If you want something visionary, how about supporting large scale consumer adoption of small regional airports and new, small advanced planes...
It's like the dream of the flying car but with practicality behind it and yields a lot more flexibility.
OK, you've totally convinced me with that "dream of the flying car."
Actually, not so much. I don't want a "visionary" boondoggle. I want infrastructure that works.
How about instead supporting an off-the-shelf system that already works and has been successful in every country that has adopted it, even countries as developed as the USA who have built it recently?
The new empirical results reported here provide no support for a net deterrent effect from widespread gun ownership. Rather, our analysis concludes that residential burglary rates tend to increase with community gun prevalence.
And Dyson would be rightly modded down as troll on Slashdot-- he's long on opinions and short on apparent expertise and data. He shouldn't even be giving interviews on climate much less feature articles.
I don't want to read arrogant physicists blathering about climatology any more than I want to see biologists bloviating on microkernel architecture.
However, interesting questions offered modestly are always welcome and modded as Interesting or Insightful.
Bush's Treasury and Fed were going to start throwing money around with or without the Democrats' involvement. Paulson and Bernanke were that panicked.
The bailout was bum rushed like the Afghan war. Technically, Congress could have stopped it if they wanted to. Practically, it happened so fast that the only people calling shots were in the Executive branch.
No. According to this article only 20% of the CDS contracts being written were actually insurance on securities one of the parties owned. i.e. buying fire insurance on your own house.
The other 80% were speculation on someone else's securities. i.e. buying fire insurance on Dresden, 1944. So it goes.
I think you've answered your question. Why should the ACLU lift a flying finger to protect the 2nd Amendment? The NRA has a laserlike focus on the 2nd, has more resources, and doesn't give a damn about the rest of the Bill of Rights.
They're actually very complementary organizations, but don't tell that to an NRA member, because he'll probably go for the rifle in his pickup's gun rack.
THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE RISK of human induced climate change.
That statement doesn't commit the IPCC to finding whether the probability is 0, 1 or anything between.
You can understand the risk of asteroid impact without thinking it will happen in the next 10 years. If you actually understand the risk of climate change, you're going to be very concerned about the next 10 years.
Obama is doing almost nothing about this bill, although I don't think he would veto it.
Individual Representatives and Senators, who are very concerned with elderly people who have nothing to do but watch TV and vote, are driving pretty much the whole thing.
that does not make the odds of an asteroid destroying the earth 1:50...as wrong as the person calculating the odds are, the odds are still going to be incredibly small.
That's because you're assuming a prior probability of asteroid impact, which you're probably estimating from observation (i.e. if you've lived 50 years with no asteroid strikes, that gives you an estimate of the upper bound of the prior).
These guys aren't saying you should disregard priors when you have them -- like with asteroids. But for the LHC, arguably there is no accurate prior because nothing in that energy range has ever been done before.
If you don't believe the consensus of scientists in the field, but are actually publishing sensible articles in science journals, and then you're a critic.
If you disbelieve scientists who are, individually and collectively, vastly better informed about every climate issue than you are because...you read something on the internet...then you're a denier.
Furthermore, "auto-centric" laws came as result of the mass adoption of automobiles by the public at large, not the other way around.
Yes, I'm sure GM, the largest corporation in the world had nothing to do with those efforts, just as it had nothing to do with the laws developing the interstate highway system or the destruction of the streetcar lines it purchased.
If you're so well informed about history, what makes you so confident about the simplistic causality? Have you been reading the libertarian equivalent of Howard Zinn?
What I don't understand is why is everyone so obsessed with CO2.
Because the net atmospheric concentration of CO2 has gone up 40% over the last century or so. That's a very significant change, and it's basically all due to human activity. In the laboratory, it is more than enough to cause significant greenhouse warming.
As for the rest of your argument:
"Although natural sources represent most CO2 emissions, they do not contribute to the recent observed increase in concentrations because natural sources are balanced by natural sinks that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The increase in carbon dioxide concentration arises because the increase from human activity is not completely balanced by a corresponding sink." -- USG via Wikipedia
If anything understanding climate is more difficult than the weather
You're making an invalid assumption. Many systems are easier to predict and understand on a large scale.
For example, if I boil a pot of water, I can easily predict how its overall temperature will increase. It's much harder -- impossible in fact -- to predict exactly where bubbles will nucleate.
Overall temperature = climate.
Location of the bubbles = weather.
Run their own phishing blacklist? Is that really a good use of their time?
Maybe they should sue Google, without any contract having been broken?
Or break into their data center and force them at gunpoint to turn the machines back on?
Mozilla should have gotten Google to contractually agree to keep the servers running through the end of life of Firefox 2, and they didn't, which is their screwup. But you're just conspiracymongering.
neither major party is committed in principle to individual freedom, including freedom of expression.
when Janet Reno was AG under Clinton, she warned the TV networks to clean up their shows, or the government would do it for them
OK, but I didn't see the Clinton FCC start any actual prosecutions of the TV networks, or hand down any million-dollar fines, like Bush's FCC did.
I agree that neither party is totally committed to freedom of expression. Neither party is committed to any absolutist principle, because parties are inherently compromises. That's why we have the ACLU (and the EFF and...)
But in practice, if you compare the Democrats and Republicans' ACLU scorecards, it's very clear that the Democrats are generally better for freedom of expression.
In a democracy, practical voting matters more than principle; you're the one making the error.
A professional should not react that way, slaughter or not.
So considering our government, media, military, and legal community's embarrassing kneejerk response to 9/11: Bush is OUR HERO! Muslims are scary! They could attack any minute! We must invade Iraq!...
There must not be a single professional in the US, except for dentists.
I think your definition is too restrictive. You're looking for the true Scotsman, and you're not going to find him.
Slashdot Mirror
If you want something visionary, how about supporting large scale consumer adoption of small regional airports and new, small advanced planes...
It's like the dream of the flying car but with practicality behind it and yields a lot more flexibility.
OK, you've totally convinced me with that "dream of the flying car."
Actually, not so much. I don't want a "visionary" boondoggle. I want infrastructure that works.
How about instead supporting an off-the-shelf system that already works and has been successful in every country that has adopted it, even countries as developed as the USA who have built it recently?
"Hot burglary"? Is that like a "hot cop"??
You link to some guy on a mailing list claiming that guns in the home decrease burglary rates, without any evidence.
But he's completely refuted by the next poster, blogger Tim Lambert, who brings evidence and an actual citation.
Or torched like the car owned by a paed...iatrician.
And Dyson would be rightly modded down as troll on Slashdot-- he's long on opinions and short on apparent expertise and data. He shouldn't even be giving interviews on climate much less feature articles.
I don't want to read arrogant physicists blathering about climatology any more than I want to see biologists bloviating on microkernel architecture.
However, interesting questions offered modestly are always welcome and modded as Interesting or Insightful.
Drudge is 21st century news
...and late-20th century web design.
The idea that a Free People would meekly submit ...
Then go Galt. Show the rest of us what FAIL really looks like.
You really think the Founders would have been outraged over paint colors?
Bush's Treasury and Fed were going to start throwing money around with or without the Democrats' involvement. Paulson and Bernanke were that panicked.
The bailout was bum rushed like the Afghan war. Technically, Congress could have stopped it if they wanted to. Practically, it happened so fast that the only people calling shots were in the Executive branch.
these bonuses are required pay and they were not performance based. Why are people calling them bonuses then?
Because Wall Street firms categorize them as bonuses so they can claim impermissible tax deductions and cheat the system.
It's not as bad as you think. It's worse.
Obama received a lot of campaign contributions
By "a lot" do you mean "a drop in the bucket"?
1/5000 of his total donations. From individual employees, not the company. Get real.
No. According to this article only 20% of the CDS contracts being written were actually insurance on securities one of the parties owned. i.e. buying fire insurance on your own house.
The other 80% were speculation on someone else's securities. i.e. buying fire insurance on Dresden, 1944. So it goes.
I think you've answered your question. Why should the ACLU lift a flying finger to protect the 2nd Amendment? The NRA has a laserlike focus on the 2nd, has more resources, and doesn't give a damn about the rest of the Bill of Rights.
They're actually very complementary organizations, but don't tell that to an NRA member, because he'll probably go for the rifle in his pickup's gun rack.
Sheesh, can't you read?
THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE RISK of human induced climate change.
That statement doesn't commit the IPCC to finding whether the probability is 0, 1 or anything between.
You can understand the risk of asteroid impact without thinking it will happen in the next 10 years. If you actually understand the risk of climate change, you're going to be very concerned about the next 10 years.
How is "The Senate" = "The Obama Administration"?
Obama is doing almost nothing about this bill, although I don't think he would veto it.
Individual Representatives and Senators, who are very concerned with elderly people who have nothing to do but watch TV and vote, are driving pretty much the whole thing.
that does not make the odds of an asteroid destroying the earth 1:50...as wrong as the person calculating the odds are, the odds are still going to be incredibly small.
That's because you're assuming a prior probability of asteroid impact, which you're probably estimating from observation (i.e. if you've lived 50 years with no asteroid strikes, that gives you an estimate of the upper bound of the prior).
These guys aren't saying you should disregard priors when you have them -- like with asteroids. But for the LHC, arguably there is no accurate prior because nothing in that energy range has ever been done before.
If you disbelieve scientists who are, individually and collectively, vastly better informed about every climate issue than you are because...you read something on the internet...then you're a denier.
Yes, I'm sure GM, the largest corporation in the world had nothing to do with those efforts, just as it had nothing to do with the laws developing the interstate highway system or the destruction of the streetcar lines it purchased.
If you're so well informed about history, what makes you so confident about the simplistic causality? Have you been reading the libertarian equivalent of Howard Zinn?
Because the net atmospheric concentration of CO2 has gone up 40% over the last century or so. That's a very significant change, and it's basically all due to human activity. In the laboratory, it is more than enough to cause significant greenhouse warming.
As for the rest of your argument: "Although natural sources represent most CO2 emissions, they do not contribute to the recent observed increase in concentrations because natural sources are balanced by natural sinks that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The increase in carbon dioxide concentration arises because the increase from human activity is not completely balanced by a corresponding sink." -- USG via Wikipedia
You're making an invalid assumption. Many systems are easier to predict and understand on a large scale.
For example, if I boil a pot of water, I can easily predict how its overall temperature will increase. It's much harder -- impossible in fact -- to predict exactly where bubbles will nucleate.
Overall temperature = climate. Location of the bubbles = weather.
I'd be a little perplexed if Haiti didn't have the animal in it, IT SHARES THE SAME GOD DAMN ISLAND with the Dominican Republic.
Well, I wouldn't be surprised if it were completely extinct in Haiti but hanging on in the Dominican Republic, considering the stark difference in the condition of the native forests.
Run their own phishing blacklist? Is that really a good use of their time?
Maybe they should sue Google, without any contract having been broken?
Or break into their data center and force them at gunpoint to turn the machines back on?
Mozilla should have gotten Google to contractually agree to keep the servers running through the end of life of Firefox 2, and they didn't, which is their screwup. But you're just conspiracymongering.
Now that the cost of higher education is falling and endowments are growing, universities will have lots of money to spend on music taxes!
Alternatively, they could just give every student a free copy of PeerGuardian.
neither major party is committed in principle to individual freedom, including freedom of expression.
when Janet Reno was AG under Clinton, she warned the TV networks to clean up their shows, or the government would do it for them
OK, but I didn't see the Clinton FCC start any actual prosecutions of the TV networks, or hand down any million-dollar fines, like Bush's FCC did.
I agree that neither party is totally committed to freedom of expression. Neither party is committed to any absolutist principle, because parties are inherently compromises. That's why we have the ACLU (and the EFF and...)
But in practice, if you compare the Democrats and Republicans' ACLU scorecards, it's very clear that the Democrats are generally better for freedom of expression.
In a democracy, practical voting matters more than principle; you're the one making the error.
A professional should not react that way, slaughter or not.
So considering our government, media, military, and legal community's embarrassing kneejerk response to 9/11: Bush is OUR HERO! Muslims are scary! They could attack any minute! We must invade Iraq!...
There must not be a single professional in the US, except for dentists.
I think your definition is too restrictive. You're looking for the true Scotsman, and you're not going to find him.
And don't forget the V-chip, which allows parents to disable certain TV channels. It's in all new TVs and unused in nearly all of them.
The 90s were a very different era, and the culture war/political correctness issues that dominated the decade look painfully idiotic in retrospect.
I am pretty confident that Holder has many higher priorities than regulating speech on the internet, but someone definitely needs to ask him.
Because Obama seems to understand the issue and is designating responsibility to qualified professionals--
Not to a 75 year old, internet illiterate convicted felon like Ted "Tubes" Stevens?