The claim that continued war in the midEast and a McCain presidency would harm the economy is unclear at best. Short term, of course, the war drains the economy, but the long-term danger of a successful militant Islam could do the economy, and our lives, horrific damage. McCain has a reputation as a budget-cutter and if he holds true to that, he will do tremendous good. Both Obama and Clinton want to tax and spend us into oblivion. Nader hates capitalism and would destroy the economy out of spite.
Ah, this is so funny. In my opinion, Nader's ensuring Bush's election made a small step away from a lifetime of evildoing. There's irony in a malicious nutcase undermining the campaign of a less vicious nutcase, resulting in the election of someone who fails to think through the long-term consequences of his actions.
Hydrazine generates heat when you add water to it. Consequently, when you want to mix hydrazine and water, you slowly add small amounts of hydrazine to water. This reduces the risk of boiling and splattering a caustic chemical.
For a small spill, there's a small amount of hydrazine on the floor or tabletop. You want to dilute it to reduce its toxicity before you get it onto your mop or paper towels. Boiling is not likely to be a risk in a small spill. For a large spill, cleanup is difficult and you want to have prepared for the situation in advance with a good procedure that reduces the risk of splashing on skin or generating fumes.
"McCain-Feingold... protects us all against legalized bribery of elected officials"
As if it's the legalized bribery that should be our big concern. As if the law is any concern of someone who's out to bribe a politician. As if any politician thinks the law should apply to him.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say the the 1st amendment extends to corporations. The rights are enumerated for individuals.
Who do you think runs corporations? What do you think corporations consist of?
The first Ammendment reads
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Read that carefully and consider the structure of the grammar. There is no limit on the type of entity that can have freedom of speech or press, however only people are identified as having the rights of assembly and petition.
Unless you consider effective free speech to consist of yelling while standing on a soap box, effective free speech is advertising and lots of it. It costs lots of money.
More to the point, the words "free" and "limited" are contradictory. Limiting campaign contributions causes a limiting of freedom of speech. Of course they aren't they same thing (and any court decision that says they are is silly), but the fact that there is a cause-and-effect relation should be all that is required to bring the Constitutional prohibition of government interference into play.
A third party presidential candidate could win, but it would require unusual circumstances: weak and nearly identical Republican and Democrat candidates, a distinct and popular third candidate. Being an effective president would require obvious public popularity and the ability to play the parties off against each other.
The first Perot attempt is instructive. He got 19% of the popular vote, despite being physically unattractive, having an annoying voice, changing his mind about whether he was actually running, and not having a really outstanding message. A better candidate could have won.
It only takes a few nukes to so seriously damage the cities of an invading country that it will surrender. The wind-distributed fallout would not destroy U. S. agriculture. The level of radioactivity in some foods might require special care (such as strontium-90 in milk), but it would not be a disaster.
Cute, but it looks unnecessarily complicated. I'd go for an analog meter, but the accuracy might be less. In fact, it's possible to build an analog power meter where the only components are the meter movement and the wires and connectors and a single resistor.
Boat engines are designed and rated for continuous operation at full power. Some car engines will overheat if run like that. The "same" engine isn't the same; it's got a different cooling system and a different exhaust system, and it's probably tuned differently to reflect its different operating profile.
The mass of the average vehicle could be reduced to half of what it is now without compromising safety
There are already roads that have to be shut down in high wind conditions, and regular stories of trucks that get blown over. A 1200 pound moderate size passenger car cannot be made safe at highway speeds.
There's always going to be a "time value of money". Rich people will always be able to increase their riches by loaning out their money.
People making a good living who are not rich, can become rich by forgoing immediate gratification, and saving and loaning out the surplus.
Sure, some rich people are going to resist changes. There are always going to be people who don't want to exert new effort, and from among those the rich have the wherewithal to impede progress.
Human time and effort is (like all things) a limited quantity. If a person is to make good decisions about how to live his life, he must be able to rank the possibilities open to him. He then chooses the things that most advance his life. Monetary value is an easily understandable standard that can be used for the ranking. Sure, there are things that fall into the category of "That's worth more (to me) than any amount of money", but that does not break the ranking system.
Money is an accounting system for what things are worth. It facilitates fair and efficient trade. Consider the alternatives.
Barter. A pure barter system is inefficient, because trades are only made when the parties involved exchange things of equal value. To allow trades of things of non-equal value, at least one party must have a supply of things of small agreed-upon value to make up the difference. Over time, these variety of small things will reduce, as a community settles upon one standard of small things that everyone accepts. Guess what? They've just invented money, and it's no longer a pure barter system.
Charity. Won't work. Some people are unwilling to do work of any sort; many others soon see that there is no good reason to produce when all they want to do is consume. If existence is possible at all under a pure charity system, it won't get much beyond a subsistence level.
Involuntary transfer of goods. An effective way to make life "brutish, short, and nasty". The biggest bully gets almost everything; people who would normally produce have no incentive to do so.
For just one thing out of many possibilities, money is a safeguard against waste. Many people are already slobs, as a walk down many busy roads will demonstrate. With a requirement that things be paid for, people are less likely to discard things for trivial reasons. (My car ran out of gas. I'll get a new one.) Some people enjoy destroying things. If they have to pay for the things they destroy, they are less likely to destroy things.
Not all things are manufactured. People pay money for live performances.
On a more fundamental basis, you have attempted to destroy the word "value". Value has 2 generally accepted meanings.
A desire. If I want something, I value it.
A useful thing. Hammers are of value for driving nails into wood.
Neither of these aspects will go away as long as people live and act. Money, as a fungible and divisible system for quantifying and trading value, will not disappear.
Big projects are facilitated with money. Try building a vacation cruise ship with voluntary labor, donated materials, and no accounting system. It isn't going to happen.
Even your example of a sick neighbor falls apart quickly. Highly skilled brain surgeons are rare. If your sick neighbor needs one, and it's 300 miles to the nearest one of a good enough skill level, the surgeon is unlikely to perform his valued function for free. Occasionally maybe, but always? Why should he bother?
If you are referring to the current war in Iraq, the total body count is simply not reliably available. Documented violent deaths are about 100,000. Numbers as high as 3/4 million come from household surveys, but (in my opinion) those are extrapolations and include multiple counts per death.
The underlying disease is specifically Islam and generally religion. The solution is rationality. Rationality is not something that can be forced on a person.
Titan is a huge polluted mess, unsuitable for human life. We must designate it a toxic superfund site and clean up all those nasty hydrocarbon pollutants.
If you feel you have to have an analog original, make both the analog and the digital from the same feed at the same time. Making a digital copy from an analog recording guarantees that the digital copy will have all the flaws of the analog recording. Not a bright idea when a better option exists.
Forced eugenics programs are immoral. I see nothing wrong with a person refusing to procreate because he has an obvious genetic fault that would condemn his children to suffering.
The government's primary responsibility is to protect its citizens. Much of this protection is provided by the military. To have effective military, advanced weapons are important. Although weapons are mostly built and designed by non-governmental organizations, there is value to some government-funded research and some government-performed research. Secrecy is one reason that some of this science should be done by the government, Dr. Teller's arguments not withstanding.
keep up government scientific funding, it's the only competitive advantage the USA has ever had
You must be joking. By your reasoning, countries that have only government scientific funding must be superior to countries with mixed funding. The Soviet Union must have come out on top because of government funding of science.
Slashdot Mirror
The claim that continued war in the midEast and a McCain presidency would harm the economy is unclear at best. Short term, of course, the war drains the economy, but the long-term danger of a successful militant Islam could do the economy, and our lives, horrific damage. McCain has a reputation as a budget-cutter and if he holds true to that, he will do tremendous good. Both Obama and Clinton want to tax and spend us into oblivion. Nader hates capitalism and would destroy the economy out of spite.
Ah, this is so funny. In my opinion, Nader's ensuring Bush's election made a small step away from a lifetime of evildoing. There's irony in a malicious nutcase undermining the campaign of a less vicious nutcase, resulting in the election of someone who fails to think through the long-term consequences of his actions.
Any chance the some of the remaining fuel can be used to change the trajectory to go closer to the sun, perhaps extending the life a bit more?
For a small spill, there's a small amount of hydrazine on the floor or tabletop. You want to dilute it to reduce its toxicity before you get it onto your mop or paper towels. Boiling is not likely to be a risk in a small spill. For a large spill, cleanup is difficult and you want to have prepared for the situation in advance with a good procedure that reduces the risk of splashing on skin or generating fumes.
Egads, you really don't understand the Laffer curve, do you?
As if it's the legalized bribery that should be our big concern. As if the law is any concern of someone who's out to bribe a politician. As if any politician thinks the law should apply to him.
The first Ammendment reads
Read that carefully and consider the structure of the grammar. There is no limit on the type of entity that can have freedom of speech or press, however only people are identified as having the rights of assembly and petition.
More to the point, the words "free" and "limited" are contradictory. Limiting campaign contributions causes a limiting of freedom of speech. Of course they aren't they same thing (and any court decision that says they are is silly), but the fact that there is a cause-and-effect relation should be all that is required to bring the Constitutional prohibition of government interference into play.
Your other statements seem to have the same level of accuracy. For instance, Honda is a fairly recent entry into the passenger car business.
The first Perot attempt is instructive. He got 19% of the popular vote, despite being physically unattractive, having an annoying voice, changing his mind about whether he was actually running, and not having a really outstanding message. A better candidate could have won.
It only takes a few nukes to so seriously damage the cities of an invading country that it will surrender. The wind-distributed fallout would not destroy U. S. agriculture. The level of radioactivity in some foods might require special care (such as strontium-90 in milk), but it would not be a disaster.
Cute, but it looks unnecessarily complicated. I'd go for an analog meter, but the accuracy might be less. In fact, it's possible to build an analog power meter where the only components are the meter movement and the wires and connectors and a single resistor.
Boat engines are designed and rated for continuous operation at full power. Some car engines will overheat if run like that. The "same" engine isn't the same; it's got a different cooling system and a different exhaust system, and it's probably tuned differently to reflect its different operating profile.
People making a good living who are not rich, can become rich by forgoing immediate gratification, and saving and loaning out the surplus.
Sure, some rich people are going to resist changes. There are always going to be people who don't want to exert new effort, and from among those the rich have the wherewithal to impede progress.
Human time and effort is (like all things) a limited quantity. If a person is to make good decisions about how to live his life, he must be able to rank the possibilities open to him. He then chooses the things that most advance his life. Monetary value is an easily understandable standard that can be used for the ranking. Sure, there are things that fall into the category of "That's worth more (to me) than any amount of money", but that does not break the ranking system.
Barter. A pure barter system is inefficient, because trades are only made when the parties involved exchange things of equal value. To allow trades of things of non-equal value, at least one party must have a supply of things of small agreed-upon value to make up the difference. Over time, these variety of small things will reduce, as a community settles upon one standard of small things that everyone accepts. Guess what? They've just invented money, and it's no longer a pure barter system.
Charity. Won't work. Some people are unwilling to do work of any sort; many others soon see that there is no good reason to produce when all they want to do is consume. If existence is possible at all under a pure charity system, it won't get much beyond a subsistence level.
Involuntary transfer of goods. An effective way to make life "brutish, short, and nasty". The biggest bully gets almost everything; people who would normally produce have no incentive to do so.
Not all things are manufactured. People pay money for live performances.
On a more fundamental basis, you have attempted to destroy the word "value". Value has 2 generally accepted meanings.
- A desire. If I want something, I value it.
- A useful thing. Hammers are of value for driving nails into wood.
Neither of these aspects will go away as long as people live and act. Money, as a fungible and divisible system for quantifying and trading value, will not disappear.Big projects are facilitated with money. Try building a vacation cruise ship with voluntary labor, donated materials, and no accounting system. It isn't going to happen.
Even your example of a sick neighbor falls apart quickly. Highly skilled brain surgeons are rare. If your sick neighbor needs one, and it's 300 miles to the nearest one of a good enough skill level, the surgeon is unlikely to perform his valued function for free. Occasionally maybe, but always? Why should he bother?
If you are referring to the current war in Iraq, the total body count is simply not reliably available. Documented violent deaths are about 100,000. Numbers as high as 3/4 million come from household surveys, but (in my opinion) those are extrapolations and include multiple counts per death.
The underlying disease is specifically Islam and generally religion. The solution is rationality. Rationality is not something that can be forced on a person.
Titan is a huge polluted mess, unsuitable for human life. We must designate it a toxic superfund site and clean up all those nasty hydrocarbon pollutants.
If you feel you have to have an analog original, make both the analog and the digital from the same feed at the same time. Making a digital copy from an analog recording guarantees that the digital copy will have all the flaws of the analog recording. Not a bright idea when a better option exists.
The government's primary responsibility is to protect its citizens. Much of this protection is provided by the military. To have effective military, advanced weapons are important. Although weapons are mostly built and designed by non-governmental organizations, there is value to some government-funded research and some government-performed research. Secrecy is one reason that some of this science should be done by the government, Dr. Teller's arguments not withstanding.
Oh wait...