You can only trade if you reduce your emissions and therefore have spare credits.
Cap = the total amount of carbon is limited.
Trade = that limit can be distributed efficiently throughout the marketplace.
Look, there are lots of reasons to be against this bill. Some are pretty valid (it's too long and complicated, it has too many giveaways to farm states), some are arguable at least (it will put a drain on the economy), some are just wild (global warming is a big conspiracy), but this takes the cake. Whatever you think of the issue, it makes no sense to argue that cap-and-trade will increase carbon emissions.
I am not talking in the legal sense. I am talking in a moral sense - those inalienable rights necessary for a man to live his life, and further his values and goals.... Hmm? I have not invented them. In order for me to live, I must think and use my mind, and so I must be free to do so. Anyone who imposes force on me leads me to think irrationally, in opposition to my life and my values. So it is right for me to use my mind, and it is not right for others to impose force on me. Show me a person who can live and further their values by automatic action alone, as a plant would do.
You know, we hear a lot of griping on slashdot about how silly it is to believe in some sort of invisible God in the sky that nobody can see. But invisible rights in the sky that nobody can see? Well, that's self-evident! Anyway, amazingly, many people all over the world manage to live and further their values despite environmental regulation.
You mean the carbon that, when plotted next to global temperature, shows that increases in temperature lead to increases in C02, but not vice versa? Oh, but that's beside the point. Show me the health effects on you of my carbon emission, and you can sue me in court, and anyone else for that matter.
Let's ignore the whole global warming question, since it's obvious neither of us will convince the other. But I am a bit curious about how you think this will work. So, let's assume some sort of hypothetical pollutant: Foofaline-X. When I make widgets, I release foofaline-X into the air. Now, hypothetically, let's say that foofaline-X causes a 25% increase in the incidence of lung cancer over a 50 year period. How does your system deal with that?
Another hypothetical. Ignoring carbon, let's say that there's another chemical, roochem-10, that causes global warming. It acts in much the same way carbon is supposed to: in small to medium sized doses, it does nothing. But once tons and tons of roochem-10 are released into the air all over the world, global temperatures rise. As sea levels rise, I lose my cottage on the shore. Who do I sue?
I'm sure it will turn into a futures market. Do you have a problem with futures markets? Do you even know what a futures market is? Hint: it has nothing to do with the situation you described.
Right, and all the polluters are going to pollute more to make sure your credit increases in value, rather than than polluting less to make money for themselves. Your grasp on economics is astounding.
Right, but you only make a profit by REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS.
Company A and B are both capped at 1 ton of CO2 per year. Company A emits 1.2 tons, so there's a cost: it has to pay $100 for an extra.2 tons of carbon emissions. Company A therefore is motivated to reduce emissions.
Company B, meanwhile only emits.8 tons. It can therefore sell it's remaining.2 ton permits to Company A, making a profit. And if it reduces emissions to.6 tons/year, it can sell permits for.4 tons, making even more profit.
I have the right to use my property as I see fit, so long as I don't violate the rights of others. That includes trading it with others.
In a legal sense, you have the "right" to do what is permitted under the law. All other rights are philosophical abstractions you've invented; show me this right of yours that allows you to emit as much carbon into the air as you want. Can you post a picture of it?
But let's keep this discussion grounded in reality...
If I pollute their water, they/you can sue me. What was your point?
So, just to make sure I understand, your view is that we should not have laws that prohibit pollution outright, the problem should be solved entirely through lawsuits. Rather than prohibiting people from, say, releasing toxic waste into the river, we should count on them being afraid of being sued. Who can tell me the problems with this plan? Here are some hints:
1) Empirically, we know that the threat of lawsuits often does not compel companies to do the right thing. Probably because they have teams of expensive lawyers to fight them. 2) Rather than stopping behavior before it actually, you know, harms anyone, we have to wait until someone is adversely effected. 3) It's unworkable in practice. My God, we'd need a parallel set of courts just to deal with pollution issues.
Currently, when you emit carbon into the air, you're adversely effecting pretty much everyone, but not paying a dime for it. Sorry that's about to change. Somehow, I expect you'll manage to deal with it.
Huh? Carbon isn't a profit center, it's a cost center: you pay for it. When you reduce the amount you emit, you make money. I've seen some pretty crazy arguments against this bill, but you're the first person to fundamentally misunderstand it. Congratulations.
I imagine you could, but political campaigns and charities can ignore the DNC list anyway. More importantly, Google Voice gives you a lot more control over screening your calls before you answer them.
This is getting a bit off-topic, but have you considered submitting a project funding request to DonorsChoose.org? Your goal seems worthwhile, and the money required wouldn't be huge; you'd be a good candidate, I think.
What's up with "IRIS" in all CAPS? I see this pretty regularly. But iris isn't an acronym, it's just a part of your body. I guess "IRIS recognition" sounds more James Bond-y than plain old "iris recognition."
You're completely missing the point. I'm not arguing that the plan was proposed to protect child predators, just that it will be characterized that way. And while there are plenty of problems with the system, most people are much more afraid of their children being targeted for abuse then they are of being unfairly prosecuted based on their vacation photos. It may be an unfounded fear, but that doesn't make it any less real. And the practical consequence is that it is very difficult to pass a law that makes it harder to prosecute people for crimes against children.
It is an interesting idea, and it might even work in theory, but I doubt it will ever be widely used. Why? Because you'll have a hard time convincing people to send possible child pornography off to be examined by a bunch of anonymous experts.
In the case of "sexting," where oftentimes the defendant and the victim are the same person, maybe it would pass. But if Joe Blow is charged with distributing dirty pics of Jenny Junior, I doubt Jenny's parents will be okay with those pictures being shown to even more people. There's no incentive for them to compromise, since people are routinely convicted on child pornography charges without this process.
This whole thing would probably have to be legislated anyway. How many state legislatures, not to mention the US Congress, will be willing to go out on a limb to (it will be said) protect child predators?
The solution to the "sexting" problem is common sense and prosecutorial discretion. Hopefully we'll see more of both!
I'm not trying to twist your point, I'm just making a few observations. No need to get snippy.
You're right that you can't change your biometrics if their are somehow compromised. That's why, as I said, they are simply one component of a good security infrastructure. Moreover, spoofing a biometric like iris or fingerprint is much, much harder than you seem to think. People leave latent fingerprints all over the place. But latents are incomplete (ever look at the FBI infrastructure for matching fingerprints? Latents are what require the processing power.) and more importantly, they aren't attached to a human hand. While facial recognition algorithms can be fooled by a photo (sometimes), this is simply not possible in iris or fingerprint systems.
But, yes, it's still possible to do, if you have a lot of resources. Just like it's possible to social engineer (or shoulder-surf) someone's password. That's why you have multiple modalities, to reduce risk.
Biometrics are one part of a good authentication system. But there are always trade-offs: to lower FRR (False Reject Rate, or rate of false negatives) you have to raise FAR (False Accept Rate, or rate of false positives). Iris and fingerprint recognition are mature technologies; they can deliver low false negatives with virtually no false positives. There are well-defined and effective ways of preventing spoofing. But yes, they are only a single component, and should be combined with password and/or physical tokens.
On the other hand, facial recognition is much, much less developed. Using it for your sole authentication modality is absurd. In order to prevent an extremely high level of false negatives, you'd have to accept an unacceptably high level of false positives. This makes spoofing easy.
So according to you, a "lie" is anything someone states that is untrue, regardless of intent to deceive. According to that definition, you lied earlier when you said you would have gone to jail for failure to pay an obscure tax (this is simply not true). Hope you never want to run for President.
I guess there are people out there who think Obama is some sort of messiah and above all reproach, that nothing he does could possibly be wrong. You are the opposite of those people; you are ready to condemn anyone who doesn't live up to your impossibly high expectations. I don't expect politicians to be perfect, just as I don't expect any human being to be perfect. The perfect, as they say, is the enemy of the good.
I'm really getting tired of all the stupid cynicism around here. It seems more like an excuse to be uninvolved: "hey, don't blame me for the problems we have, I told you Obama was a big fat grandmother-lying politician just like the rest of 'em." If you don't like Geithner, come up with someone better and start writing letters.
Hey, you know what's a jerk thing to do? Complain about someone misspeaking during a eulogy to their grandmother the day after she dies.
Her name was Madelyn Dunham and she was born in Kansas in a small town in 1922. Which means that she lived through the Great Depression, she lived through two World Wars. She watched her husband go off to war while she looked after her baby and worked on a bomber assembly line.
Obviously, he meant "World War Two" rather than "Two World Wars." I'll give you FISA, but that's about the stupidest complaint about any politician I've ever heard.
Also, by the way, most people do not go to jail for incorrectly filing their taxes. If they are audited and found to be non-compliant, they pay back-taxes plus interest and penalties. This is what Geithner did. There are serious questions about whether he purposefully misfiled; we'll probably never know the whole story. But it's absurd to say anyone else would have gone to jail for this. Also, the IRS audited him and found the problem long before he had any involvement with Obama. The Obama team actually made him pay back taxes that were beyond the statue of limitation, and that he was therefore not legally required to pay.
Appointing people because they are untainted by exposure to government rather than because they are the best people for the job is an illusion of change. You can keep your outside-the-beltway affirmative action; I'll take the most qualified candidates, please. Who gives a crap if they used to work for Clinton?
Ronald Reagan was a mixed bag, but if you want to use him as an example, fine. Let's look at his choices:
VP: George Bush, former CIA director & various other government positions
Sec State: Alexander Haig, former Chief of Staff to Nixon and Ford
Sec Def: Caspar Weinberger, former Nixon OMB director and Secretary of HEW
CoS: James Baker, former undersecretary under Ford and head of Ford reelection committee
I'll give you Reagan's first Treasury secretary, Donald Regan, who was merely an investment banker before joining the cabinet. But other than that, Reagan's picks were hardly Washington outsiders.
Slashdot Mirror
You can only trade if you reduce your emissions and therefore have spare credits.
Cap = the total amount of carbon is limited.
Trade = that limit can be distributed efficiently throughout the marketplace.
Look, there are lots of reasons to be against this bill. Some are pretty valid (it's too long and complicated, it has too many giveaways to farm states), some are arguable at least (it will put a drain on the economy), some are just wild (global warming is a big conspiracy), but this takes the cake. Whatever you think of the issue, it makes no sense to argue that cap-and-trade will increase carbon emissions.
You know, we hear a lot of griping on slashdot about how silly it is to believe in some sort of invisible God in the sky that nobody can see. But invisible rights in the sky that nobody can see? Well, that's self-evident! Anyway, amazingly, many people all over the world manage to live and further their values despite environmental regulation.
Let's ignore the whole global warming question, since it's obvious neither of us will convince the other. But I am a bit curious about how you think this will work. So, let's assume some sort of hypothetical pollutant: Foofaline-X. When I make widgets, I release foofaline-X into the air. Now, hypothetically, let's say that foofaline-X causes a 25% increase in the incidence of lung cancer over a 50 year period. How does your system deal with that?
Another hypothetical. Ignoring carbon, let's say that there's another chemical, roochem-10, that causes global warming. It acts in much the same way carbon is supposed to: in small to medium sized doses, it does nothing. But once tons and tons of roochem-10 are released into the air all over the world, global temperatures rise. As sea levels rise, I lose my cottage on the shore. Who do I sue?
I'm sure it will turn into a futures market. Do you have a problem with futures markets? Do you even know what a futures market is? Hint: it has nothing to do with the situation you described.
Right, and all the polluters are going to pollute more to make sure your credit increases in value, rather than than polluting less to make money for themselves. Your grasp on economics is astounding.
Right, but you only make a profit by REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS.
Company A and B are both capped at 1 ton of CO2 per year. Company A emits 1.2 tons, so there's a cost: it has to pay $100 for an extra .2 tons of carbon emissions. Company A therefore is motivated to reduce emissions.
Company B, meanwhile only emits .8 tons. It can therefore sell it's remaining .2 ton permits to Company A, making a profit. And if it reduces emissions to .6 tons/year, it can sell permits for .4 tons, making even more profit.
Get it now?
In a legal sense, you have the "right" to do what is permitted under the law. All other rights are philosophical abstractions you've invented; show me this right of yours that allows you to emit as much carbon into the air as you want. Can you post a picture of it?
But let's keep this discussion grounded in reality...
So, just to make sure I understand, your view is that we should not have laws that prohibit pollution outright, the problem should be solved entirely through lawsuits. Rather than prohibiting people from, say, releasing toxic waste into the river, we should count on them being afraid of being sued. Who can tell me the problems with this plan? Here are some hints:
1) Empirically, we know that the threat of lawsuits often does not compel companies to do the right thing. Probably because they have teams of expensive lawyers to fight them.
2) Rather than stopping behavior before it actually, you know, harms anyone, we have to wait until someone is adversely effected.
3) It's unworkable in practice. My God, we'd need a parallel set of courts just to deal with pollution issues.
Currently, when you emit carbon into the air, you're adversely effecting pretty much everyone, but not paying a dime for it. Sorry that's about to change. Somehow, I expect you'll manage to deal with it.
Huh? Carbon isn't a profit center, it's a cost center: you pay for it. When you reduce the amount you emit, you make money. I've seen some pretty crazy arguments against this bill, but you're the first person to fundamentally misunderstand it. Congratulations.
I imagine you could, but political campaigns and charities can ignore the DNC list anyway. More importantly, Google Voice gives you a lot more control over screening your calls before you answer them.
This is getting a bit off-topic, but have you considered submitting a project funding request to DonorsChoose.org? Your goal seems worthwhile, and the money required wouldn't be huge; you'd be a good candidate, I think.
Wow, I thought dancing was impressive, but this guy has a bird that's in a metal band!
What's up with "IRIS" in all CAPS? I see this pretty regularly. But iris isn't an acronym, it's just a part of your body. I guess "IRIS recognition" sounds more James Bond-y than plain old "iris recognition."
What does being a woman have to do with you having access to WiFi?
You're completely missing the point. I'm not arguing that the plan was proposed to protect child predators, just that it will be characterized that way. And while there are plenty of problems with the system, most people are much more afraid of their children being targeted for abuse then they are of being unfairly prosecuted based on their vacation photos. It may be an unfounded fear, but that doesn't make it any less real. And the practical consequence is that it is very difficult to pass a law that makes it harder to prosecute people for crimes against children.
True enough. And I'd rather see big-picture reform that eliminates the incentives for prosecutorial overreach than this sort of piecemeal approach.
It is an interesting idea, and it might even work in theory, but I doubt it will ever be widely used. Why? Because you'll have a hard time convincing people to send possible child pornography off to be examined by a bunch of anonymous experts.
In the case of "sexting," where oftentimes the defendant and the victim are the same person, maybe it would pass. But if Joe Blow is charged with distributing dirty pics of Jenny Junior, I doubt Jenny's parents will be okay with those pictures being shown to even more people. There's no incentive for them to compromise, since people are routinely convicted on child pornography charges without this process.
This whole thing would probably have to be legislated anyway. How many state legislatures, not to mention the US Congress, will be willing to go out on a limb to (it will be said) protect child predators?
The solution to the "sexting" problem is common sense and prosecutorial discretion. Hopefully we'll see more of both!
I'm not trying to twist your point, I'm just making a few observations. No need to get snippy.
You're right that you can't change your biometrics if their are somehow compromised. That's why, as I said, they are simply one component of a good security infrastructure. Moreover, spoofing a biometric like iris or fingerprint is much, much harder than you seem to think. People leave latent fingerprints all over the place. But latents are incomplete (ever look at the FBI infrastructure for matching fingerprints? Latents are what require the processing power.) and more importantly, they aren't attached to a human hand. While facial recognition algorithms can be fooled by a photo (sometimes), this is simply not possible in iris or fingerprint systems.
But, yes, it's still possible to do, if you have a lot of resources. Just like it's possible to social engineer (or shoulder-surf) someone's password. That's why you have multiple modalities, to reduce risk.
Biometrics are one part of a good authentication system. But there are always trade-offs: to lower FRR (False Reject Rate, or rate of false negatives) you have to raise FAR (False Accept Rate, or rate of false positives). Iris and fingerprint recognition are mature technologies; they can deliver low false negatives with virtually no false positives. There are well-defined and effective ways of preventing spoofing. But yes, they are only a single component, and should be combined with password and/or physical tokens.
On the other hand, facial recognition is much, much less developed. Using it for your sole authentication modality is absurd. In order to prevent an extremely high level of false negatives, you'd have to accept an unacceptably high level of false positives. This makes spoofing easy.
In theory, communism works. In theory.
So according to you, a "lie" is anything someone states that is untrue, regardless of intent to deceive. According to that definition, you lied earlier when you said you would have gone to jail for failure to pay an obscure tax (this is simply not true). Hope you never want to run for President.
I guess there are people out there who think Obama is some sort of messiah and above all reproach, that nothing he does could possibly be wrong. You are the opposite of those people; you are ready to condemn anyone who doesn't live up to your impossibly high expectations. I don't expect politicians to be perfect, just as I don't expect any human being to be perfect. The perfect, as they say, is the enemy of the good.
I'm really getting tired of all the stupid cynicism around here. It seems more like an excuse to be uninvolved: "hey, don't blame me for the problems we have, I told you Obama was a big fat grandmother-lying politician just like the rest of 'em." If you don't like Geithner, come up with someone better and start writing letters.
Hey, you know what's a jerk thing to do? Complain about someone misspeaking during a eulogy to their grandmother the day after she dies.
Obviously, he meant "World War Two" rather than "Two World Wars." I'll give you FISA, but that's about the stupidest complaint about any politician I've ever heard.
Also, by the way, most people do not go to jail for incorrectly filing their taxes. If they are audited and found to be non-compliant, they pay back-taxes plus interest and penalties. This is what Geithner did. There are serious questions about whether he purposefully misfiled; we'll probably never know the whole story. But it's absurd to say anyone else would have gone to jail for this. Also, the IRS audited him and found the problem long before he had any involvement with Obama. The Obama team actually made him pay back taxes that were beyond the statue of limitation, and that he was therefore not legally required to pay.
Seconded.
I'd also be interested in seeing the registry of the National Flute Association. It's time the flutists of America were driven out of the shadows!
Seriously dude, spell out your acronyms; it's just common courtesy.
Hey, not to be Captain Obvious or anything, but maybe you'd be getting higher rates if you didn't do your advertising on racist websites.
Appointing people because they are untainted by exposure to government rather than because they are the best people for the job is an illusion of change. You can keep your outside-the-beltway affirmative action; I'll take the most qualified candidates, please. Who gives a crap if they used to work for Clinton?
Ronald Reagan was a mixed bag, but if you want to use him as an example, fine. Let's look at his choices:
VP: George Bush, former CIA director & various other government positions
Sec State: Alexander Haig, former Chief of Staff to Nixon and Ford
Sec Def: Caspar Weinberger, former Nixon OMB director and Secretary of HEW
CoS: James Baker, former undersecretary under Ford and head of Ford reelection committee
I'll give you Reagan's first Treasury secretary, Donald Regan, who was merely an investment banker before joining the cabinet. But other than that, Reagan's picks were hardly Washington outsiders.