Of course. Your fearless leader decided it was more important to invade the only arab nation without a terrorist presence (creating a vast new terrorist movement in the process), and let Bin Laden off the hook. That's glossing over the fact that Pakistan is sheltering Al Quaida now, and the US doesn't have the resources necessary to deal with Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and impressive military power. Not that any of the other involved Afghanistan-involved nations have had the balls to call Pakistan on their two-faced-ness, but isn't the US supposed to lead the world in Arab-squashing?
Actually, doesn't Pakistan have the world's most expensive military after adjusting for GNP? I remember reading that Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea actually have far more costly militaries (GNP adjusted) than the US, whose military is comparatively cheap when you factor in the enormous population of the US and it's ridiculously high GNP.
More than once. I've even sent a few. To this date, I am aware of no one actually ending up homeless, in jail, or in a psychiatric facility after seeing even something so vile as goatse.
So it's more important to treat all states equally than it is to treat all Americans equally? Frankly, it's time to wake up and behold the real world -- states are irrelevant. It's really beyond remedy, and has been since state governments decided to be so colossaly morally bankrupt as to go to war for the right to work black people to death.
It's time to start treating Americans as equals, and acknowledging that the presidency affects every single yankee and that every single one of them deserves an equal shot at electing their president. Besides, the interests of Ohio are already represented by their senators and by their state government.
It comes down to a simple choice -- who gets a fair vote: states or humans? Giving people extra voting power based on their home state is as tyrannical as giving people extra voting power based on their income, property ownership, IQ (a nice idea in theory), marital status, or anything else. Tyranny or equality -- pick one.
So you really don't so anything wrong with giving people in underpopulated states 50x more voting power than people who live in populated states? Is a person from Ohio really worth 50x more than a person from New York? This really doesn't bother you at all? Right now, New York and California are completely ignored by the federal government because their votes are nearly worthless. Think about that: the majority of Americans have their votes watered down to the point of not mattering, while a minority have their votes amplified. The majority is grossly disenfranchised while a minority is elevated and given preferential treatment. Welcome to tyranny -- the tyranny of a minority over the majority. Sure, tyranny of the majority over a minority isn't ideal, but it's FAR better than letting a few ignorant bigots rule over the rest of the country.
That's really a very depressing state of affairs. There was an article on the Onion about Uzbekistan sending troops to the US to monitor the 2000 presidential election... how can the country that popularized modern democracy have such an utterly lousy democratic process?
Here in Canada, voting typically goes late into the night, there are shuttle buses that go around picking up shut-ins, and there are several advance voting dates for people who know they wont available on the normal election day. Elections Canada is really a fantastic organization in many ways, and do a great job.
Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that living in a police state is a... bad thing? How could that be? Americans are so safe now! Sure, terrorists are more committed than ever to attacking Americans and have increased exponentially in number thanks to certain poor choices by the government; but harassing American citizens must be doing something, right?
Seriously, here's an idea: take all those government parasites that harass airplane passengers, run eavesdropping programs, make threats to journalists, and violate the constitution in so many other ways, and drop them all in Pakistan with hunting rifles. Sooner or later, a group of them will have to stumble onto Bin Laden's cave. And voila, terrorism is dealt a serious blow, Americans are substantially less annoyed, and taxes can go down because the government is no longer paying a bunch of people to fail at making America safer.
Well, a lot of people make the naturalistic fallacy and the moralistic fallacy. That is, they think that what is natural is right (the naturalistic fallacy), and that what is right is what natural (the moralistic fallacy). The fact that pedophilia is natural obviously has nothing to do with whether it's right or wrong.
I get the same reaction when I tell people that it's better for society as a whole when babies die than when young adults die. After all, a baby has had very little time and effort invested in it. It probably wont provide any productivity or utility to society at all for twenty years, and may not last long enough to ever be productive. So if the baby dies, very little has been lost. We can always produce more babies. A young adult, on the other hand, has already had a great deal of time, money, and effort invested in them. If they die, it's all wasted. Society really needs that young adult to get productive and repay that investment. Now, all of this is undeniably true, but most people can't accept that, since they think that if it's true then it must be palatable and morally acceptable.
So I offer you a high-five for being able to discern the difference between reality and morality. Nice work.
I don't think many people actually mind the idea of killing (or permanently incarcerating, in civilized countries) serious pedophiles. It's just that it isn't exactly trivial to create a good system for identifying which offenders are beyond recovery (the psychopaths and those with APD) versus those who are still within the realm of basic humanity, and could be salvaged after receiving a sufficiently deterring punishment and going through some sort of treatment.
Although I agree that the government shouldn't take away personal freedoms, pedophilia (the crime) is one of those unfortunate classes of crime that can't be deterred. A certain percentage of any human population will develop pedophilia (the psychological disorder). Another percentage will develop antisocial personality disorder. The intersection of those two groups consists of people that want to have to sex with children and are unable to take into account the possibility of there being consequences to their actions. Putting as many of them as possible in jail has absolutely no effect on the remainder. That means that if you want children to remain relatively unraped, you need to do something before it happens, rather than just trying to scare pedophiles into good behaviour.
That's why there is so much contraversy around laws to protect children -- it's difficult to find laws and policies that will actually provide real protection to children while not requiring all adults to be treated like criminals. And it doesn't even touch upon the other group of pedophiles, the ones who don't have APD and who would probably respond well to some sort of psychotherapy -- assuming they could get access to psychotherapy or other interventions BEFORE they commit a crime without having to spend the rest of their life being treated like a pariah. As stands, they can't come forward and get help without their lives being effectively over, and so many of them end up hurting a child and have to be locked up for a suitably long period of time. Helping that person before hand could have prevented them from ever acting on their perversion, and thus salvaged an otherwise productive member of society.
The problem with the hostage-takers that are on drugs, is that they could quite likely kill hostages. Injection drug-users are unpredictable, irrational, and can be senselessly violent. Going in with guns blazing isn't the only way for the cops to intervene, and neither is standing outside the bank doors waving guns. Intelligent police forces show up and wait at a safe distance for precisely the reasons you describe. On the other hand, they DON'T do what the original poster suggested, which is wait until the thieves are long gone and probably beyond their ability to track, and then show up to retrieve evidence. And it ignores the very real possibility of bank robbers (particularly the drug-addled robbers you describe) who simply start killing hostages. Ever met a meth-user? Meth frequently creates the rather unfortunate combination of aggression, paranoia, and vivid hallucinations. So do the police keep waiting for the situation to end back at their station? Do they wait until all the bank patrons are dead so that they can storm the building without having to worry that they might hurt a hostage?
I just find it stunning that there are people who don't believe that there are times when the police should forcefully intervene to protect people.
I do not, for a single second, suggest that people shouldn't take responsibility for protecting themselves. But responsibility isn't like, say, titanium or pie. You can spread it around, assign it to as many people as you like, and there's always more. It never runs out. You can do everything in your power to protect yourself, and STILL expect aid from the police, your government, the block association, and your family. You can blame society for creating the criminals, the penal system for not rehabilitating during their previous jail terms, their families for raising them poorly, and still assign full responsibility to the criminal and have them thrown in a cell for few decades.
Hunkering in the back with your remington is all well and good, but it sure does help that the invader knows he's got to be long gone in ten minutes. A lot can happen in ten minutes, but consider the kinds of things that can happen in a few hours.
It seems like you're assuming that just because I take a highly Liberal standpoint on this that I automatically oppose gun ownership and pesonal defence, but it isn't the case. I think you've got to protect your safety from every reasonable angle, which definitely includes having a good emergency-response system in your city or town. No one can deal with everything on their own, and once you admit any form of cooperation, you basically wind up with some sort of government and police.
By your insanely stupid reasoning, the police shouldn't intervene if there is a bank robbery taking place or if some people have been taken hostage. They should wait until it's all over and then arrest the robbers / hostage-takers, no matter how many people have been hurt, financially decimated, or killed in the process. And that's assuming that the perpetrators can still be tracked down, and haven't made it across an international border (or in the case of the USA, a state border). Sorry, no sale. I'd rather the police intervene BEFORE I'm dead, rather than simply trying feebly to avenge my death.
This may very well be the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say in weeks. If you thought you were in the slightest danger, you'd be screaming for protection. Everone thinks they're self-reliant during periods in which they have no problems. As soon as anything goes wrong, as soon as there's some tiny risk, they start crying from help and protection. If your home was invaded and you were incapacitated, you'd be pretty damn glad when the cops showed up because your neighbour had the sense to call them to PROTECT you, rather than to simply check your corpse for evidence so that they can investigate the crime.
Seriously, my head is spinning with the incredible lack of thought that went into your post.
I don't know if I'd call Hollywood types "liberals". As you point out, on the copyright issue they support very draconian government intervention. And in a round-about way, they ultimately reinforce America's hardcore puritanical morality by the way even the most innocuous drinking and expressions of sexuality are treated as being "wild" or "out of control". In real life, people drink and fuck pretty much all the time (if they get the chance).
It's equivalent to calling Dubya types "conservatives". They aren't -- the Bush administration is quite radical and has made drastic changes to how America conducts its affairs. Radicals are pretty much the opposite of conservatives, who generally seek to keep things the same or revert to conditions from the past. And they tarnish real conservatism by talking up things like fiscal responsibility and personal morality while displaying none of those traits. Wow, an entire nation led by people who are utterly hypocritical when it comes to politics. I might think less of Americans if that was somehow unusual, but sadly it's very common. "Communism"? Marx would have choked on his own rage if he'd seen the abomination Lenin came up with (which isn't to imply that Marx's real ideas would have worked any better). And so on...
Damn, now I'm grumpy. Fucking politicians, fucking celebs, fucking commies. Kill 'em all and recycle them as a cheap source of minerals and amino acids, I say. Leadership should be like jury duty -- random and only for people too stupid to get out of it.
Social Liberals? Maybe I'm missing something, but what on Earth do Social Liberals have to do with extending copyright terms on America's artistic works? Social liberals typically favour personal freedoms, which would seem to cover duplicating things without having to ask for permission. Maybe my perspective is a bit skewed because I interpret the word liberal from a Canadian sense. Do American social liberals oppose freedom? I always thought that it was America's social conservatives that wanted everyone caged up so that they couldn't engage in unscrupulous behaviour.
Ah yes, a very important distinction. Although it is ironic that a nation so willing to execute anyone and everyone would flinch away from a simple caning -- and positively recoil in horror when another nation does to some punk what his own parents should already have.
Yeah, isn't America supposed to be big on capital punishment? If the most extreme form is good enough for children and the mentally disabled, I'd think Microsoft's management would definitely qualify for at least a good caning in the public sqaure. Does Washington even have public sqaures? That would be a great make-work project: public squares for canings. It would also stimulate the local market for canes. A few sets of stocks wouldn't hurt either; those guys at SCO might qualify for a week in stocks. And there could be a law stating that members of congress have to spend a month in a suspended metal cage for each campaign promise they fail to keep. Suspended cages -- oh what the middle ages can teach us about justice.
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas though. It is transparent to light until it forms clouds. And as temperatures increase, the atmosphere can hold more vapour without forming clouds.
But Humans do have the ability to alter the planet on short time scales. The hole in the ozone layer -- that's a tremdous amount of gas. And in a few short decades we've resolved much of the problem. Doubling the amount of CO_2 in the atmosphere -- that's a global-scale effect in Human time. We need to make decisions and resolve this in Human time as well, because the negative consequences are already starting to take place. A one degree increase in the global mean temperature already -- when will you be convinced? When Texas reaches 70C in the shade during summer? By then it's too late. Texas will have had to be abandoned. Of course you don't care, because you'll be a century in your grave. But your descendants will wonder how you could have been so colossaly boneheaded.
Incidentally, examining an elephant by looking at it's tail will certainly tell you quite a bit -- particularly when you notice the asshole on the end of it, and realize that being so close to an elephant's asshole isn't wise unless you're particularly fond of being buried in feces. Actually, you seem to have stumbled upon a fantastic metaphor for global warming. We can't see the whole elephant yet, but we're getting pretty close to the asshole. We have enough information to know that the asshole is a bad place to be.
In any case, nonsense about geologic timescales is just a cop-out.
Well, as for as the nay-sayers favourite line of criticism towards anthropogenic global warming -- the sun, it breaks down like so: the sun's activity cycles are 10 to 20 years long, and the sun's gradual warming takes place over billions of years. The global mean temperatures has been showing an increase over the last century -- too long to be accounted for by the sun's activity cycle, and far, far too short to be accounted for by the increasing rate of fusion in the sun. But it matches very closely the build-up of Human-generated CO_2. The sun is a defeated hypothesis as far as the recent global warming trend is concerned.
Are there factors besides human activity? Probably. But human activities are the most closely correlated to global warming. So unless you think it's just a fantastic coincidence that is taking place a million times faster than most geologic change, or that global warming is somehow causing Humans to burn more coal, all you are left with is that Humans are the primary cause. After all, we've over DOUBLED the amount atmospheric CO_2 since the start of the industrial revolution. Is blaming a one degree change on ourselves so ludicrous?
It certainly is worth considering how to survive a warmer planet, but it involves a very loose definition of the word "survive". Billions will be displaced, starve, die of malaria, etc. But given the way that the world's top polluters are sticking their heads in the sand and refusing to even consider the risks we're facing, real estate in Nunavut (and the landmines, shotguns, and razorwire to keep it) are looking pretty good. Maybe near the artic coast.
In any case, prevention is easy. Install CO_2 scrubbers on the goal and gas plants. Take existing SUVs away from spoiled brat assholes who've never driven outside of the city in their life -- an electric SUV would probably satisfy their idiocy. Put solar panels on every rooftop, wind turbines all over coasts and mountains, etc. Plant trees (good ones, not fiber farms), stop clear-cutting quite so extensively. It's far cheaper than finding new homes for every single person who lives on the coast and then trying to find a way to feed them all with land that is no longer arable. Rainforests and jungles look nice, but they don't produce much in the way food -- not on the scale we require, anyway.
Americans are quite right-wing NOW, but it could swing back really quickly. There's a lot of awareness of just how extensively Dubya has lied (does it still count as a lie if the speaker is too stupid and naive to realize that they aren't speaking the truth?) It's entirely possible that two years from now, no one will admit that they supported Bush. I mean think about it -- how many people still admit that they supported Nixon, after it turned out that he had about as much respect for the law as Charles Manson? How many people say "wow, wasn't Clinton a moral guy? I'm glad I voted for him. Lying to the supreme court isn't that bad." That's right -- no one. People swing fast when it turns out that their leader is a collosal jack-ass that makes the USA the butt of jokes worldwide.
Do you have any idea what a trivial amount of money a trillion dollars is when spent over several decades? The US has already spent close to half a trillion dollars proving that Iraq was about as dangerous as a dead raccoon. Have some perspective. No one (reasonable) wants to try to completely revamp the global economy in a single week. Doing it over the course of a half a century would suffice, as long as it starts soon. Have some perspective.
Of course global warming wont wipe out all life. In fact, photosynthesizers thrive at higher temperatures and absolutely ADORE high levels of CO_2. Global warming will just render many parts of the world uninhabitable to humans and completely destroy the global economy as we scramble to find new homes for 4 billion displaced people, new crops that thrive in the new conditions and can feed everyone (I hope you like Algae), new technology that functions in a high-temperature, high-humidity environment (ask anyone who's been to the tropics how well things work there), etc.
As for Kyoto? Call me crazy, but the creation of millions of jobs setting up nuclear, wind, and solar power plants, reforesting clear-cut areas, and so, doesn't seem like something that will decimate the global economy. Plus, if that money comes out of the budget that gets spent on war now, it will actually save lives (not to mention not having to wage war for oil). Jobs + less war + energy independence -- sounds like a winning proposition to me.
Some problems to note: bodies of water do not become anoxic because of CO_2 emissions, nor do Uranium or mercury enter our air or water because of CO_2 emissions. We could solve those problems simply by filtering the output of coal plants and limiting farm run-off. Acidification of aquifers is more due to sulfates and nitrates than CO_2, which once again could be solved by filtering the output of engines and power plants. Blah blah blah. And CO_2? IT'S ONLY BAD FOR US. Human civilization is what's at risk (which is why I support major environmental reform). Nature will, generally speaking, benefit from more CO_2. More CO_2 means more photosynthesis (which benefits plants), warmer temperatures (which benefits plants), and more rain (which benefits plants). The planet might start seeing the kind of fantastic biomass that hasn't existed for hundreds of millions of years, when the rise of angiosperms depleted atmospheric CO_2 levels to never-before-seen levels.
What if the quantity of fossil fuels remaining is vastly greater than the amount necessary to render most of the planet uninhabitable to Humans? Market forces are only good for providing products and services that people are willing to pay for. And to this date, no significant amount of money is being paid to keep the planet habitable. Without people willing to pay, the free market isn't going to step up and find a solution.
Also, the common person IS stupid. He votes for George Bush. He replaces his democratic government with an unelected islamic dictatorship. He buys an SUV or a $300 apple. He sees the virgin Mary in his taco. He votes for Mussolini. He engages in soccer riots. He sends his nation's young people to war, no matter how stupid and misguided that war is. He accuses anyone who doesn't support war of cowardice, while ignoring the fact that he himself is too much of a disgusting coward to go and die himself. He is scared of terrorism even though his own automobile is ten-thousand times more likely to kill him than any terrorist is, his neighbour is a thousand times more likely to murder him, and he has almost as good a chance of being killed by the police in a drug raid that is at the wrong address. He is especially an idiot for not seeing anything wrong with any of those things, for not seeing any problem with his complete and total irrationality, and for resenting scientists for not being quite as stupid as he is.
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Of course. Your fearless leader decided it was more important to invade the only arab nation without a terrorist presence (creating a vast new terrorist movement in the process), and let Bin Laden off the hook. That's glossing over the fact that Pakistan is sheltering Al Quaida now, and the US doesn't have the resources necessary to deal with Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and impressive military power. Not that any of the other involved Afghanistan-involved nations have had the balls to call Pakistan on their two-faced-ness, but isn't the US supposed to lead the world in Arab-squashing?
Actually, doesn't Pakistan have the world's most expensive military after adjusting for GNP? I remember reading that Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea actually have far more costly militaries (GNP adjusted) than the US, whose military is comparatively cheap when you factor in the enormous population of the US and it's ridiculously high GNP.
More than once. I've even sent a few. To this date, I am aware of no one actually ending up homeless, in jail, or in a psychiatric facility after seeing even something so vile as goatse.
So it's more important to treat all states equally than it is to treat all Americans equally? Frankly, it's time to wake up and behold the real world -- states are irrelevant. It's really beyond remedy, and has been since state governments decided to be so colossaly morally bankrupt as to go to war for the right to work black people to death.
It's time to start treating Americans as equals, and acknowledging that the presidency affects every single yankee and that every single one of them deserves an equal shot at electing their president. Besides, the interests of Ohio are already represented by their senators and by their state government.
It comes down to a simple choice -- who gets a fair vote: states or humans? Giving people extra voting power based on their home state is as tyrannical as giving people extra voting power based on their income, property ownership, IQ (a nice idea in theory), marital status, or anything else. Tyranny or equality -- pick one.
So you really don't so anything wrong with giving people in underpopulated states 50x more voting power than people who live in populated states? Is a person from Ohio really worth 50x more than a person from New York? This really doesn't bother you at all? Right now, New York and California are completely ignored by the federal government because their votes are nearly worthless. Think about that: the majority of Americans have their votes watered down to the point of not mattering, while a minority have their votes amplified. The majority is grossly disenfranchised while a minority is elevated and given preferential treatment. Welcome to tyranny -- the tyranny of a minority over the majority. Sure, tyranny of the majority over a minority isn't ideal, but it's FAR better than letting a few ignorant bigots rule over the rest of the country.
Here in Canada, voting typically goes late into the night, there are shuttle buses that go around picking up shut-ins, and there are several advance voting dates for people who know they wont available on the normal election day. Elections Canada is really a fantastic organization in many ways, and do a great job.
Seriously, here's an idea: take all those government parasites that harass airplane passengers, run eavesdropping programs, make threats to journalists, and violate the constitution in so many other ways, and drop them all in Pakistan with hunting rifles. Sooner or later, a group of them will have to stumble onto Bin Laden's cave. And voila, terrorism is dealt a serious blow, Americans are substantially less annoyed, and taxes can go down because the government is no longer paying a bunch of people to fail at making America safer.
Well, a lot of people make the naturalistic fallacy and the moralistic fallacy. That is, they think that what is natural is right (the naturalistic fallacy), and that what is right is what natural (the moralistic fallacy). The fact that pedophilia is natural obviously has nothing to do with whether it's right or wrong.
I get the same reaction when I tell people that it's better for society as a whole when babies die than when young adults die. After all, a baby has had very little time and effort invested in it. It probably wont provide any productivity or utility to society at all for twenty years, and may not last long enough to ever be productive. So if the baby dies, very little has been lost. We can always produce more babies. A young adult, on the other hand, has already had a great deal of time, money, and effort invested in them. If they die, it's all wasted. Society really needs that young adult to get productive and repay that investment. Now, all of this is undeniably true, but most people can't accept that, since they think that if it's true then it must be palatable and morally acceptable.
So I offer you a high-five for being able to discern the difference between reality and morality. Nice work.
I don't think many people actually mind the idea of killing (or permanently incarcerating, in civilized countries) serious pedophiles. It's just that it isn't exactly trivial to create a good system for identifying which offenders are beyond recovery (the psychopaths and those with APD) versus those who are still within the realm of basic humanity, and could be salvaged after receiving a sufficiently deterring punishment and going through some sort of treatment.
That's why there is so much contraversy around laws to protect children -- it's difficult to find laws and policies that will actually provide real protection to children while not requiring all adults to be treated like criminals. And it doesn't even touch upon the other group of pedophiles, the ones who don't have APD and who would probably respond well to some sort of psychotherapy -- assuming they could get access to psychotherapy or other interventions BEFORE they commit a crime without having to spend the rest of their life being treated like a pariah. As stands, they can't come forward and get help without their lives being effectively over, and so many of them end up hurting a child and have to be locked up for a suitably long period of time. Helping that person before hand could have prevented them from ever acting on their perversion, and thus salvaged an otherwise productive member of society.
I just find it stunning that there are people who don't believe that there are times when the police should forcefully intervene to protect people.
Hunkering in the back with your remington is all well and good, but it sure does help that the invader knows he's got to be long gone in ten minutes. A lot can happen in ten minutes, but consider the kinds of things that can happen in a few hours.
It seems like you're assuming that just because I take a highly Liberal standpoint on this that I automatically oppose gun ownership and pesonal defence, but it isn't the case. I think you've got to protect your safety from every reasonable angle, which definitely includes having a good emergency-response system in your city or town. No one can deal with everything on their own, and once you admit any form of cooperation, you basically wind up with some sort of government and police.
This may very well be the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say in weeks. If you thought you were in the slightest danger, you'd be screaming for protection. Everone thinks they're self-reliant during periods in which they have no problems. As soon as anything goes wrong, as soon as there's some tiny risk, they start crying from help and protection. If your home was invaded and you were incapacitated, you'd be pretty damn glad when the cops showed up because your neighbour had the sense to call them to PROTECT you, rather than to simply check your corpse for evidence so that they can investigate the crime.
Seriously, my head is spinning with the incredible lack of thought that went into your post.
It's equivalent to calling Dubya types "conservatives". They aren't -- the Bush administration is quite radical and has made drastic changes to how America conducts its affairs. Radicals are pretty much the opposite of conservatives, who generally seek to keep things the same or revert to conditions from the past. And they tarnish real conservatism by talking up things like fiscal responsibility and personal morality while displaying none of those traits. Wow, an entire nation led by people who are utterly hypocritical when it comes to politics. I might think less of Americans if that was somehow unusual, but sadly it's very common. "Communism"? Marx would have choked on his own rage if he'd seen the abomination Lenin came up with (which isn't to imply that Marx's real ideas would have worked any better). And so on...
Damn, now I'm grumpy. Fucking politicians, fucking celebs, fucking commies. Kill 'em all and recycle them as a cheap source of minerals and amino acids, I say. Leadership should be like jury duty -- random and only for people too stupid to get out of it.
Social Liberals? Maybe I'm missing something, but what on Earth do Social Liberals have to do with extending copyright terms on America's artistic works? Social liberals typically favour personal freedoms, which would seem to cover duplicating things without having to ask for permission. Maybe my perspective is a bit skewed because I interpret the word liberal from a Canadian sense. Do American social liberals oppose freedom? I always thought that it was America's social conservatives that wanted everyone caged up so that they couldn't engage in unscrupulous behaviour.
That's it, game over. Give that man the prize for best post of the day.
Ah yes, a very important distinction. Although it is ironic that a nation so willing to execute anyone and everyone would flinch away from a simple caning -- and positively recoil in horror when another nation does to some punk what his own parents should already have.
Yeah, isn't America supposed to be big on capital punishment? If the most extreme form is good enough for children and the mentally disabled, I'd think Microsoft's management would definitely qualify for at least a good caning in the public sqaure. Does Washington even have public sqaures? That would be a great make-work project: public squares for canings. It would also stimulate the local market for canes. A few sets of stocks wouldn't hurt either; those guys at SCO might qualify for a week in stocks. And there could be a law stating that members of congress have to spend a month in a suspended metal cage for each campaign promise they fail to keep. Suspended cages -- oh what the middle ages can teach us about justice.
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas though. It is transparent to light until it forms clouds. And as temperatures increase, the atmosphere can hold more vapour without forming clouds.
Incidentally, examining an elephant by looking at it's tail will certainly tell you quite a bit -- particularly when you notice the asshole on the end of it, and realize that being so close to an elephant's asshole isn't wise unless you're particularly fond of being buried in feces. Actually, you seem to have stumbled upon a fantastic metaphor for global warming. We can't see the whole elephant yet, but we're getting pretty close to the asshole. We have enough information to know that the asshole is a bad place to be.
In any case, nonsense about geologic timescales is just a cop-out.
Are there factors besides human activity? Probably. But human activities are the most closely correlated to global warming. So unless you think it's just a fantastic coincidence that is taking place a million times faster than most geologic change, or that global warming is somehow causing Humans to burn more coal, all you are left with is that Humans are the primary cause. After all, we've over DOUBLED the amount atmospheric CO_2 since the start of the industrial revolution. Is blaming a one degree change on ourselves so ludicrous?
It certainly is worth considering how to survive a warmer planet, but it involves a very loose definition of the word "survive". Billions will be displaced, starve, die of malaria, etc. But given the way that the world's top polluters are sticking their heads in the sand and refusing to even consider the risks we're facing, real estate in Nunavut (and the landmines, shotguns, and razorwire to keep it) are looking pretty good. Maybe near the artic coast.
In any case, prevention is easy. Install CO_2 scrubbers on the goal and gas plants. Take existing SUVs away from spoiled brat assholes who've never driven outside of the city in their life -- an electric SUV would probably satisfy their idiocy. Put solar panels on every rooftop, wind turbines all over coasts and mountains, etc. Plant trees (good ones, not fiber farms), stop clear-cutting quite so extensively. It's far cheaper than finding new homes for every single person who lives on the coast and then trying to find a way to feed them all with land that is no longer arable. Rainforests and jungles look nice, but they don't produce much in the way food -- not on the scale we require, anyway.
Americans are quite right-wing NOW, but it could swing back really quickly. There's a lot of awareness of just how extensively Dubya has lied (does it still count as a lie if the speaker is too stupid and naive to realize that they aren't speaking the truth?) It's entirely possible that two years from now, no one will admit that they supported Bush. I mean think about it -- how many people still admit that they supported Nixon, after it turned out that he had about as much respect for the law as Charles Manson? How many people say "wow, wasn't Clinton a moral guy? I'm glad I voted for him. Lying to the supreme court isn't that bad." That's right -- no one. People swing fast when it turns out that their leader is a collosal jack-ass that makes the USA the butt of jokes worldwide.
Do you have any idea what a trivial amount of money a trillion dollars is when spent over several decades? The US has already spent close to half a trillion dollars proving that Iraq was about as dangerous as a dead raccoon. Have some perspective. No one (reasonable) wants to try to completely revamp the global economy in a single week. Doing it over the course of a half a century would suffice, as long as it starts soon. Have some perspective.
As for Kyoto? Call me crazy, but the creation of millions of jobs setting up nuclear, wind, and solar power plants, reforesting clear-cut areas, and so, doesn't seem like something that will decimate the global economy. Plus, if that money comes out of the budget that gets spent on war now, it will actually save lives (not to mention not having to wage war for oil). Jobs + less war + energy independence -- sounds like a winning proposition to me.
Some problems to note: bodies of water do not become anoxic because of CO_2 emissions, nor do Uranium or mercury enter our air or water because of CO_2 emissions. We could solve those problems simply by filtering the output of coal plants and limiting farm run-off. Acidification of aquifers is more due to sulfates and nitrates than CO_2, which once again could be solved by filtering the output of engines and power plants. Blah blah blah. And CO_2? IT'S ONLY BAD FOR US. Human civilization is what's at risk (which is why I support major environmental reform). Nature will, generally speaking, benefit from more CO_2. More CO_2 means more photosynthesis (which benefits plants), warmer temperatures (which benefits plants), and more rain (which benefits plants). The planet might start seeing the kind of fantastic biomass that hasn't existed for hundreds of millions of years, when the rise of angiosperms depleted atmospheric CO_2 levels to never-before-seen levels.
Also, the common person IS stupid. He votes for George Bush. He replaces his democratic government with an unelected islamic dictatorship. He buys an SUV or a $300 apple. He sees the virgin Mary in his taco. He votes for Mussolini. He engages in soccer riots. He sends his nation's young people to war, no matter how stupid and misguided that war is. He accuses anyone who doesn't support war of cowardice, while ignoring the fact that he himself is too much of a disgusting coward to go and die himself. He is scared of terrorism even though his own automobile is ten-thousand times more likely to kill him than any terrorist is, his neighbour is a thousand times more likely to murder him, and he has almost as good a chance of being killed by the police in a drug raid that is at the wrong address. He is especially an idiot for not seeing anything wrong with any of those things, for not seeing any problem with his complete and total irrationality, and for resenting scientists for not being quite as stupid as he is.