which suggests the ASM program was far from operational. [manacle tone]Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.[/manacle tone]
Thanks for the response. I suspected you were level headed.
I don't believe there are two sides of the truth. There is one truth, but many ways to see it. Its like looking at a diamond from different sides of the room, every once in a while someone will see a sparkle but not everyone at the same time. In other words, no one side of an argument has a monopoly on the truth. Everyone has their own favorite that they think is right a higher percentage of the time (most people, I would posit, believe their side is right 100% of the time - to their detriment).
right, "diversity of viewpoints" is to label somebody troll and flamebait when you don't agree with him... that's definitely not lockstep ideology Note well, I didn't say respect for a diversity of viewpoints. If there is a diversity of viewpoints (without respect for other viewpoints), one would expect posts on all sides to be moded. Thats what I see. I'm not saying its right, just making an observation that Slashdot is not (completely) one sided. I would much prefer respect for all viewpoints (rather you agree or not), coupled with honest intellectual debate.
aha, sure, you must be from the department-of-truth busy redefining words for us... don't let some minor contradictions stop you comrade... Does this comment reflect respect for a diversity of viewpoints?
...don't you love it when any "unpleasant" truth about US is moded troll or flamebait nowdays on/.? Apparently the uber-patriots have discovered the internetS... Funny you should mention that, I saw your post at the exact moment I was noticing the reverse. I'm guessing Slashdot represents a diversity of viewpoints rather than a collection of lockstep ideologists.
8 years? Corporations have been exhibiting control over the legislature for much more than the past 8 years... One only has to look at the copyright act extensions to see that. George Soros is not a corporation. MoveOn.Org is a 501(c)(4).
Everyone has an interest group and the legal organization of it is irrelevant. The biggest concern should be that politicians can be bought, not who is doing the buying. Who is doing the buying only concerns people when they disagree.
I believe I am a good example of what Linux is up against. I programmed for 2.5 years and then went to law school. Before going to school I ran Linux full time. I hacked around because I could make it do everything I wanted if I worked hard enough. The time pressures of school are a good proving ground for the usability of an OS. I used Linux for about a year and a half during school, but there were so many little annoyances that it was just too much (missing apps or apps that weren't quite there, weired bugs, incompatibility, and most of all configuration and use took too much time even if everything worked). Dual boot makes a switch back easy.
I'm replying to the above post because it is a good example of the poor attitudes that are keeping Linux down. The first step is to admit that there are things that need to be done - not to pretend like things are perfect and to imply that someone that can't use it is a retard. Further, pointing out things that suck in other OSs isn't a good argument - this isn't a competition to be as good as the others - Linux should aspire to be the best.
My issues with Linux are not a result of my stupidity, and even if it were, the problem with adoption is that an OS should be able to overcome a degree of stupidity.
No package dependency hell Yes, and 1999 wants it's fud back. I haven't run Linux (Mandriva)in a year but package dependency hell at that time was still very real.
"this has been compiled with GCC2.95 and an alternative libc"
That is why one uses the packages for _one_ distribution. And don't try too install binaries from unknown sources, please. When you can't find the dependencies what do you do? I don't have the time to assemble all the components and compile.
I faced the Windows equivalent of dependency hell when I was coding. The fact I had to face DLL hell when I was coding really indicates a major issue with the Linux distribution system. In windows the burden is on the software vendor to make things work out of the box. In Linux, the burden is on the user. Yes, there are cool tools that have made this tons easier. However, in Linux when the tools break down (say, the "approved source" doesn't have the dependency yet or their servers are hosed), its the user's problem not the vendor's.
There is hope though, I've heard good things about other distros. I have been meaning to try Ubuntu and will likely be installing it after an upcoming test.
And the 1000's of pounds of petrol-based fertilizer they need to make the corn grow. That is a larger chunk than the oil used in the machines if I remember and there is no getting it around it currently Petrol based fertilizer? You are assuming that hog manure, nitrogen or ammonia is petrol based. You also assume that fertilizer is a constant. I don't know any farmer that uses fertilizer anymore than they need to, which is not every year. A large amount of fertilizer isn't even processed its generally shipped straight from the manure pit to the field in the spring. The oil input in farming is fuel, and if that could be eliminated then the system could be truly carbon neutral.
People on Slashdot need to settle down and become more informed about energy alternatives. Theres a lot of posturing going on for peoples "favorite" energy alternative and it is destructive because it inhibits meaningful discussion on effective means to eliminate environmentally destructive technologies. The distinction between those that are thinking logically and those that have came upon an opinion emotionally can be seen by the disdain of the comments.
And you confuse corn with perpetual motion.
Solar energy is perpetual motion?
1) None of the corn used for ethanol production is edible.
False - MOST of the corn used for ethanol is edible. There has not yet been a significant shift to higher energy varieties. Further, corn production for ethanol displaces acres that could be devoted to edible corn or other edible grain.
2) Food prices have gone up because the cost of the fuel used to transport them has gone up.
True to an extent - Ethanol usage has raised the cost of food, and not just the cost of corn. Ethanol takes corn away from food production. Further, high corn prices stimulates planting of more corn which displaces other editable crops. However, ethanol accounts for only a percentage in the overall rise in prices. Increased demand from China accounts for a large percentage. Further increased fuel prices accounts for an even larger percentage. Finally, commodity speculation accounts for a huge percentage. I'm afraid most of the people on Slashdot are unaware of the present over valuation in futures contracts for corn.
Slashdotter's are also unaware of ethanol's byproducts which mitigate the impact on food prices. Ethanol produces distiller's dried grain which is used in animal feed. This is animal feed that would have used corn if it weren't for the more desirable and nutritious distiller's dried grain. This animal feed is an indirect use of ethanol byproducts in the food supply. Ethanol also produces corn oil which can be used for food or diesel production.
None of those other explanations can alleviate the fact that ethanol production does impact food.
to add to that, growing stuff for fuel pushes up the price of food - in countries where many are already hungry this is not good. As if enough of the 3rd world hadn't already supplanted food crops with tobacco and coffee...
Low priced American corn is destroying third world agriculture. Its a chicken and the egg problem, which would we prefer - people that can buy food because they cant make money, or those that can't buy food because they don't have enough? High corn prices stimulate modernization of third world agriculture. Third world farmers are poor because they can't afford to invest in advanced technology. Higher corn prices stimulate foreign direct investment as well as third world government investment in more productive methods.
It takes energy to process corn into ethanol. That energy is not coming from previously produced ethanol. It comes from hydrocarbons. Ethanol completely misses the idea of carbon neutrality.
It also takes energy to process the alternatives to ethanol - THIS IS A MAJOR POINT THAT CRITICS NEGLECT.
You are essentially arguing that ethanol production = fuel use. However, pure electric cars = coal use. Hydrogen cars = coal use.
You are arguing that, because a majority of corn is planted by diesel fuel consuming tractors it is the equivalent of burning diesel fuel. Well, the majority of electricity comes from coal and the majority of hydrogen is produced with coal electricity.
Granted, that majority of electricity doesn't have to be produced by coal. Then again, the majority of ethanol doesn't need to be produced by diesel. The corn produced on my land this year was produced by biodiesel produced from corn oil (a byproduct of ethanol production).
Reality is probably much lower than the our friendly lobbyists from Iowa would have us believe.
Yeah, that'd be great! Maybe if we burn the same amount of hydrocarbons getting the tanker out and back as the tanker itself hauls, it can be marketed as a "carbon neutral" energy source! Works for corn. Somehow you confused corn with oil. The idea of carbon neutrality is that the plants collect carbon dioxide when growing, release carbon dioxide when burned, collect when growing.......
Heres a good article from the IEEE Computer Society entitled "Setting Boundaries at Borders: Reconciling Laptop Searches and Privacy." The article discusses United States v. Arnold Federal and other precedent. Arnold, a federal district court opinion on a motion to suppress evidence, appears to have come out the right way. To add my own 2 cents, why would the fear of contraband be more intense at the border when the speed of information transfer on the internet has made such concerns all but irrelevant?
The people in this case being Big Business(tm) and Rich People(tm). Nice group of stereotypes. Don't forget unions (tm) and special interest groups (moveon.org, ACLU, etc.)(tm)
But the most likely stereotype at fault in this situation is Joe Sixpack (tm) who doesn't mind if they search a bunch of A-RABs if it means he can make it to bowling league without getting nuked.
If you don't like the research, refuse the treatments when you are sick in the hospital. Why do some religious types feel they need to impart their beliefs on everyone else?
Don't agree with or like abortion - fine - don't have one. Don't like what you hear on the radio or see on TV - fine also, change the channel.
Just don't tell me what to do - I have a brain in my skull and I know how to use it independently. While I agree with the sentiment that there are major problems with legislated morality (and the religious right's approach) - I need to point out the limits (fallacies) to your argument. The law, in every country, is legislated morality. There is a codification of right and wrong in the law. It is not simply the "religious kooks" that seek to impose their version of morality.
Gay marriage is a good example. There are groups of people that are fighting for acceptance of the word "marriage" to be affixed to a union of a same sex couple. The law currently affords the legal equivalent (not tax consequences - the marriage penalty etc.) through contract (marriage is a contractual relationship) and power of attorney. However, the "legal equivalent" is insufficient - the word "marriage" must be used. Why? acceptance - forcing a version of morality on society.
The better position, in my opinion, is not to reject legislated morality (because the law is legislated morality) - it is to define the parameters that are acceptable for legislation. We must first recognize that every one has a definition of morality that they would prefer the world recognized. For example, even advocates of gay marriage legislation (from the courthouse or the state house) will draw lines as to what is moral. In the varied surveys I have taken, advocates draw the lines for marriage at children-adult, incestuous, multiple persons, and human-animals. The same people that claim that, by not being allowed to use the word "married", their rights are being infringed on would deny others loving relationships. It is not irrational to set differing standards of morality.
Next, we have to observe that some behavior, while consistent with our personal rights, infringes on other's rights. The "if you don't like it - don't do it" approach is really insufficient because the same reasoning works for actions which are (nearly) universally decried as immoral such as rape and pedophilia (or even murder).
The third step is to use our understanding to define the boundaries of legislation. A logical approach would to be legislate at the boundaries where exercise of personal rights intersect and conflict with other's personal rights. Therein lies the point of contention in the controversy presented by the Pope. It is perfectly rational to reason that life begins at conception (science tells us this). It is also within the ambit of reason to put a high value on life and to have differing opinions on where the line should be drawn in bestowing the rights granted to all humans. For those that set the line low your argument is similar to "don't think killing your newborn is good, then don't do it." The fact is, you've drawn a moral line somewhere (late term pregnancy? 2 years old? 4? 15?), and you weren't irrational in doing it. Further, you want to impose your version of morality on everyone else. Sure, people that use a religious text as a science book have logical problems but maybe you aren't too far off from the "religious types" you deride.
As the device is controlled during your detention and you are no longer able to destroy evidence on the device or the digital data could hardly be called a weapon, there hardly seems any legal scope for accessing the private data on the device. I can see a South Dakota v. Oppermanargument being made. The rule of Opperman is that an inventory search is reasonable. The case involved a car that was impounded. Police searched the vehicle to do an inventory of its contents and found drugs. As summed up by Wikipedia "[t]hese procedures [inventory searches] protect the owner's property from vandalism, protect the police from disputes about damage to the property, and protect individual officers from unknown danger associated with vehicle storage." The United States Supreme Court upheld the practice as constitutional. What Wiki doesn't tell you is that, after remand from the United States Supreme Court, the South Dakota Supreme Court overturned the conviction on state constitutional grounds.
Hardly seems relevant, I can just as easily talk about concentration of wealth, percentages of people living below the poverty line, or life-expectancy in america and call free market economics a failure. Those figures are not meaningful in isolation. The poverty line for a family of four is near the median household income of the same sized family in Japan. In my discussion with my brother in-law (whose master's thesis is on the subject) and my friends in social work, poverty includes 2 cars, a big screen TV with premium cable, and constant eating out. Life expectancy is just under that of the UK. Any decline in expectancy is more likely attributable to social changes in diet and activity. Citing figures on concentration of wealth ignores statistical phenomena like the wealth cycle (fortunes are lost during the second generation - a UK study of genealogy says the third) and economic mobility. Other statistics, viewed in isolation, can be just as deceptive. For example, recitations of trade deficit figures often ignore trade in services and financial products (a dollar is a promise of future goods and services from the US - the money has to come back to the US and not necessarily to purchase manufactured goods).
More concerning are societal approaches to debt, savings, and long term planning.
In regards to present economics, there is definately a slowdown afoot but claiming a failure of market economics is melodramatic. Unemployment hit 5% but economists claim full employment is between 4 and 6.4%. There has also been a drop in consumer spending but that doesn't mean the sky is falling, expecting infinite growth is unrealistic. Recession is a possibility but that possibility has more to do with psychology than reality. Economic conditions always look bleak in an election year.
Its a buyer's market for untrained labor, no one makes people work for employers that take advantage of that bargaining position (though admittedly, many people have to start at the bottom - I was a manure hauler for less than min wage). Economic mobility allows American's to invest in professions that are not so tilted, just ask my immigrant friends from undergrad and law-school (Vietnamese, Nigerians, Kenyans, Mexicans) that came here with the rags on their back and are now engineers, doctors, and lawyers. The true victims of capitalism are those people that refuse to take advantage of its opportunities and make a career out of being at the bottom (Detroit), victimization steals the soul.
We allow them to sell bicycles that fall apart as soon as they come home You didn't know you were buying shit when you went to Wal-mart? I'm sorry, I don't need an elitist government telling me what kind of bike I can buy. I don't need to be treated like a retard that needs a government to hold my hand when I buy sporting goods.
The price of socialism is that getting a good deal is a crime. If you aren't paying full price someone isn't getting paid full price. The U.S. was like this once. Under FDR a farmer could get fined for growing wheat for the sole purpose of feeding to his family because, hypothetically, if every farmer did this it would impact the market for wheat. See Wickard v. Filburn. Imagine what this logic would mean if it was applied to technology.
can't think of any marginal land where growing switchgrass would make much sense, either. If it's not growing corn, I've got better uses for it, even if it is only grazing land for livestock. That may be the parent's personal situation but, as the other poster here has pointed out there are plenty of potential areas. I'm a farmer's son but am out of my expertise on this as I've never seen it planted as a crop. I have seen it planted as a part of a government wetland restoration program where a farmer sells away the right to production but retains the right to possession with limited grazing rights. Native grass is planted and the result is the best hunting land in the country.
My understanding is that it is heartier than corn. Switchgrass is more tolerant of drought and wet soil. Thus wetlands and dry prairie are made productive. Drier areas west of the corn belt could benefit from a more lucrative crop. Further, in areas where corn planting is difficult because of wet springs, air seeding is a viable option (as far as I know) because switchgrass is not a row crop.
Also, I question the parent's assertion that a changeover to the plant would be a challenge. The plant is self seeding (once established) so its far easier than corn. I agree that square baling is a bitch but I'm guessing that harvesting wouldn't be much different than making silage/corn stacks or round bales. I don't know enough about the storage to make an intelligent comment. It would depend on the effects of rotting on the cellulosic content. For those unfamiliar with the business of farming, the ability to store a crop is very important for modern farmers because it allows for intelligent marketing of the product to hedge risk (like forward contracts etc.). Also, ethanol plants contract with farmers for staggered delivery because they (obviously) can't take it all at once.
Switchgrass ethanol may be closer than you think. In my area, Poet Energy has begun accepting corn stalks and cobs at one of its plants as part as its Liberty Project. Generally, Poet will perfect a technology at one plant and quickly retrofit it's others. I would doubt that adding switch grass to the mix would be a big deal once they fine tune their bacteria to deal with the corn stalks.
I suspect it's faster and cheaper. Just in labor costs alone, a backhoe operator making $50/hr (and that should be in the ballpark for a wildly-inflated union wage) costs less than half as much as 20 unskilled laborers at $6/hr (or whatever minimum wage is nowadays). Even with the cost of renting a backhoe factored in (wild-ass guess time here...maybe $200 per day?), it's still cheaper for all but the smallest digging jobs. It should also be faster, and it's far less likely that your employees will be sidelined with injuries (which would further drive up your expenses). [facetious ]But technology is a conspiracy of the bourgeoisie to displace the proletariat![/facetious]
Growing corn gets you fuel, OR food. Farms aren't going to use the same crop to produce fuel and food-- they'll produce one or the other.
Also, should your fuel sources be competing with your food sources? Manufacture of corn ethanol yields fuel and distillers dried grain (DDGs). DDGs are heavily sought after for animal feed. So technically, you do get food and fuel. Is ethanol really competing with the food supply? The same UN officials complain that US subsidies make grain too cheap for the third world to compete against, and then turn around and complain that increased ethanol makes grain too expensive for the third world to purchase? It seems that the experts can't discern between whether too much or too little corn is being produced.
There is good logic in the argument that tying food production to fuel production is a bad idea. However, the argument that food prices are rising because of ethanol production ignores the complexity of the equation. Corn production and price is tied to fuel production regardless of whether ethanol is added to the equation. Adding ethanol to the equation, corn production is actually stimulated. Also, one would expect some form of a fuel price decrease (on a macro level) with the replacement of gasoline with ethanol. Therefore, there are numerous variables to account for in analyzing the effects of ethanol on food and fuel price and production. It is simplistic to assume that ethanol production is the sole source of rising corn prices.
Additionally, cellulosic ethanol is not a silver bullet. Encouraging the planting of high performing switch grass can have a few harmful impacts. Switch grass can be planted where other crops cannot. Some of this unplantable land is wetland which is important as habitat and a filter for our water supply. Also, if the economics work, switch grass may also displace food production.
Finally, the headline "switchgrass makes better ethanol than corn" is misleading because it conveys the idea that this is some kind of revelation. The real news is the number the study has yielded. However, the article massacres the actual comparison. The article's quote is: "This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies." Without careful reading, it appears that the writer is saying that corn ethanol creates an energy deficit, this isn't true. The SA writer makes things confusing by comparing the actual energy produced by switchgrass ethanol with the amount of energy produced in excess of the input for corn ethanol. The writer of the SA article is comparing apples to oranges and I am skeptical of the motives of journalists that play with numbers. Also, don't forget that cellulosic ethanol can also come from corn. Plants in the Midwest have begun to to add stalks and husks to the ethanol process in the past two years. I really don't care where ethanol comes from, I think its a good idea. But the debate should not be a shadow game of massaged numbers.
porpnorber makes great points. Yet I differ with the post because first it cheapens human life, second it impliedly advocates terrorism as a perfect response to military might, and third insinuates that terrorism is the only response to military might.
My first difficulty with the parent is that respect for human life is abstracted into a simple population dynamics issue - population recovery. The obvious reply to my statement is the rallying cry of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet such an argument necessarily uses a straw man (it assumes approval of the atom bomb). Similar straw men are employed when invoking the myriad other US abuses.
The argument that terrorism is on par with the US vision of warfare ignores the fact that terrorism spends lives of wholly neutral innocents. The increased immorality (I accept the proposition that war is immoral)is due to the fact that innocents are intentionally killed (not denying that innocents have been intentionally killed by in the past).
The parent comment insinuates that terrorism is the only possible response to the might of the US. This is a flawed premise. The Vietnamese proved that it was possible to resist the most modern of forces without resorting to terrorism (admittedly, terrorism did occur on both sides of that conflict).
Targeting/hiding behind women and children is not a level military playing field, its terrorism. The only reason these technologies are effective against modern warriors is because they are used against a country that has some sort of conscience. You can debate how strong that conscience is but the fact is the playing field is only leveled because one side can hide behind women and children and the other side has qualms about simply annihilating who ever stands in the way.
The reason the playing field is leveled is because of tactics, not technology.
I see where you are coming from now, and I agree. Although I would argue that the market does price in future scarcity, the market does so very poorly. Accounting for scarcity of non-renewable resources suffers from an extreme short term bias. It would be hard to imagine a commodities trader accounting for costs to future generations. In fact, this problem is no different from the problem of getting companies to internalize costs to any other natural resource like air quality etc. So in this respect, scarcity is an externality. Again, externalities generally require solutions from government.
I actually, dug out my econ book from undergrad to check on the handling of this subject: scarcity was only mentioned once in the intro and the section on externalities didn't discuss the topic at all. I'll look in to "Steady State Economics," thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
...don't you love it when any "unpleasant" truth about US is moded troll or flamebait nowdays onEveryone has an interest group and the legal organization of it is irrelevant. The biggest concern should be that politicians can be bought, not who is doing the buying. Who is doing the buying only concerns people when they disagree.
I'm replying to the above post because it is a good example of the poor attitudes that are keeping Linux down. The first step is to admit that there are things that need to be done - not to pretend like things are perfect and to imply that someone that can't use it is a retard. Further, pointing out things that suck in other OSs isn't a good argument - this isn't a competition to be as good as the others - Linux should aspire to be the best.
My issues with Linux are not a result of my stupidity, and even if it were, the problem with adoption is that an OS should be able to overcome a degree of stupidity. No package dependency hell Yes, and 1999 wants it's fud back. I haven't run Linux (Mandriva)in a year but package dependency hell at that time was still very real. "this has been compiled with GCC2.95 and an alternative libc" That is why one uses the packages for _one_ distribution. And don't try too install binaries from unknown sources, please. When you can't find the dependencies what do you do? I don't have the time to assemble all the components and compile.
I faced the Windows equivalent of dependency hell when I was coding. The fact I had to face DLL hell when I was coding really indicates a major issue with the Linux distribution system. In windows the burden is on the software vendor to make things work out of the box. In Linux, the burden is on the user. Yes, there are cool tools that have made this tons easier. However, in Linux when the tools break down (say, the "approved source" doesn't have the dependency yet or their servers are hosed), its the user's problem not the vendor's.
There is hope though, I've heard good things about other distros. I have been meaning to try Ubuntu and will likely be installing it after an upcoming test.
Mod up - funny.
And you confuse corn with perpetual motion.
Solar energy is perpetual motion?
1) None of the corn used for ethanol production is edible.
False - MOST of the corn used for ethanol is edible. There has not yet been a significant shift to higher energy varieties. Further, corn production for ethanol displaces acres that could be devoted to edible corn or other edible grain.
2) Food prices have gone up because the cost of the fuel used to transport them has gone up.
True to an extent - Ethanol usage has raised the cost of food, and not just the cost of corn. Ethanol takes corn away from food production. Further, high corn prices stimulates planting of more corn which displaces other editable crops. However, ethanol accounts for only a percentage in the overall rise in prices. Increased demand from China accounts for a large percentage. Further increased fuel prices accounts for an even larger percentage. Finally, commodity speculation accounts for a huge percentage. I'm afraid most of the people on Slashdot are unaware of the present over valuation in futures contracts for corn.
Slashdotter's are also unaware of ethanol's byproducts which mitigate the impact on food prices. Ethanol produces distiller's dried grain which is used in animal feed. This is animal feed that would have used corn if it weren't for the more desirable and nutritious distiller's dried grain. This animal feed is an indirect use of ethanol byproducts in the food supply. Ethanol also produces corn oil which can be used for food or diesel production. None of those other explanations can alleviate the fact that ethanol production does impact food.
to add to that, growing stuff for fuel pushes up the price of food - in countries where many are already hungry this is not good. As if enough of the 3rd world hadn't already supplanted food crops with tobacco and coffee ...
Low priced American corn is destroying third world agriculture. Its a chicken and the egg problem, which would we prefer - people that can buy food because they cant make money, or those that can't buy food because they don't have enough? High corn prices stimulate modernization of third world agriculture. Third world farmers are poor because they can't afford to invest in advanced technology. Higher corn prices stimulate foreign direct investment as well as third world government investment in more productive methods.
It takes energy to process corn into ethanol. That energy is not coming from previously produced ethanol. It comes from hydrocarbons. Ethanol completely misses the idea of carbon neutrality.
It also takes energy to process the alternatives to ethanol - THIS IS A MAJOR POINT THAT CRITICS NEGLECT. You are essentially arguing that ethanol production = fuel use. However, pure electric cars = coal use. Hydrogen cars = coal use. You are arguing that, because a majority of corn is planted by diesel fuel consuming tractors it is the equivalent of burning diesel fuel. Well, the majority of electricity comes from coal and the majority of hydrogen is produced with coal electricity.
Granted, that majority of electricity doesn't have to be produced by coal. Then again, the majority of ethanol doesn't need to be produced by diesel. The corn produced on my land this year was produced by biodiesel produced from corn oil (a byproduct of ethanol production).
Reality is probably much lower than the our friendly lobbyists from Iowa would have us believe.
MSCopyright Rule #2: Go back to #1.
Heres a good article from the IEEE Computer Society entitled "Setting Boundaries at Borders: Reconciling Laptop Searches and Privacy." The article discusses United States v. Arnold Federal and other precedent. Arnold, a federal district court opinion on a motion to suppress evidence, appears to have come out the right way. To add my own 2 cents, why would the fear of contraband be more intense at the border when the speed of information transfer on the internet has made such concerns all but irrelevant?
But the most likely stereotype at fault in this situation is Joe Sixpack (tm) who doesn't mind if they search a bunch of A-RABs if it means he can make it to bowling league without getting nuked.
Gay marriage is a good example. There are groups of people that are fighting for acceptance of the word "marriage" to be affixed to a union of a same sex couple. The law currently affords the legal equivalent (not tax consequences - the marriage penalty etc.) through contract (marriage is a contractual relationship) and power of attorney. However, the "legal equivalent" is insufficient - the word "marriage" must be used. Why? acceptance - forcing a version of morality on society.
The better position, in my opinion, is not to reject legislated morality (because the law is legislated morality) - it is to define the parameters that are acceptable for legislation. We must first recognize that every one has a definition of morality that they would prefer the world recognized. For example, even advocates of gay marriage legislation (from the courthouse or the state house) will draw lines as to what is moral. In the varied surveys I have taken, advocates draw the lines for marriage at children-adult, incestuous, multiple persons, and human-animals. The same people that claim that, by not being allowed to use the word "married", their rights are being infringed on would deny others loving relationships. It is not irrational to set differing standards of morality.
Next, we have to observe that some behavior, while consistent with our personal rights, infringes on other's rights. The "if you don't like it - don't do it" approach is really insufficient because the same reasoning works for actions which are (nearly) universally decried as immoral such as rape and pedophilia (or even murder).
The third step is to use our understanding to define the boundaries of legislation. A logical approach would to be legislate at the boundaries where exercise of personal rights intersect and conflict with other's personal rights. Therein lies the point of contention in the controversy presented by the Pope. It is perfectly rational to reason that life begins at conception (science tells us this). It is also within the ambit of reason to put a high value on life and to have differing opinions on where the line should be drawn in bestowing the rights granted to all humans. For those that set the line low your argument is similar to "don't think killing your newborn is good, then don't do it." The fact is, you've drawn a moral line somewhere (late term pregnancy? 2 years old? 4? 15?), and you weren't irrational in doing it. Further, you want to impose your version of morality on everyone else. Sure, people that use a religious text as a science book have logical problems but maybe you aren't too far off from the "religious types" you deride.
More concerning are societal approaches to debt, savings, and long term planning.
In regards to present economics, there is definately a slowdown afoot but claiming a failure of market economics is melodramatic. Unemployment hit 5% but economists claim full employment is between 4 and 6.4%. There has also been a drop in consumer spending but that doesn't mean the sky is falling, expecting infinite growth is unrealistic. Recession is a possibility but that possibility has more to do with psychology than reality. Economic conditions always look bleak in an election year.
Sorry about that.
The price of socialism is that getting a good deal is a crime. If you aren't paying full price someone isn't getting paid full price. The U.S. was like this once. Under FDR a farmer could get fined for growing wheat for the sole purpose of feeding to his family because, hypothetically, if every farmer did this it would impact the market for wheat. See Wickard v. Filburn. Imagine what this logic would mean if it was applied to technology.
My understanding is that it is heartier than corn. Switchgrass is more tolerant of drought and wet soil. Thus wetlands and dry prairie are made productive. Drier areas west of the corn belt could benefit from a more lucrative crop. Further, in areas where corn planting is difficult because of wet springs, air seeding is a viable option (as far as I know) because switchgrass is not a row crop.
Also, I question the parent's assertion that a changeover to the plant would be a challenge. The plant is self seeding (once established) so its far easier than corn. I agree that square baling is a bitch but I'm guessing that harvesting wouldn't be much different than making silage/corn stacks or round bales. I don't know enough about the storage to make an intelligent comment. It would depend on the effects of rotting on the cellulosic content. For those unfamiliar with the business of farming, the ability to store a crop is very important for modern farmers because it allows for intelligent marketing of the product to hedge risk (like forward contracts etc.). Also, ethanol plants contract with farmers for staggered delivery because they (obviously) can't take it all at once.
Switchgrass ethanol may be closer than you think. In my area, Poet Energy has begun accepting corn stalks and cobs at one of its plants as part as its Liberty Project. Generally, Poet will perfect a technology at one plant and quickly retrofit it's others. I would doubt that adding switch grass to the mix would be a big deal once they fine tune their bacteria to deal with the corn stalks.
There is good logic in the argument that tying food production to fuel production is a bad idea. However, the argument that food prices are rising because of ethanol production ignores the complexity of the equation. Corn production and price is tied to fuel production regardless of whether ethanol is added to the equation. Adding ethanol to the equation, corn production is actually stimulated. Also, one would expect some form of a fuel price decrease (on a macro level) with the replacement of gasoline with ethanol. Therefore, there are numerous variables to account for in analyzing the effects of ethanol on food and fuel price and production. It is simplistic to assume that ethanol production is the sole source of rising corn prices.
Additionally, cellulosic ethanol is not a silver bullet. Encouraging the planting of high performing switch grass can have a few harmful impacts. Switch grass can be planted where other crops cannot. Some of this unplantable land is wetland which is important as habitat and a filter for our water supply. Also, if the economics work, switch grass may also displace food production.
Finally, the headline "switchgrass makes better ethanol than corn" is misleading because it conveys the idea that this is some kind of revelation. The real news is the number the study has yielded. However, the article massacres the actual comparison. The article's quote is: "This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies." Without careful reading, it appears that the writer is saying that corn ethanol creates an energy deficit, this isn't true. The SA writer makes things confusing by comparing the actual energy produced by switchgrass ethanol with the amount of energy produced in excess of the input for corn ethanol. The writer of the SA article is comparing apples to oranges and I am skeptical of the motives of journalists that play with numbers. Also, don't forget that cellulosic ethanol can also come from corn. Plants in the Midwest have begun to to add stalks and husks to the ethanol process in the past two years. I really don't care where ethanol comes from, I think its a good idea. But the debate should not be a shadow game of massaged numbers.
My first difficulty with the parent is that respect for human life is abstracted into a simple population dynamics issue - population recovery. The obvious reply to my statement is the rallying cry of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet such an argument necessarily uses a straw man (it assumes approval of the atom bomb). Similar straw men are employed when invoking the myriad other US abuses.
The argument that terrorism is on par with the US vision of warfare ignores the fact that terrorism spends lives of wholly neutral innocents. The increased immorality (I accept the proposition that war is immoral)is due to the fact that innocents are intentionally killed (not denying that innocents have been intentionally killed by in the past).
The parent comment insinuates that terrorism is the only possible response to the might of the US. This is a flawed premise. The Vietnamese proved that it was possible to resist the most modern of forces without resorting to terrorism (admittedly, terrorism did occur on both sides of that conflict).
Targeting/hiding behind women and children is not a level military playing field, its terrorism. The only reason these technologies are effective against modern warriors is because they are used against a country that has some sort of conscience. You can debate how strong that conscience is but the fact is the playing field is only leveled because one side can hide behind women and children and the other side has qualms about simply annihilating who ever stands in the way.
The reason the playing field is leveled is because of tactics, not technology.
I see where you are coming from now, and I agree. Although I would argue that the market does price in future scarcity, the market does so very poorly. Accounting for scarcity of non-renewable resources suffers from an extreme short term bias. It would be hard to imagine a commodities trader accounting for costs to future generations. In fact, this problem is no different from the problem of getting companies to internalize costs to any other natural resource like air quality etc. So in this respect, scarcity is an externality. Again, externalities generally require solutions from government.
I actually, dug out my econ book from undergrad to check on the handling of this subject: scarcity was only mentioned once in the intro and the section on externalities didn't discuss the topic at all. I'll look in to "Steady State Economics," thanks.