was a bipartisan bill, as one of the co-sponsors, Sen Snowe, Olympia J. [ME], is a member of the GOP.
Olympia Snowe votes with Democrats more than Republicans. She was one of the only three Republicans in the Senate and House that voted on the $787 billion spending bill. One of those "Republicans," Arlen Specter, is now a Democrat.
Here is a visualization which performs an energy minimization mapping to group politicians by their voting record.
You can clearly see where Olympia Snowe votes in relation to the two parties. Saying this bill is bi-partisan is a more than a bit of a stretch.
Actually seeing as churches are tax exempt for property taxes and income taxes and often sit on prime real-estate while pocketing millions of dollars I would say that they do quite well for themselves.
The issue isn't about the money, but I agree with the hypocrisy of the tax exemption situation. The issue is that we have concocted this monolith known as public education. Since there is no diversity of choice, people will inevitably fight for control of the monolith. Anyone who doesn't think that people should bring up issues important to them in this public situation is effectively saying--"Hey, we're happy to take your money, but not for you to have representation. Sit down and shut up."
Let's just imagine that instead of corporations, we had "The Public Company System" that was supported by tax dollars. Inevitably, people are going to fight for what the system should produce. Instead of allowing people to produce whatever they want, we'll have this one company produce some relative percentage of every good we need.
This leads to your statement about equal time for Wiccan beliefs. I don't know if you're trying to create some reductio ad absurdum, but I really think it backfires. Why should everyone be represented minimally in one system, when they can be represented totally in another?
Why should we force people to live the "average," or "equal time" belief system, when we could just let them live their own? Public education forces this living-the-average scenario.
Name one case where a scientist has seriously demanded that any church give equal time to preaching evolution!
Name one church that has ever argued that they're entitled to $5000-$7000 a year per school child by governmental force.
The issue here is freedom, and the cause of this problem is compulsory public education. To everyone who exclaims "but they shouldn't be able to teach that in public school," I would ask why you believe in forcing people to monetarily support an institution they don't believe in.
That's a lot more intense moralizing than the creationists. Really, whose system here is more practically malicious?
Seriously, do you *not* believe that the threat of punishment is an effective deterrent for piracy in the first place?
If you knew that EA would send you to prison for a while or fine you thousands of dollars for placing a game on the pirate bay, would you still do it?
Punishment is a very effective deterrent, and anyone who doesn't believe that should question why we have laws in the first place. Having laws against murder doesn't deter murder--threat of punishment does.
The FSF is not telling people they *have* to exercise their freedoms. This is the major point of contention: that GPLv3 actually even extends these so called "freedoms." The FSF is actively pushing GPLv3. Version 3 gives users fewer freedoms to exercise, hence the conflict within the community. There are additional specific requirements on how GPLv3 software is used over GPLv2. This is very different from requiring distributed source code changes to be merged back in to the code tree on the production side.
You can also force others to not infringe on the freedom of others. Totally agree. The issue here is what exactly are the freedoms which TiVo is infringing? My question applies for both for users and developers. TiVo has released all of their source code under GPLv2. If I made a proprietary toaster that ran a customized GNU/Linux distribution (like the infamous NetBSD toaster), would I be required to give you a schematic of the toaster? I think its perfectly reasonable that someone else would have to build their own toaster and apply the necessary thought to take my GPL'ed software and couple it with their hardware. Some (many) people disagree with this. Furthermore, there is confusion of terminology in the old license. The new license is supposed to "fix" this, however many people do not believe it to be a problem.
Richard Stallman and the FSF are pushing for open software on open hardware, as a condition to fix a "loophole" in the GPLv2. Last time I checked though, it was the Free Software Foundation, not the Free Hardware Foundation. I do understand that certain people may decide that they wish their software to be "free"--in the sense of openness--on open hardware. That is fine and with a new GPLv3 their wishes can be made known and abided by. The real issue here is that this is an additional restriction upon acceptable usage, and there is considerable debate whether or not a foray into the hardware spectrum is necessary to keep software "free" and "open."
From my observations, many people are objecting to the FSF monopolization of the term "free," because the organization is effectively creating an acceptable use policy. This is just like EULAs on the user side for proprietary software. While proponents of the GPLv2 (such as myself) can see the necessary restrictions required to keep source code ubiquitous and free on the development side, forcing users to use that code in a certain ways (proposed by v3) is a definite restriction.
It's one of the universe's many ironies that freedom must be enforced.
Absolutely not. You can never tell a person: "I am forcing you to use your liberties! You are legally required to go out and protest!"
The best you can ever do is provide them with the opportunity to protest, and hope that they choose to use their liberties soundly.
What about a gun used solely in self-defense? Is that not an example of that exact same "oxymoron"?
If we allow people to use a firearm, we bestow upon them rights. If we require them to use firearms or purchase them, it is not a right, but a requirement. Requirements on the usage of freedom make something inherent un-free.
This is what I am referring to when I say that enforced freedom is an oxymoron. Freedom has no enforcement measure, because I can not force someone to use their rights in a certain way. They, and only they, can decide how to use their freedoms. If at any point someone is required to use a "freedom" in a certain way, it is not a freedom at all, but an obligation masquerading as a liberty.
Proprietary licenses believe you can only do what they specifically authorize you to do (emphasis added), and what they authorize really isn't a whole lot. If I were going to sling terms like "evil" around, I daresay the target wouldn't be any open-source license.
While the above post never referred to GPLv3 specifically, I think it made a good and interesting point. I will hijack this part for my own purposes:-)
Fundamentally, I think the poster's quote is one of the biggest arguments against the adoption of GPLv3.
GPL version 2 had no restrictions on what hardware was required upon which to run the software. The license merely required that all modifications to the software were contributed back to the original work. It did not care how you used the software, merely how you contributed back to the project.
Version 3, on the other hand, makes statements about how software is used. As far as I can tell, TiVo is one of the most predominant factors in spurring GPLv3. TiVo contributes their software back to the community, as can be seen right here. TiVo, however, runs their software on a DRM'ed box. Anybody can use TiVo's source code modifications in their own hardware projects if they so desire. The software is still just as free as if TiVo decided to run it on a non-DRM'ed box.
The FSF believes you can do anything you want with software except make it non-free This is what the FSF would like people to believe. However, it is inconsistent with what the FSF is actually doing in advocating GPLv3. GPLv2 ensured that all software remained free. The old license fully satisified that software remained "free," not just in price but in the availability of people to choose how to use it.
GPLv3, on the other hand, makes restrictions upon what kind of hardware-software interactions are allowable. Forcing people, corporations, or whomever to use freely available code in a certain way is contradictory to freedom. This is the argument for version 2 of the GPL. It is also the argument against DRM. Strangely enough, it is also the argument against GPLv3.
Enforcing freedom is an oxymoron. This however, is the logical extent of what RMS and people at the FSF are proposing with the adoption of GPLv3, forcing people to run their software on certain hardware. In the words of the poster, the FSF acting exactly like proprietary vendors in limiting the scope of their software to what they "specifically authorize you to do."
But in the example you quote, what liberty is being removed? Anonymity? You don't have that when driving a car on a public road - you've already got a license plate that the boys in blue can check on at any point.
These are hardly the same. In your analogy, the license plate readers are like one lone cop watching cars at one lone streetlight.
However, the situation is more like this: one cop watches you at a streetlight. He records when you passed that streetlight and stores this information indefinitely. Thousands of other cops at thousands of other streetlights all decide to record that you passed by their respective streetlight, and then they collaborate, forming an itinerary of your trip and your whereabouts. They then engage in storing that information for, once again, an indefinite period of time.
While I am not adverse to a single cop watching me in public, I would most definitely be aggravated if he followed me around town without probable cause. That's the stuff that restraining orders are made of.
I believe that the U.S. Constitution indicates best in how this is a violation of American Privacy Rights:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
--U.S. Constitution, Amendment IV
While this does not explicitly prohibit widespread government monitoring of the citizenry (something impossible in 1787), it certainly would imply it based upon the spirit of the document.
Companies with more tests or more invasitve tests will get less customers so free market will keep the abuses in check. If you don't want to submit to tests, you will probably have to get a different, more expensive policy, and that is to be expected.
A free market only works in the advent of significant and varied competition. Without those things, service will be almost identically terrible (see: Airlines, U.S.). The profit that is to be made from genetic discrimination will overwhelmingly help those who practice it, thereby forcing large institutional players to engage in the practice.
Despite this, your proposed market system here is still discriminatory. People, for no other reason than an insistence upon privacy, would have to pay higher rates. Forcing people to disclose their DNA in order to be insured is highly invasive and contradictory to basic civil liberties.
I would ask the submitter one question: do you believe that a person's level of service should be contigent upon the color of their skin?
I would hope the answer to that is a definite no. And yet, for quite a significant time period in U.S. history, blacks were denied service at most white institutions. Market mechanisms did not solve the problem. As gung-ho as I am about markets, their greatest strength is their greatest weakness: efficiency.
I would rather have an insurance culture that is slightly inefficient than one which is allowed to severely impact my life in the form of higher rates and invasive testing, all because of something which I had no choice in determing. There are some decisions that people make which I believe should be discriminated against: those involving individual choice. If a person decides to smoke, chronically drink, do drugs, etc., they should accept the consequences on their insurance rates. However, to say that a person should "accept the consequences" socially because their DNA is coded a certain way--that's probably the most unjust thing I've ever heard.
Insurance companies have to make a profit, sure. However, when profit matters above all else, civil liberties will go out the window.
I'm not pro or anti gun, but you simply can't go on a mass murdering spree like this with a knife or a bow and arrow.
But, sadly, a person can with common household products.
I as well am not trying to be controversial, I just hope we can all realize that hate is hate and that we should try to be mindful of all of the people involved, and all of the potential reasons for this tragedy as well. It's a terrible situation, but to say that this would or wouldn't have happened based upon just one factor (guns, video games, parents, self-esteem etc.) may not be the best thing we can do.
Again, I don't mean to be controversial. It just saddens me that in such a short time frame after a tragic event like this political factions are already taking advantage of it on the airwaves.
From her brief look into the topic (by her own admission), sunspot activity appeared to correlate better than CO2. She submitted a NSF proposal to study it further and was rejected on the grounds "the cause of global warming is well understood and further research is not warranted.'
This is an excellent comment. I received my B.S. degree in physics and have seen a great deal of legitimate data against humans as the predominant cause for global climate change. Much of the data is refuted by department chairs or the most zealous members of the physics department. Why? You ask. Because those people are the best at delivering funding. Physics, like many other scientific (read: non-engineering) fields, requires a great deal of government funding for research. Those that often receive funding are good at politics, both within the department and outside. Very much like CEOs are often the best at delivering sales or profits, without being the most expert on a subject.
These cycles show how small oscillations in some of the Earth's angular parameters impact radiation and hence temperature.
The chain of events is very clear: 1) astronomical variations -> 2) temperature change. Furthermore, the data from the insolation parameter correlates very well with the ice core data used as a CO2 proxy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok_420ky_4c urves_insolation.jpg.
The scientific community generally regards Milankovitch cycles as being in large part responsible for non-industrial era warming. Yet, when it comes to industrial era warming, proponents of human-caused global climate change say that CO2 emissions are driving temperature. This is a logical departure from the previous theory because it readjusts causality.
If from that above graph you believe that in ancient eras radiation drove temperature which drives CO2, then why the switch? Am I to believe that somehow in the modern era CO2 drives temperature which drives solar radiation levels incident at the Earth?
The sun is a massive fusion reactor 330,000 times the mass of earth. Even small fluctuations matter.
You can't advertise Twinkies as a cure for cancer if you make money selling Twinkies, and society is far better off for having restricted such fraudulent or deceptive speech.
The scenario you have here is already firmly in-place in American culture. Infomercials constantly advertise for products which have absolutely no chance of doing what they claim (think magnetic therapy, etc.)
Some people buy it, but most don't. The problem with regulating what is 'fraudulent' is who determines 'truth.' In distinctly sociopolitical areas, ascribing 'truth' to a matter often boils down to asserting opinions.
Quite frankly, I think one of the greatest of American freedoms is the right to be wrong. When the government starts saying what is right and doesn't allow incorrect or controversial speech, I believe we will have entered a state of fascism.
I'd rather be 'wrong' and free than 'right' and have my decision chosen for me.
My first guess was that it's probably generating 120 megawatt-hours per day, or what those of us who know physics would call "5 megawatts".
Um... no. I think they actually meant 120 megawatts. Because you see:
120 megawatts * 24 hours = 2880 megawatt-hours.
If the price of a megawatt-hour is about $35 dollars (we'll just use the median value of your estimate), then they are making $100 800 a day .
Multiply that by 365, and you get: $36 792 000 dollars a year.
Which means... that if they sell back 2/3 of the energy over the course of 20 years, they will make: $490 560 000 dollars (gross, in today's dollars)
Just FYI, some of us also "know physics" and can actually use Google calculator to make an estimate;)
You mention that we "don't understand gravity as well as we think we do," but last time I checked.... gravity doesn't REPEL objects.
The greatest evidence for "dark matter" comes not from an astrophysicist necessarily, but rather from scalar field theory in physics.
Using a very well known differential equation for cosmological inflation:
phi ddot + 3H phi dot + V' = 0
where H is the Hubble constant and the middle term refers to damping, we can see that our observable universe is... get this... negatively damped. If you go through calculations of the Energy-Momentum tensor for the system, the pressure holding the system in is exactly 1 times the negative of the energy density. In other words, the equation for this state mandates that there is a form of energy in the universe which has a negative equivalent gravitational effect.
Physicists pretty uniformly refer to this effect as "dark matter." There is credence given to it amongst the physics community because with simple field theory calculations of this sort, the entirety of Maxwell's E/M equations and all of classical Lagrangian mechanics can be derived fairly easily on a page or two. Dirac derived relativistic quantum field theory from this as well. So, seeing as the most fundamental branches of physics: classical (E/M), relativity, and QFT are a stone's throw from one another in this formalism, people take it seriously.
Also, if you do a very simple observation of fluid dynamics on rotating disc-like galaxies, you will find the equations yield the entirely wrong answer. For:
del . (del p / rho) = del (omega^2 r rhat) - del^2 U
where p is pressure, rho is mass density, omega is angular velocity, r is radius from the center of the rotating frame, and U is gravitational attractive energy. This yields very bad results and since the data we can collect is quite accurate, as well as the terms in the model being about as general as they come, it is a powerful indicator of something wrong, something which an attractive force (e.g. gravity) can't account for in the cosmological equation of state.
Slashdot Mirror
but it's already happening...
was a bipartisan bill, as one of the co-sponsors, Sen Snowe, Olympia J. [ME], is a member of the GOP.
Olympia Snowe votes with Democrats more than Republicans. She was one of the only three Republicans in the Senate and House that voted on the $787 billion spending bill. One of those "Republicans," Arlen Specter, is now a Democrat.
Here is a visualization which performs an energy minimization mapping to group politicians by their voting record.
You can clearly see where Olympia Snowe votes in relation to the two parties. Saying this bill is bi-partisan is a more than a bit of a stretch.
Actually seeing as churches are tax exempt for property taxes and income taxes and often sit on prime real-estate while pocketing millions of dollars I would say that they do quite well for themselves.
The issue isn't about the money, but I agree with the hypocrisy of the tax exemption situation. The issue is that we have concocted this monolith known as public education. Since there is no diversity of choice, people will inevitably fight for control of the monolith. Anyone who doesn't think that people should bring up issues important to them in this public situation is effectively saying--"Hey, we're happy to take your money, but not for you to have representation. Sit down and shut up."
Let's just imagine that instead of corporations, we had "The Public Company System" that was supported by tax dollars. Inevitably, people are going to fight for what the system should produce. Instead of allowing people to produce whatever they want, we'll have this one company produce some relative percentage of every good we need.
This leads to your statement about equal time for Wiccan beliefs. I don't know if you're trying to create some reductio ad absurdum, but I really think it backfires. Why should everyone be represented minimally in one system, when they can be represented totally in another?
Why should we force people to live the "average," or "equal time" belief system, when we could just let them live their own? Public education forces this living-the-average scenario.
Name one case where a scientist has seriously demanded that any church give equal time to preaching evolution!
Name one church that has ever argued that they're entitled to $5000-$7000 a year per school child by governmental force.
The issue here is freedom, and the cause of this problem is compulsory public education. To everyone who exclaims "but they shouldn't be able to teach that in public school," I would ask why you believe in forcing people to monetarily support an institution they don't believe in.
That's a lot more intense moralizing than the creationists. Really, whose system here is more practically malicious?
Seriously, do you *not* believe that the threat of punishment is an effective deterrent for piracy in the first place?
If you knew that EA would send you to prison for a while or fine you thousands of dollars for placing a game on the pirate bay, would you still do it?
Punishment is a very effective deterrent, and anyone who doesn't believe that should question why we have laws in the first place. Having laws against murder doesn't deter murder--threat of punishment does.
To get to the other
You can also force others to not infringe on the freedom of others. Totally agree. The issue here is what exactly are the freedoms which TiVo is infringing? My question applies for both for users and developers. TiVo has released all of their source code under GPLv2. If I made a proprietary toaster that ran a customized GNU/Linux distribution (like the infamous NetBSD toaster), would I be required to give you a schematic of the toaster? I think its perfectly reasonable that someone else would have to build their own toaster and apply the necessary thought to take my GPL'ed software and couple it with their hardware. Some (many) people disagree with this. Furthermore, there is confusion of terminology in the old license. The new license is supposed to "fix" this, however many people do not believe it to be a problem.
Richard Stallman and the FSF are pushing for open software on open hardware, as a condition to fix a "loophole" in the GPLv2. Last time I checked though, it was the Free Software Foundation, not the Free Hardware Foundation. I do understand that certain people may decide that they wish their software to be "free"--in the sense of openness--on open hardware. That is fine and with a new GPLv3 their wishes can be made known and abided by. The real issue here is that this is an additional restriction upon acceptable usage, and there is considerable debate whether or not a foray into the hardware spectrum is necessary to keep software "free" and "open."
From my observations, many people are objecting to the FSF monopolization of the term "free," because the organization is effectively creating an acceptable use policy. This is just like EULAs on the user side for proprietary software. While proponents of the GPLv2 (such as myself) can see the necessary restrictions required to keep source code ubiquitous and free on the development side, forcing users to use that code in a certain ways (proposed by v3) is a definite restriction.
Absolutely not. You can never tell a person: "I am forcing you to use your liberties! You are legally required to go out and protest!" The best you can ever do is provide them with the opportunity to protest, and hope that they choose to use their liberties soundly.
What about a gun used solely in self-defense? Is that not an example of that exact same "oxymoron"?
If we allow people to use a firearm, we bestow upon them rights. If we require them to use firearms or purchase them, it is not a right, but a requirement. Requirements on the usage of freedom make something inherent un-free.
This is what I am referring to when I say that enforced freedom is an oxymoron. Freedom has no enforcement measure, because I can not force someone to use their rights in a certain way. They, and only they, can decide how to use their freedoms. If at any point someone is required to use a "freedom" in a certain way, it is not a freedom at all, but an obligation masquerading as a liberty.
While the above post never referred to GPLv3 specifically, I think it made a good and interesting point. I will hijack this part for my own purposes
Fundamentally, I think the poster's quote is one of the biggest arguments against the adoption of GPLv3.
GPL version 2 had no restrictions on what hardware was required upon which to run the software. The license merely required that all modifications to the software were contributed back to the original work. It did not care how you used the software, merely how you contributed back to the project.
Version 3, on the other hand, makes statements about how software is used. As far as I can tell, TiVo is one of the most predominant factors in spurring GPLv3. TiVo contributes their software back to the community, as can be seen right here. TiVo, however, runs their software on a DRM'ed box. Anybody can use TiVo's source code modifications in their own hardware projects if they so desire. The software is still just as free as if TiVo decided to run it on a non-DRM'ed box.
The FSF believes you can do anything you want with software except make it non-free This is what the FSF would like people to believe. However, it is inconsistent with what the FSF is actually doing in advocating GPLv3. GPLv2 ensured that all software remained free. The old license fully satisified that software remained "free," not just in price but in the availability of people to choose how to use it.
GPLv3, on the other hand, makes restrictions upon what kind of hardware-software interactions are allowable. Forcing people, corporations, or whomever to use freely available code in a certain way is contradictory to freedom. This is the argument for version 2 of the GPL. It is also the argument against DRM. Strangely enough, it is also the argument against GPLv3.
Enforcing freedom is an oxymoron. This however, is the logical extent of what RMS and people at the FSF are proposing with the adoption of GPLv3, forcing people to run their software on certain hardware. In the words of the poster, the FSF acting exactly like proprietary vendors in limiting the scope of their software to what they "specifically authorize you to do."
These are hardly the same. In your analogy, the license plate readers are like one lone cop watching cars at one lone streetlight.
However, the situation is more like this: one cop watches you at a streetlight. He records when you passed that streetlight and stores this information indefinitely. Thousands of other cops at thousands of other streetlights all decide to record that you passed by their respective streetlight, and then they collaborate, forming an itinerary of your trip and your whereabouts. They then engage in storing that information for, once again, an indefinite period of time.
While I am not adverse to a single cop watching me in public, I would most definitely be aggravated if he followed me around town without probable cause. That's the stuff that restraining orders are made of. I believe that the U.S. Constitution indicates best in how this is a violation of American Privacy Rights:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. --U.S. Constitution, Amendment IV
While this does not explicitly prohibit widespread government monitoring of the citizenry (something impossible in 1787), it certainly would imply it based upon the spirit of the document.
It is not without precedent.
A free market only works in the advent of significant and varied competition. Without those things, service will be almost identically terrible (see: Airlines, U.S.). The profit that is to be made from genetic discrimination will overwhelmingly help those who practice it, thereby forcing large institutional players to engage in the practice.
Despite this, your proposed market system here is still discriminatory. People, for no other reason than an insistence upon privacy, would have to pay higher rates. Forcing people to disclose their DNA in order to be insured is highly invasive and contradictory to basic civil liberties.
I would ask the submitter one question: do you believe that a person's level of service should be contigent upon the color of their skin?
I would hope the answer to that is a definite no. And yet, for quite a significant time period in U.S. history, blacks were denied service at most white institutions. Market mechanisms did not solve the problem. As gung-ho as I am about markets, their greatest strength is their greatest weakness: efficiency.
I would rather have an insurance culture that is slightly inefficient than one which is allowed to severely impact my life in the form of higher rates and invasive testing, all because of something which I had no choice in determing. There are some decisions that people make which I believe should be discriminated against: those involving individual choice. If a person decides to smoke, chronically drink, do drugs, etc., they should accept the consequences on their insurance rates. However, to say that a person should "accept the consequences" socially because their DNA is coded a certain way--that's probably the most unjust thing I've ever heard.
Insurance companies have to make a profit, sure. However, when profit matters above all else, civil liberties will go out the window.
But, sadly, a person can with common household products.
I as well am not trying to be controversial, I just hope we can all realize that hate is hate and that we should try to be mindful of all of the people involved, and all of the potential reasons for this tragedy as well. It's a terrible situation, but to say that this would or wouldn't have happened based upon just one factor (guns, video games, parents, self-esteem etc.) may not be the best thing we can do.
Again, I don't mean to be controversial. It just saddens me that in such a short time frame after a tragic event like this political factions are already taking advantage of it on the airwaves.
This is an excellent comment. I received my B.S. degree in physics and have seen a great deal of legitimate data against humans as the predominant cause for global climate change. Much of the data is refuted by department chairs or the most zealous members of the physics department. Why? You ask. Because those people are the best at delivering funding. Physics, like many other scientific (read: non-engineering) fields, requires a great deal of government funding for research. Those that often receive funding are good at politics, both within the department and outside. Very much like CEOs are often the best at delivering sales or profits, without being the most expert on a subject.
To dispense with my ad-hominem argument, I would suggest any interested party to look into Milankovitch cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles.
These cycles show how small oscillations in some of the Earth's angular parameters impact radiation and hence temperature.
The chain of events is very clear: 1) astronomical variations -> 2) temperature change. Furthermore, the data from the insolation parameter correlates very well with the ice core data used as a CO2 proxy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok_420ky_4
The scientific community generally regards Milankovitch cycles as being in large part responsible for non-industrial era warming. Yet, when it comes to industrial era warming, proponents of human-caused global climate change say that CO2 emissions are driving temperature. This is a logical departure from the previous theory because it readjusts causality.
If from that above graph you believe that in ancient eras radiation drove temperature which drives CO2, then why the switch? Am I to believe that somehow in the modern era CO2 drives temperature which drives solar radiation levels incident at the Earth?
The sun is a massive fusion reactor 330,000 times the mass of earth. Even small fluctuations matter.
When incandescent lightbulbs are outlawed... only outlaws will have incandescent lightbulbs.
You can't advertise Twinkies as a cure for cancer if you make money selling Twinkies, and society is far better off for having restricted such fraudulent or deceptive speech.
The scenario you have here is already firmly in-place in American culture. Infomercials constantly advertise for products which have absolutely no chance of doing what they claim (think magnetic therapy, etc.)
Some people buy it, but most don't. The problem with regulating what is 'fraudulent' is who determines 'truth.' In distinctly sociopolitical areas, ascribing 'truth' to a matter often boils down to asserting opinions.
Quite frankly, I think one of the greatest of American freedoms is the right to be wrong. When the government starts saying what is right and doesn't allow incorrect or controversial speech, I believe we will have entered a state of fascism.
I'd rather be 'wrong' and free than 'right' and have my decision chosen for me.
Um... no. I think they actually meant 120 megawatts. Because you see:
120 megawatts * 24 hours = 2880 megawatt-hours.
If the price of a megawatt-hour is about $35 dollars (we'll just use the median value of your estimate), then they are making $100 800 a day .
Multiply that by 365, and you get: $36 792 000 dollars a year.
Which means... that if they sell back 2/3 of the energy over the course of 20 years, they will make: $490 560 000 dollars (gross, in today's dollars)
Just FYI, some of us also "know physics" and can actually use Google calculator to make an estimate
You mention that we "don't understand gravity as well as we think we do," but last time I checked.... gravity doesn't REPEL objects.
... get this... negatively damped. If you go through calculations of the Energy-Momentum tensor for the system, the pressure holding the system in is exactly 1 times the negative of the energy density. In other words, the equation for this state mandates that there is a form of energy in the universe which has a negative equivalent gravitational effect.
The greatest evidence for "dark matter" comes not from an astrophysicist necessarily, but rather from scalar field theory in physics.
Using a very well known differential equation for cosmological inflation:
phi ddot + 3H phi dot + V' = 0
where H is the Hubble constant and the middle term refers to damping, we can see that our observable universe is
Physicists pretty uniformly refer to this effect as "dark matter." There is credence given to it amongst the physics community because with simple field theory calculations of this sort, the entirety of Maxwell's E/M equations and all of classical Lagrangian mechanics can be derived fairly easily on a page or two. Dirac derived relativistic quantum field theory from this as well. So, seeing as the most fundamental branches of physics: classical (E/M), relativity, and QFT are a stone's throw from one another in this formalism, people take it seriously. Also, if you do a very simple observation of fluid dynamics on rotating disc-like galaxies, you will find the equations yield the entirely wrong answer. For:
del . (del p / rho) = del (omega^2 r rhat) - del^2 U
where p is pressure, rho is mass density, omega is angular velocity, r is radius from the center of the rotating frame, and U is gravitational attractive energy. This yields very bad results and since the data we can collect is quite accurate, as well as the terms in the model being about as general as they come, it is a powerful indicator of something wrong, something which an attractive force (e.g. gravity) can't account for in the cosmological equation of state.