And the swing states continue to get hit by natural disasters, proving...what, exactly?
While you ponder this question, you can read the shocking(ly boring) truth about who this St. Helens actually was here.
I'm VERY sympathetic to your claims here, but I keep on seeing another side to this story: I'm constantly bombarded by family members and friends wanting help with incredibly simple computer-maintenance and use tasks like changing the home page on their browser or posting digital pictures on a web page.
I always end up wishing that they WOULD just start pressing buttons and fooling around with settings, if only so they'd have some idea what their computers could and could not do. As it is, most of them are so afraid of "erasing their computers" or "blowing up the internet" that the idea of consulting a manual or even just playing around until they figure out how to get things working terrifies them, and they want someone they view as more tech-savvy to hold their hands every time they try anything beyond replying to an e-mail.
The problem isn't just that clueless users create security problems for everybody else, it's that the products that clueless users are most likely to have don't arrive on their desks adequately set up to keep clueless users from causing problems for themselves and others, and these same clueless users have been frightened out of trying to fix the problems on their own.
Actually, you'd usually expect the OPPOSITE result in a case like this. The "collective action problem" (which you might remember from a college class in economics or political science) suggests that when there are lots of voters with a slight preference for a change and a small industry with a powerful interest in opposing change, you should expect to see...no change.
The reason is that each voter essentially thinks "why should I spend time or money lobbying my legislator for policy change when everyone else will just free ride off my effort", and so nobody does anything about it.
This kind of analysis has been applied to just about every policy area. One example that would seem to counter the analysis in your post comes from trade protection (viz the Bush administration's adding to the tariffs on steel despite free trade rhetoric and note that the conditions described in your post are present as well).
Obviously the case of the do-not-call list was different (yes!), presumably because so many people felt so intensely that change was overdue.
I posted a more in depth explanation on this on an earlier thread, but you should note that this language only authorizes the spending. The actual money isn't released until appropriators (who serve on a completely different committee than the one that will consider this bill if indeed that happens) decide to spend these sums.
Furthermore, for the most part, appropriations are done on an annual basis, so one year's funding doesn't guarantee the next.
The bill does indeed discuss funding, but as the parent of this thread correctly pointed out, this is an authorization bill, which basically serves to allow spending, not an appropriations bill, which actually sends the money to NASA for spending. If this sounds confusing, you can find a pretty good explanation of the budget process here.
That being said, authorization bills like this one provide a context for government projects and serve to add some pressure on Congressional appropriators to actually spend the money. And for the most part, projects are authorized before they can be or are funded, so it doesn't make much sense to condemn the bill as so much rhetoric.
THAT being said, don't hold your breath for this bill even being taken up at the subcommittee level, let alone signed into law, since the sponsor is a fairly junior member of the committee, and a minority (i.e. Democratic) party Representative to boot.
Somehow this article seems more like a "first!" post than a news story. The actual post on yetanotherblog.com is no longer than the story teaser that Slashdot has posted. And the links (as reported) don't actually go anywhere particularly interesting.
You know, reading your post, I have to say I agree with you that I hope never to have such a straitened existence and hope I'll have the courage to end my life if I end up in such a situation.
But having a grandmother who is extremely frail and ill, and seeing the incredible amount of pain my grandfather (her husband) suffers when they discuss assisted suicide and the like, I've gotten a little more skeptical about the idea that things are quite as simple and individual-centered as you paint them. I don't know that exoskeleton technology is the best possible answer, but there's usually more to the story than the sort of "irrational" behavior you describe.
[WARNING: OFF-TOPIC] I also wondered, after reading your familiar eskimo story, was whether it is in fact just a myth (even if it sounds like it should be true and has a nice moral). I couldn't find any really good "silver bullet" sources on this, but if you have access to the Journal of the American Medical Association through some institution you're affiliated with (or your local library), you might want to look at Vol. 286 No. 8, August 22, 2001 for a piece that throws the idea that Inuit elders actually commit this kind of suicide into doubt.
I realize this is incredibly off topic, but does anyone know whether this is true or a myth?
Hi. I imagine that you and I probably agree about the insipid quality of the post you're replying to. But I would like to point out that actually, New Zealand is not under the ozone hole. (I assume from your user name that you're a New Zealander, if possibly a mythological one).
Don't believe me? Check out http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/polar/polar.html where there is plenty of information explaining where when and how the ozone hole exists. In case you're in a hurry:
* There is still an ozone hole. It opens up every year over Antarctica, generally from August through December, then closes back up.
* This year's (2002) hole was the smallest in 20 years. At no point has the ozone hole ever opened up directly over New Zealand. However, the proximity of the hole means that UV levels have been higher in recent years than in the mid 20th Century and probably before. Unfortunately, NZ's relatively clean air also means that fewer UV rays get dispersed in the atmosphere so sunburn rates are higher here than in dirtier regions similarly afflicted (mostly Chile).
* Lest we (or more accurately, I) get too excited, it's probably fair to note that 2001's hole was abnormally large, so it's hard to point to a downward size trend evident in the hole itself.
* On the other hand, the chemicals responsible for the ozone hole, CFCs, have been phased out to such a degree (because of the 1987 Montreal Protocol), that the stock of CFCs in the atmosphere has peaked and the scientific consensus is that the annual ozone hole will disappear entirely within 25-50 years. See what happens when you design an environmental treaty well enough that even Ronald Reagan signs it?
* This is such good news that there is no mention of it on the Sierra Club's website (a search of which yields no references to the ozone layer since 1996), nor on Greenpeace's "Ozone Crisis" site, which hasn't been updated, according to the HTML source, since September 1997. By the way, the Greenpeace site declares that the Montreal Protocol is a total failure and each annual report from 1992 to 1997 explains why CFC accumulations should continue to accelerate in the future. By 1997 the report begins to focus mainly on worries about volcano eruptions.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that despite its dangerously-clean air, New Zealand has some of the lax
est environmental rules in the developed world, beating out even the US in some categories. Thus while NZ is indeed nuclear-free, unlike, say, Boston, recycling in Wellington is a chore, not an easily-accomplished civic duty.
Slashdot Mirror
And the swing states continue to get hit by natural disasters, proving...what, exactly? While you ponder this question, you can read the shocking(ly boring) truth about who this St. Helens actually was here.
Yeah, it's true: I've noticed that now all the little kids want to be remote-controlled cars when they grow up.
I always end up wishing that they WOULD just start pressing buttons and fooling around with settings, if only so they'd have some idea what their computers could and could not do. As it is, most of them are so afraid of "erasing their computers" or "blowing up the internet" that the idea of consulting a manual or even just playing around until they figure out how to get things working terrifies them, and they want someone they view as more tech-savvy to hold their hands every time they try anything beyond replying to an e-mail.
The problem isn't just that clueless users create security problems for everybody else, it's that the products that clueless users are most likely to have don't arrive on their desks adequately set up to keep clueless users from causing problems for themselves and others, and these same clueless users have been frightened out of trying to fix the problems on their own.
The reason is that each voter essentially thinks "why should I spend time or money lobbying my legislator for policy change when everyone else will just free ride off my effort", and so nobody does anything about it.
This kind of analysis has been applied to just about every policy area. One example that would seem to counter the analysis in your post comes from trade protection (viz the Bush administration's adding to the tariffs on steel despite free trade rhetoric and note that the conditions described in your post are present as well).
Obviously the case of the do-not-call list was different (yes!), presumably because so many people felt so intensely that change was overdue.
Furthermore, for the most part, appropriations are done on an annual basis, so one year's funding doesn't guarantee the next.
That being said, authorization bills like this one provide a context for government projects and serve to add some pressure on Congressional appropriators to actually spend the money. And for the most part, projects are authorized before they can be or are funded, so it doesn't make much sense to condemn the bill as so much rhetoric.
THAT being said, don't hold your breath for this bill even being taken up at the subcommittee level, let alone signed into law, since the sponsor is a fairly junior member of the committee, and a minority (i.e. Democratic) party Representative to boot.
Remember: patience is a virtue.
But having a grandmother who is extremely frail and ill, and seeing the incredible amount of pain my grandfather (her husband) suffers when they discuss assisted suicide and the like, I've gotten a little more skeptical about the idea that things are quite as simple and individual-centered as you paint them. I don't know that exoskeleton technology is the best possible answer, but there's usually more to the story than the sort of "irrational" behavior you describe.
[WARNING: OFF-TOPIC] I also wondered, after reading your familiar eskimo story, was whether it is in fact just a myth (even if it sounds like it should be true and has a nice moral). I couldn't find any really good "silver bullet" sources on this, but if you have access to the Journal of the American Medical Association through some institution you're affiliated with (or your local library), you might want to look at Vol. 286 No. 8, August 22, 2001 for a piece that throws the idea that Inuit elders actually commit this kind of suicide into doubt.
I realize this is incredibly off topic, but does anyone know whether this is true or a myth?
Don't believe me? Check out http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere /polar/polar.html where there is plenty of information explaining where when and how the ozone hole exists. In case you're in a hurry:
* There is still an ozone hole. It opens up every year over Antarctica, generally from August through December, then closes back up.
* This year's (2002) hole was the smallest in 20 years. At no point has the ozone hole ever opened up directly over New Zealand. However, the proximity of the hole means that UV levels have been higher in recent years than in the mid 20th Century and probably before. Unfortunately, NZ's relatively clean air also means that fewer UV rays get dispersed in the atmosphere so sunburn rates are higher here than in dirtier regions similarly afflicted (mostly Chile).
* Lest we (or more accurately, I) get too excited, it's probably fair to note that 2001's hole was abnormally large, so it's hard to point to a downward size trend evident in the hole itself.
* On the other hand, the chemicals responsible for the ozone hole, CFCs, have been phased out to such a degree (because of the 1987 Montreal Protocol), that the stock of CFCs in the atmosphere has peaked and the scientific consensus is that the annual ozone hole will disappear entirely within 25-50 years. See what happens when you design an environmental treaty well enough that even Ronald Reagan signs it?
* This is such good news that there is no mention of it on the Sierra Club's website (a search of which yields no references to the ozone layer since 1996), nor on Greenpeace's "Ozone Crisis" site, which hasn't been updated, according to the HTML source, since September 1997. By the way, the Greenpeace site declares that the Montreal Protocol is a total failure and each annual report from 1992 to 1997 explains why CFC accumulations should continue to accelerate in the future. By 1997 the report begins to focus mainly on worries about volcano eruptions.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that despite its dangerously-clean air, New Zealand has some of the lax est environmental rules in the developed world, beating out even the US in some categories. Thus while NZ is indeed nuclear-free, unlike, say, Boston, recycling in Wellington is a chore, not an easily-accomplished civic duty.