this isn't about recycling. Which is mandatory in some places, but not in others.
This is about composting...which is mandatory in some places, but not in others.
That said, no, in general, people in the USA don't go without healthcare. The sometimes go without health insurance, but that doesn't mean that they don't get treated.
Don't forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Arguably the worst war crime in history. And nobody was held accountable.
Only by ignorant people.
Educated people consider Dresden and Tokyo to be much worse than Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Especially given that the firebombings of Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Then there's the whole Concentration Camps thing, that killed about 20 times as many people as Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
The Great Leap Forward, similar death toll to the Camps.
The Ukraine Famine that Stalin engineered, similar death toll to the Camps.
Face it, considering the atom-bombings to be the worst war crimes in history merely shows your lack of knowledge of history....
Doc, don't you realize there are 50,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert pointed at us every day and that a reasonably systems analysis of US and Russian nuclear 'defense' systems indicates there's roughly a 50/50 chance we will set them off within the next 30 years? Seriously?
People have been saying this for better than 60 years now.
And while it should be pointed out that through much of that 60 years, we did have nuclear weapons on "hair-trigger alert"***, we don't anymore.
*** if by "hair-trigger alert" you mean that there are methods in place that allow someone to order them launched on ten minutes notice. Note that ordering them launched doesn't actually guarantee that they'll be launched, since after the order is given (by at least two people, witnessed by at least two more), hundreds or thousands of other people will have to make the decision to actually order the guys who CAN launch the weapons to do so.
Note, for example, that while the CO of a boomer is theoretically capable of firing his nukes (with the appropriate orders, plus the support of his officers), the guy(s) actually pushing the buttons are 20-something NCO's....
If you wish to mod comments on a story, you shouldn't be able to see who the poster is.
This actually matters to some people?!?
I use maybe half the moderator points I'm given, and I can't recall ever paying attention to the poster's identity when I was deciding whether to mod a comment up or down.
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Sounds like the came very close to proving that no such hole existed - when you call ahead to tell the police not to shoot your guys, you're not proving much.
And from what I've read so far, the only reason they managed to deploy their banner is that the French snipers were ordered not to take the shots after Greenpeace called and said that they had sent those guys....
Article I read about the event mentioned that Greenpeace called the French authorities and said that their guys were doing this, so the French troops who were about to gun down the "white hats" came within a couple of minutes of reading about this in the obituaries.
Telling the French "oh, yeah, those are our guys, please don't shoot them" doesn't strike me as making nearly as much of a point as Greenpeace would like to think they made.
Well, they could have hit her house - guys drop things all the time, and if you're trying to reload a magazine in a chopper, they're going to come down somewhere....
Let's see. Tax rate goes from 35% to 39%. Sounds like an increase to me.
The fallacy of the whole business is that the tax cuts were "temporary". They were "temporary" because the law required spending cuts to match tax cuts, and the only way that they could sell the tax cuts was to make them "temporary".
Of course, everyone involved knew that they were going to make them permanent (much the way they're trying their best to do with SSA taxes right now).
Note that using your "ending the tax break" logic, we can say that DOUBLING taxes on EVERYONE could be considered "ending a tax break", since back in Kennedy's time, tax rates on everyone were more than double what they are now....
One of those interesting bits of historical trivia - before the Civil War, "United States" was plural ("these United States"). Afterwards, it was singular ("the United States").
Which should give you a clue how the Founders intended things.
It's intriguing that he'd put that in his platform, when he signed Kyoto, wanted to ratify it, and Kyoto would have cost the USA a buttload of cash.
It should also be noted that the only Administration he was part of spent its time using Social Security surpluses to cover up the magnitude of the deficit spending it was doing.
Remember, boys and girls, for all that "Clinton ran a surplus that Bush squandered", the National Debt went UP every single year Clinton was President. And the SS surpluses were used up every single year he was president as well....
Oddly, your theory suggests that China and India did not, in fact, state that they wouldn't sign a Kyoto follow-on that required them to do something. Because at the time they said that, only ONE country had refused to ratify Kyoto, and that country was, at the time, receptive to a follow-on that required everyone to play ball.
So, the USA says "sure, we'll go along if everyone has to play", the Chines and Indians respond with "we're not playing, no matter what". Which makes the USA the problem, right?
Let's see. We raised the levees here by two feet over the last five years. That's enough to give us a 200 year grace period at the current rate of sea-level rise.
As to letting problems get worse before doing something about them, I take it that you go to a doctor the very first time you cough? Or do you wait for the problem to get worse?
You're aware that your car is getting worn every time you drive it right? So you put it in the shop to have the engine rebuilt every afternoon after work? Or do you wait for the problem to get worse?
Face it, solving problems is always about tradeoffs - what do I have to do now vs what will it cost me later. Sometimes, the correct answer is to just wait and see. Sometimes it's not.
So far, there is relatively little evidence that ANY activity we do RIGHT NOW will save us much trouble down the road a ways. And in every case, the "down the road" is always "long after you're dead".
And for all of us who aren't religious, the world ends when we die....
So, what you're suggesting is that we can stop AGW cold if the USA reduces its emission by a factor of 10 while the Chinese increase theirs by a factor of 2?
Hint: that's a net increase in global emissions right there, even if it won't bring China to anywhere near parity with the USA or Europe on per-capita emissions.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter why China won't agree to emissions caps. It doesn't matter whether it would be unfair, either. Only thing that'll stop AGW is for EVERYONE to drop emissions below a very low threshold (much lower than worldwide emissions levels have been since the 1800's).
So if China and India won't play ball (for whatever reason), the game is already lost, whatever the rest of us do.
If environmentally minded folks tried to talk more about costs, what would become clear very quickly is that they've got no more than a vague idea what the costs are, and that the costs are well down the road - if you're homeless today, it's hard to get excited by the possibility of a killer hurricane running over you in 17 years.
A better parallel. Nine out of ten doctors tell you you're going to be dead in 100 years. You shrug, because you knew that without them telling you. They tell you that if you spend a great deal of money at their clinics right now (in other words, give them a lot of money), there's a small chance you'll still be alive in 100 years...
So, do you spend the money?
If 9 out of 10 climate experts tell you you need to do something that will send your economy into the crapper for the next few decades, and that doing so has a small chance of saving you money in 100 or so years, you look back over the changes of the last 100 years, decide that the problem can be put off for 50 years, and go about your business.
Do keep in mind that the only thing that the climate experts can agree on is that the only way to actually STOP global warming is to shut down every fossil-fuel burning device on this planet right NOW! Kyoto, if you recall, would have resulted in a temperature increase 0.017C lower than without Kyoto. This next Treaty is unlikely to do any better, since the people trying to pass the Treaty don't really want to do what needs to be done to stop climate change, they just want to spend OPM.
Note, by the by, that I don't particularly care one way or the other whether the climate changes or not. I read enough history to know that it happens, with or without human intervention, and I rather suspect that we don't know enough to reliably predict the effects of any deliberate attempts to change the climate (and yes, attempting to stop climate change is also an attempt to change the climate, just in a different direction).
Assuming you're using Clinton as an example, it should be pointed out that he taxed everyone, not just the rich. And introduced more regulations, without reining in any aspects of capitalism - do remember that the changes in regulations that allowed all that fun stuff with mortgages were done on Clinton's watch.
I'm curious. What government assets did the Right sell off during Bush's watch? And how many regulations were actually cut? And I don't know about you, but I'm not rich, and got a tax break under Bush...
Face it, government regulations don't decrease over time. Sometimes the rate of increase slows, sometimes it accelerates, but it always increases.
And yes, the cycle is neverending. Mainly because some of us suspect that things wouldn't be perfect if we let the government do everything, and others suspect things wouldn't be perfect if we let the government do nothing. And a very small number think the government should do some things, but keep its nose out of other things.
That would probably be when we signed the original Kyoto treaty. Which doesn't actually imply that we WILL ratify the Treaty, but certainly implies that we'll CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY of ratifying it.
As to a later Treaty, all you need is a receptive President and Senate, and a Treaty that makes sense.
Hint: no Treaty requiring worldwide action makes sense unless it includes EVERYONE.
Excluding rather more than 1/3 of the population of the world before you even start writing the Treaty (China and India saying "no, we won't sign onto a new Treaty" pretty much does that) makes the Treaty meaningless even before it's written.
I'll bite. How?
We're going to threaten them with tariffs? They'll just go to the WTO and get us penalized.
Or, even worse, just start selling US T-Bills till we change our minds about the tariffs....
At the current rate of sea-level increase, in about 100 years, you'll need one row of sandbags around Washington DC or New York. And that's if you assume that both cities get water in the streets at high tide now (hint: they don't).
In other words, that particular problem is so far out in the future as to be safely ignorable right now.
If you are really concerned about AGW, I trust you're pushing for nuclear power plants to replace coal plants worldwide? Unlike entirely too many "environmentalists" who seem to think that electricity just happens, and that banning use of coal will magically cause paradise on earth....
And yet, I was charged about $200 for mine when I was without health insurance.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I'm NOT talking "theoretical", I'm talking "personal experience" here.
My CT Scan was discounted about 80% when I told them I had no health insurance.
Note, by the way, that "see a doctor" isn't quite the same as "get a CT scan". In that context, I was thinking more in terms of "go to a GP or Doc-in-a-Box"....
And here I would have thought that the biggest obstacle would be one or the other of the two nations that have already stated that they will NOT accept restrictions on CO2 emissions - China and India.
The USA isn't really likely to do so, but at least it's admitted of the possibility, unlike China and India.
Well, if you're an EVIL Republican, then they don't really have that power.
On the other hand, if you're a FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE Democrat, then they have the power to do anything they damn well please.
More realistically, if they can get the House and President to go along with it, yes, they can do that, until and unless someone brings a lawsuit as far as the Supreme Court to overturn the law in question.
While there are Constitutional limits on the government in the USA, they've been increasingly ignored since FDR was President, and are routinely flouted today.
On the other hand, if everyone is being told to not enter the intersection because someone might run the red light, then you can more safely run red lights.
That's got to count for something....
This in contrast to the last attempt at curbside recycling they tried where I lived at the time. What the city did was mandate recycling, then charge EXTRA for it.
Oddly enough, people ignored them in droves, and they had to give the program up as a bad idea...
I've been without health insurance several times in my life. Oddly, when I went to a doctor and told them I had no health insurance, I generally got a discount on service.
A quite substantial discount, in the case of the CT-Scan I had to have one time I was without health insurance.
It should also be noted that the choice between eating for a month and going to a doctor is generally a false dichotomy - it doesn't cost that much to see a doctor (okay, it doesn't cost that much to see MY doctor - YMMV).
And people who are poor enough that they have to make that sort of choice are generally eligible for Medicaid, which makes the question of cost moot.
No, this isn't about recycling. Which is mandatory in some places, but not in others.
This is about composting...which is mandatory in some places, but not in others.
That said, no, in general, people in the USA don't go without healthcare. The sometimes go without health insurance, but that doesn't mean that they don't get treated.
Only by ignorant people.
Educated people consider Dresden and Tokyo to be much worse than Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Especially given that the firebombings of Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Then there's the whole Concentration Camps thing, that killed about 20 times as many people as Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
The Great Leap Forward, similar death toll to the Camps.
The Ukraine Famine that Stalin engineered, similar death toll to the Camps.
Face it, considering the atom-bombings to be the worst war crimes in history merely shows your lack of knowledge of history....
People have been saying this for better than 60 years now.
And while it should be pointed out that through much of that 60 years, we did have nuclear weapons on "hair-trigger alert"***, we don't anymore.
*** if by "hair-trigger alert" you mean that there are methods in place that allow someone to order them launched on ten minutes notice. Note that ordering them launched doesn't actually guarantee that they'll be launched, since after the order is given (by at least two people, witnessed by at least two more), hundreds or thousands of other people will have to make the decision to actually order the guys who CAN launch the weapons to do so.
Note, for example, that while the CO of a boomer is theoretically capable of firing his nukes (with the appropriate orders, plus the support of his officers), the guy(s) actually pushing the buttons are 20-something NCO's....
This actually matters to some people?!?
I use maybe half the moderator points I'm given, and I can't recall ever paying attention to the poster's identity when I was deciding whether to mod a comment up or down.
On the other hand, maybe I'm just a weirdo....