I'm obviously talking bout Ray Bradbury here. No idea why I'm posting this in response to Kurt Vonnegut. Maybe Kurt Vonnegut is indeed under appreciated.
Which he signed the Executive Order closing his first day in office. Problem is, the President is not an almighty dictator (this is not really a problem, it's a good thing), and can't really do a whole lot without Congressional funding or approval. Congress refused to fund the closing of the prison or authorize the transfer of the prisoners to the US, or anywhere, really.
Why do they need to be locked up at all? Have they been charged with anything? Then give them a trial. If convicted, they can go to a normal prison. If not convicted, they should be released. It's really that simple.
Also, if they can't be convicted, I kinda think they deserve some compensation for the years of torture and imprisonment.
And it's debt because it wasn't taxed. The Bush tax cuts are a significant part of that debt. Another part is of course the bank bailouts. And of course the wars. Didn't Haliburton and similar companies profit from those?
So basically Bush and Obama (mostly Bush, but Obama didn't really do much to change it) are ruining the state in order to subsidize the rich and the corporations. And why? Because all politicians are in the pockets of the corporations. All of them. Whereas the bankrupt state technically belongs to the people (though you hardly notice that nowadays). So it's a reverse Robin Hood: steal from the poor and give to the rich.
And there's nothing about Romney that suggests he'd be any different. In all likelihood he'll be much worse.
That's why approval voting would be so much better. You can vote for everybody you find acceptable. You can vote for the lesser evil as well as all the better candidates. Or if you think the lesser evil is too evil, you only vote for the better candidates. People can suddenly afford to vote for third party candidates, and if enough people do, one of them might make it. And otherwise you can still get the lesser evil.
That's definitely a problem. In order to fix that, you'd really need to replace first-past-the-post with approval voting, and remove all corporate money from the elections.
How is Obama making the state rich? The state is poorer than ever.
And while Obama's accomplishments are definitely disappointing, Romney is far worse. He embodies everything that's wrong with the economy, and he's the ultimate flip flopper. No idea what he's really going to do, because there's no way we can believe anything he says. We do know he intends to subsidize the rich and tax the middle class, whereas Obama wants to do the reverse. If you want to fix the economy, then Romney is easily the worst guy to vote for.
It's be nice if there were better choices than these two, but of these two, there's no doubt that Obama is the lesser evil.
Is he under appreciated? I thought he was widely accepted to be the greatest scifi writer in history. At least by this lady. What more appreciation do you need?
Oh absolutely. Predicting local weather is unbelievably hard, and distinguishing exact causes of individual instances of weather is practically impossible. This reminds me of a situation with a nuclear power plant that had a higher number of cancer deaths in its vicinity. Those deaths happen normally too, just not quite as much. So there was no individual case where you could state that it was caused by the presence of the nuclear power plan, but it was very likely that the plant had to be the cause of some of them.
As for climate models, actual real climate is influenced by millions of factors. The greenhouse effect is definitely an important factor, but not remotely the only one. Predicting that average global temperatures go up is easy. Predicting that that will melt ice caps isn't that hard either. But predicting where it will cause more (or less!) tornados, rain or draught, is practically impossible.
I'm not sure what the current state of the art is, but I'm sure more work is needed.
In Netherland the last couple of days have seen the most bizarre weather I've ever seen: hot sun shine alternated by short bursts of pouring rain, changing every couple of minutes. Never seen anything like it.
I'm confused. Isn't it the left that generally wants to invest in and stimulate the science and engineering to give us cheap and reliable sources of green energy? Does that make them statist, or is that what you want? It's actually the results from global agreements between mostly authoritarian conservative national leaders that result in more statism.
Absolutely. Everybody who doesn't cut backs much as possible on his fossil energy use carries blame for this.
That said, Europe also definitely has its share of conservatives who are not so eager to do anything about this. They're generally not denying the facts as loudly as US Republicans do, but they also don't consider it something that they need to worry about. As if they're hoping it'll go away if they just focus on other problems.
Do you realize that the underlying theory, the greenhouse effect, goes back 100 years? Global warming is not a new idea. 50 years ago there were people predicting that extra CO2 would cause temperature to rise. In the last 2 decades, we've seen the start of that, and it fits the theory quite well. Of course the earth is an incredibly complex thing, and there are millions of factors that also have some impact, but the foundation is pretty solid.
Considering that we know that CO2 traps heat, and we know that CO2 levels have gone up, and we know that global temperature has gone up, you need to come up with a really solid alternative explanation if you want to flat out deny a causal relationship between these facts.
I don't give credit card numbers to pizza boys. I give them cash. Or I pay with iDeal, a Dutch internet payment system that's actually secure, unlike all that credit card crap.
Really, rest of the world, you guys need to implement iDeal so I can use it for international payments. The only reason I have a credit card at all is because it's the only way to buy stuff online from non-Dutch sites. Steam uses iDeal. Once everybody else does too, we can finally get rid of those stupid credit cards.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. This extremely short-term speculation makes the market too volatile and unreliable.
I'm obviously talking bout Ray Bradbury here. No idea why I'm posting this in response to Kurt Vonnegut. Maybe Kurt Vonnegut is indeed under appreciated.
he also said he was going to end gitmo,
Which he signed the Executive Order closing his first day in office. Problem is, the President is not an almighty dictator (this is not really a problem, it's a good thing), and can't really do a whole lot without Congressional funding or approval. Congress refused to fund the closing of the prison or authorize the transfer of the prisoners to the US, or anywhere, really.
Why do they need to be locked up at all? Have they been charged with anything? Then give them a trial. If convicted, they can go to a normal prison. If not convicted, they should be released. It's really that simple.
Also, if they can't be convicted, I kinda think they deserve some compensation for the years of torture and imprisonment.
And it's debt because it wasn't taxed. The Bush tax cuts are a significant part of that debt. Another part is of course the bank bailouts. And of course the wars. Didn't Haliburton and similar companies profit from those?
So basically Bush and Obama (mostly Bush, but Obama didn't really do much to change it) are ruining the state in order to subsidize the rich and the corporations. And why? Because all politicians are in the pockets of the corporations. All of them. Whereas the bankrupt state technically belongs to the people (though you hardly notice that nowadays). So it's a reverse Robin Hood: steal from the poor and give to the rich.
And there's nothing about Romney that suggests he'd be any different. In all likelihood he'll be much worse.
That's why approval voting would be so much better. You can vote for everybody you find acceptable. You can vote for the lesser evil as well as all the better candidates. Or if you think the lesser evil is too evil, you only vote for the better candidates. People can suddenly afford to vote for third party candidates, and if enough people do, one of them might make it. And otherwise you can still get the lesser evil.
So Obama proposed Romneycare, and Romney is against it? Sounds very typical for both of them.
That's definitely a problem. In order to fix that, you'd really need to replace first-past-the-post with approval voting, and remove all corporate money from the elections.
Getting what they want is not necessarily a good thing when what they want is war, reduced civil rights, cronyism and poverty.
As for Obama, didn't he get his health care plan? That's a pretty big deal. I just wish he also wanted to reinstate decent civil rights.
So Obama's campaign has been caught with a lie? Has Romney been caught with a truth yet?
How is Obama making the state rich? The state is poorer than ever.
And while Obama's accomplishments are definitely disappointing, Romney is far worse. He embodies everything that's wrong with the economy, and he's the ultimate flip flopper. No idea what he's really going to do, because there's no way we can believe anything he says. We do know he intends to subsidize the rich and tax the middle class, whereas Obama wants to do the reverse. If you want to fix the economy, then Romney is easily the worst guy to vote for.
It's be nice if there were better choices than these two, but of these two, there's no doubt that Obama is the lesser evil.
Is he under appreciated? I thought he was widely accepted to be the greatest scifi writer in history. At least by this lady. What more appreciation do you need?
Yeah, what about 1984? It used to be merely depressing SF. Now it's all the more depressing because we actually live in that world.
Exactly. I remember my parents used them in my youth, back in the '80s. I think checks died at the start of the '90s.
I'm not! I can stop anytime I want.
I think we did have some hail a month ago.
So why am I getting an Icelandic spring in my Dutch summer?
Oh absolutely. Predicting local weather is unbelievably hard, and distinguishing exact causes of individual instances of weather is practically impossible. This reminds me of a situation with a nuclear power plant that had a higher number of cancer deaths in its vicinity. Those deaths happen normally too, just not quite as much. So there was no individual case where you could state that it was caused by the presence of the nuclear power plan, but it was very likely that the plant had to be the cause of some of them.
As for climate models, actual real climate is influenced by millions of factors. The greenhouse effect is definitely an important factor, but not remotely the only one. Predicting that average global temperatures go up is easy. Predicting that that will melt ice caps isn't that hard either. But predicting where it will cause more (or less!) tornados, rain or draught, is practically impossible.
I'm not sure what the current state of the art is, but I'm sure more work is needed.
I've never had the impression I was alone on the planet. There are too many counter examples everywhere.
In Netherland the last couple of days have seen the most bizarre weather I've ever seen: hot sun shine alternated by short bursts of pouring rain, changing every couple of minutes. Never seen anything like it.
I'm confused. Isn't it the left that generally wants to invest in and stimulate the science and engineering to give us cheap and reliable sources of green energy? Does that make them statist, or is that what you want? It's actually the results from global agreements between mostly authoritarian conservative national leaders that result in more statism.
Absolutely. Everybody who doesn't cut backs much as possible on his fossil energy use carries blame for this.
That said, Europe also definitely has its share of conservatives who are not so eager to do anything about this. They're generally not denying the facts as loudly as US Republicans do, but they also don't consider it something that they need to worry about. As if they're hoping it'll go away if they just focus on other problems.
Do you know the difference between averages and extremes?
Do you realize that the underlying theory, the greenhouse effect, goes back 100 years? Global warming is not a new idea. 50 years ago there were people predicting that extra CO2 would cause temperature to rise. In the last 2 decades, we've seen the start of that, and it fits the theory quite well. Of course the earth is an incredibly complex thing, and there are millions of factors that also have some impact, but the foundation is pretty solid.
Considering that we know that CO2 traps heat, and we know that CO2 levels have gone up, and we know that global temperature has gone up, you need to come up with a really solid alternative explanation if you want to flat out deny a causal relationship between these facts.
Credit cards themselves are of course woefully insecure. We need a better payment system.
I don't give credit card numbers to pizza boys. I give them cash. Or I pay with iDeal, a Dutch internet payment system that's actually secure, unlike all that credit card crap.
Really, rest of the world, you guys need to implement iDeal so I can use it for international payments. The only reason I have a credit card at all is because it's the only way to buy stuff online from non-Dutch sites. Steam uses iDeal. Once everybody else does too, we can finally get rid of those stupid credit cards.
Then you should be happy with CD Project Red's latest project. Talsorian's Cyberpunk.