Agreed, and it could be added that we have Islamic scholarship to thank for much of our knowledge of the ancient world, not to mention significant scientific achievements of its own.
If this were a "Christian Theocracy," then "divorce" would not be lawful except in the case of adultery. I for one would prefer that over the mess we have now.
If you were a national of a country that had invaded mine, for no lawful reason, and had murdered hundreds of thousands if not millions of my fellow countrymen, not just soldiers trying desperately to protect it, but innocent civilians as well, sometimes for sport, I would advise you very strongly not to come here, and if you were already here, to leave at once. You may not consider yourself to be part of the invading/occupying force, but trust me, there are enough people there who will, and will consider you a completely legitimate target.
Even if you are OK with the risk of dying, consider that you might not die, but maybe lose a few limbs, maybe your eyesight, maybe a part of your brain. Maybe you'll live 60 more years but in constant, agonizing, unbearable pain. Maybe you'll need dozens of expensive surgeries that will bankrupt you and everyone around you. War is not exciting, glorious, pretty, or fun. It is the sum of all evil. Avoid it if you can.
Others have pointed out that there are plenty of interesting, exciting and safe places in the world where you would be welcome, provided you behaved yourself, and would have little trouble finding gainful employment. There are banking, tax, and of course cultural issues to consider, which I'd strongly recommend researching in advance. But it still can be a tremendously enlightening and rewarding experience.
I'm convinced that God wants me to love my neighbor as myself, which includes (but is not necessarily limited to) respecting his or her rights. I was raised with the belief, based on a different understanding of Christianity, that sometimes it is OK to violate those rights, for the "greater good;" that war or theft or slavery could sometimes be justified. My current faith, which is rooted less in tradition and more in Scripture, tells me that they cannot, because each of these things fails to respect the inherent dignity and worth with which God created every living being.
Do I live in perfect accordance with these beliefs? Not really. But when I realize I've failed, I ask God and whomever I may have wronged, if that's possible, for forgiveness; I try to make amends; and I strive to do better over time, with God's help. Would I do so as a completely non-Christian? I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing probably not. I know I didn't really even try before. I did try to behave honorably and decently, but according to what I now consider to be an insufficiently complete definition of decency and honor, and without even being aware that I could seek God's help just as simply as by asking for it.
I very much appreciate your attempt at encouragement!
My understanding of Scripture, which is influenced by Reformed teaching, is that there is a state in which a person can know about God intellectually, and even want to follow Him to some extent, but the soil of his or her soul just isn't quite right (see the parable of the sower) and that's where I think I am. The passage from James that I think you're referring to also illustrates one of the results of that state: a person in it can claim to "believe," but only in the same way that the devils also do, and with the exact same results. I do not believe that salvation is determined purely by choice, but mainly by the calling and purposes of God; but supposing that on that point I were mistaken: there certainly are times I would choose it, but there are also other times when I would not. A person with such wavering intentions cannot expect the blessing of God. That is one reason I think the Reformers' understanding and teaching about salvation makes more sense: it is God's calling and His election, not ours; it is pure grace, and works, even the work of believing, is evidence of salvation rather than its cause (Eph. 2:10).
Without my admittedly superficial and limited knowledge of Christ and of Christianity, I would still have morals, but no power to live up to them, and nothing to empower or teach me to do better. I would still have friends and family to live for, but, again, no real power to become the kind of person who deserves to have them to begin with. Arguably, I'd have *more* to look forward to after I die. Given how much I've failed to love God with all my being, or to love my neighbor as myself, I expect to burn. Forever. I'd much rather just cease to exist. I don't have that option. But if I could choose between a universe in which I had everything I could want except no God, or on the other hand the one in which God Is, I would choose the latter without hesitation. I believe that most of my family and friends will go to be with Him one day, and that He will eventually put an end to sin and the suffering and death that inevitably follows. I believe His plan for creation is good, even if I am not. I am glad He is there, even if He must be my judge and not my Savior.
USians, except in inner cities, have no conception of what war truly is. To many, it is the patriotic and commendable practice of sending our boys "there" so they don't have to fight the eeevil "terrorists" here. When you're on the other side, the one being mass murdered instead of the one doing the murdering, it looks very different. It's maiming, grief, loss of precious loved ones, destruction of everything including all means of earning an income, relatively fast but painful death from bullets and bombs and burning alive, slower and even more painful death from hunger and malnutrition and preventable illnesses such as cancers and birth defects caused by chemical and nuclear weapons including depleted uranium. It is the negation and the violent slaughter not only of all possible life, but of everything that could possibly make life worth living. War is not merely evil; it is the sum of all evils (Stonewall Jackson?). Those who start it, and those on the aggressor side(s) who participate in it in any way that could possibly be avoided, deserve to burn in a thousand hells, concurrently, for a thousand eternities. I am a USian myself, and beyond ashamed. I took an oath to defend my country against aggressors, back at a time when I was blissfully unaware that the US itself is the greatest aggressor nation of all time. I now honor that oath in one of only a few ways I possibly can, by trying to educate myself and others about, among other things, the incredible amount of enslaving, kidnapping, rape, and murder perpetrated by the U.S. government, on people both here and abroad. It must stop, and it will stop, and I will continue to do all I can, until they imprison or kill me, to make it stop.
Agreed. I do not use Mono at home, on machines I control, for exactly this reason. It's dangerous and it helps Microsoft, which, though I must use its products at work, I have no great wish to do. On the other hand, I do advocate including Mono support for the.NET applications my employer builds. Doing so opens up at least the possibility that parts of our.NET code base could be ported to non-Microsoft platforms in the future, and, if nothing else, at least helps us to identify and hopefully avoid functionality specific to Windows (or worse, to specific Windows versions). Let me say here for purposes of full disclosure that I do think.NET is a pretty nice platform for Windows development. If a truly open-source, non-patent-encumbered, and complete (WPF) implementation existed, I'd be using it on other platforms too. It then could potentially evolve into true competition for Java. As it stands now, the platform does tie us more tightly to Windows and to Microsoft than what I consider safe, but I do hope someday that might change.
Profit is not bad unless it is achieved at the expense of someone else's rights. Failing to respect the rights of users (or anyone else) is bad, but you can respect those rights while still making a nice profit; the two concepts are completely orthogonal. As for Wine and Samba, I don't see them as encouraging Windows use; I see them as opening doors for people who need to interoperate with Windows software and/or networks, and who otherwise might not be able to use Linux or other Free Software at all.
That is why strictly speaking I am an anarchist, not just a libertarian. Most libertarians would be OK with a hypothetical government that could protect individual rights without violating those very same rights. I'm fairly convinced that no such institution could exist; if it is capable of protecting liberty then it is capable of destroying it as well. I would prefer that no institution had such power, and certainly no such institution will ever have my willing cooperation or support.
Like the GP I am a theologically and culturally conservative aspiring Christian, and also a libertarian (anarchist actually, but for purposes of this discussion the difference doesn't matter). And I was an enthusiastic member of the ACLJ when it first started up. But in recent years I've found its behavior quite troubling; for instance, I can think of no reason why trying to prevent Muslims from building a mosque in lower Manhattan helps to protect liberty and/or justice, for anyone; all I can see resulting is an increase in the level of hostility and a further erosion of liberty for everyone. They do not seem to understand, at least not consistently, that if we demand respect for our rights we must also respect the rights of others, including those who may be different than ourselves. I still applaud some of the work they do, but cringe at much of the rest, and I no longer support them financially or in any other way.
Well, first of all, it isn't possible. We have a one-party-masquerading-as-two system. Voting one bastard out means you get an only slightly different and very possibly worse one. Ask anyone who voted for Obama.
But, leaving that aside, you vote someone out when they do a crappy job, not when they seriously attempt to violate your inalienable human rights, you know, the ones they took an oath to DEFEND, and leave you with no other recourse.
I believe that the requirement of due process is satisfied when a public figure openly admits to committing a crime, in this case, conspiracy to defraud American citizens of their Constitutionally-protected rights under color of law (18 USC 1842 I believe). There is no question of either fact or law for due process to resolve. They deserve summary judgment and the prescribed legal penalty for their offense.
Note that here the crime is not their speech; it is that, *through* their speech, they are committing a different crime (conspiracy to defraud); just as existing law covers all of the legitimate cases they are arguing should be changed. Telling a hit man you'll pay him 50 bucks to whack someone is not a crime because of it being speech; it's a crime because through your speech you are commissioning a different crime (murder).
Now, I do not like violence, nor do I ever condone it except when all other options have been ruled out. But does ANYONE see any completely non-coercive way to prevent thugs like this from trampling not only our inalienable human rights, but the rights of countless generations not even born? Or to deter future thugs from doing similar or even worse things? I don't, which poses an ethical dilemma I won't pretend to know how to solve. I don't want the current level of violence in our society, which is already way too high, to be escalated. I don't want the blowback that will surely result if legislators and other government thugs start getting openly whacked.
But I will say this much . . it is probably just short of being enough to get arrested, but sooner or later I will be anyway, so here goes: I won't lose any sleep if some of them woke up in the morning with the proverbial horse's head lying next to them, with an anonymous note saying "DON'T TREAD ON ME," and implying that something worse might happen if they ignore that warning. Perhaps they might be just a little bit less aggressive next time they decide that the rights of our children and all future children need to be curtailed "for their own good." Politicians pursue their own good, not ours. I only wish more people understood that.
Freedom isn't free. It must be defended, not by murdering random people overseas, but by being willing to use all available means, including force if (and only if) necessary, to prevent government thugs, or anyone else including the corporations and other institutions they create, from trampling it.
So your temporary illusion of temporary prosperity justifies the murder of hundreds of millions of people during and as a direct result of WW2? Wow. I thought the neocons were evil. Hell, I thought *I* was evil, for knowing about some of the atrocities committed by this "government," and doing less than everything I could to oppose it. If I'm understanding you correctly . . . and I hope and pray I'm not . . . then yours is the single most evil opinion I've heard voiced.
I'd love it if that were the case. It may well be in Arizona. I doubt that it is in my part of the country (Rust Belt). At least not until we have politically and economically acceptable ways for efficiently converting electricity into liquid fuels. Honestly, I think that was always the harder problem to begin with. Given the political will, nuclear could be done far more cheaply and safely than it is now, and that has been true for 20-25 years at least. And solar could gradually have supplanted that as costs continued to come down. But there was never a point if there wasn't a cheap way to get that power from where it's generated to where it's needed (e.g., cars). And deeply entrenched political interests have fought it pretty successfully, even for powering the grid; those same interests fight and will continue to fight against adoption of solar power, and probably in much the same ways. Ironically, because it is now clear to everyone that government works for them, not us, it should be equally obvious that getting government OUT of the way is the best way to ensure that sustainable and renewable energy will gain enough of a foothold to ensure eventual dominance.
They would be turning around right now if the culture of Detroit and its immediate environs were not so hostile to business. The falling dollar and lower labor costs due to the recession should be making American manufacturing competitive again. But not many investors are brave enough to invest in a place where workers don't want to work, unions don't want to let them, city government is famously corrupt, regulations at all levels stifle anything resembling innovation, a communist thug like Michael Moore is a local hero, and crime of all kinds abounds. Manufacturing will come back to the South first, to less hostile parts of the Midwest next, and to places like Cleveland and Detroit only when the people who live in and run those places decide they want to welcome business instead of bashing it.
You're probably referring to Steelyard Commons . . . actually it has been a great thing for city and inner-suburb residents who'd otherwise have to drive way out to North Olmsted or Mentor to be able to buy anything, or may be constrained by lack of public transportation from getting to retail outlets at all. But a similar project in Garfield Heights, built over a landfill, has had significant problems due to methane leakage. There is always significant risk when building on, over or near brownfields, and for every project that is successful there are several that are not.
Cleveland also has vast tracts of uninhabited land where the steel mills and factories used to be. I don't know if it would be possible for anyone to live or work there now, due to all the hazardous waste dumping that occurred since they closed. I imagine that (to a lesser extent than Cleveland or Detroit) the same is true of many other Rust Belt cities. Cleanup would be possible, but difficult and expensive, and, for most purposes, it's more practical just to build in exurban areas half an hour away, some of which are also abandoned due to the collapse of the market for new homes, but don't have the pollution or crime issues of the central city.
African-American children also are herded into some of the most disgracefully horrible K-12 "schools" in the developed world. I'm not a fan of AA, but I do believe that government-run "education" has so miserably failed all children - especially minority children - that it needs to be seriouslyrethought.
A lot of this is just bad architecture and design. If you have to create a FloogManagerFactoryFactory to create a FloogManagerFactory to create the FloogManager to interface with your Snerg, and so on and so forth, all just to perform a simple database query, then you (or someone) is doing it wrong. Simple things should be simple to implement, and complex things should be possible. And design patterns and frameworks are meant to solve problems, not to use "just because" and thereby create more. I find the Java world so polluted with over-design and gratuitous, unnecessary complexity that for the most part I steer clear. Something about the Java culture, compared to say C# or Python, seems to encourage this. It isn't anything inherent to Java itself; it's possible to write reasonably clean and elegant code in it. I just don't see people actually doing that. Apparently most of them would rather use 3 incompatible ORMs, 4 dependency injectors, 5 test driven development frameworks to run tests that are utterly irrelevant to the business case, 15 XML files per line of actual code, and literally every design pattern in the GoF book, just because those things are "cool." As a seasoned but not quite senile developer (age 44, about 20 years experience), I'm not opposed to using any tool that helps solve a problem, but I won't use any tool just for its own sake, because I have a fiduciary responsibility to my employers and/or clients to deliver the best possible value at the least possible cost, and doing things "just because" doesn't do that.
If you aren't worried about CO2, you think that burning fossil fuels is OK.
I'm not worried about CO2 but I still prefer that we move past burning fossil fuels because of its many other harmful effects, not to mention that, leaving aside the possibility of abiogenesis or dramatic improvements in extraction technology, it's not going to be cheap for very much longer.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, and it could be added that we have Islamic scholarship to thank for much of our knowledge of the ancient world, not to mention significant scientific achievements of its own.
Author of article, who apparently fails to undestand that correlation != causation, proposes repeal of the law of supply and demand. Film at 11.
If this were a "Christian Theocracy," then "divorce" would not be lawful except in the case of adultery. I for one would prefer that over the mess we have now.
If you were a national of a country that had invaded mine, for no lawful reason, and had murdered hundreds of thousands if not millions of my fellow countrymen, not just soldiers trying desperately to protect it, but innocent civilians as well, sometimes for sport, I would advise you very strongly not to come here, and if you were already here, to leave at once. You may not consider yourself to be part of the invading/occupying force, but trust me, there are enough people there who will, and will consider you a completely legitimate target.
Even if you are OK with the risk of dying, consider that you might not die, but maybe lose a few limbs, maybe your eyesight, maybe a part of your brain. Maybe you'll live 60 more years but in constant, agonizing, unbearable pain. Maybe you'll need dozens of expensive surgeries that will bankrupt you and everyone around you. War is not exciting, glorious, pretty, or fun. It is the sum of all evil. Avoid it if you can.
Others have pointed out that there are plenty of interesting, exciting and safe places in the world where you would be welcome, provided you behaved yourself, and would have little trouble finding gainful employment. There are banking, tax, and of course cultural issues to consider, which I'd strongly recommend researching in advance. But it still can be a tremendously enlightening and rewarding experience.
I'm convinced that God wants me to love my neighbor as myself, which includes (but is not necessarily limited to) respecting his or her rights. I was raised with the belief, based on a different understanding of Christianity, that sometimes it is OK to violate those rights, for the "greater good;" that war or theft or slavery could sometimes be justified. My current faith, which is rooted less in tradition and more in Scripture, tells me that they cannot, because each of these things fails to respect the inherent dignity and worth with which God created every living being. Do I live in perfect accordance with these beliefs? Not really. But when I realize I've failed, I ask God and whomever I may have wronged, if that's possible, for forgiveness; I try to make amends; and I strive to do better over time, with God's help. Would I do so as a completely non-Christian? I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing probably not. I know I didn't really even try before. I did try to behave honorably and decently, but according to what I now consider to be an insufficiently complete definition of decency and honor, and without even being aware that I could seek God's help just as simply as by asking for it.
I very much appreciate your attempt at encouragement! My understanding of Scripture, which is influenced by Reformed teaching, is that there is a state in which a person can know about God intellectually, and even want to follow Him to some extent, but the soil of his or her soul just isn't quite right (see the parable of the sower) and that's where I think I am. The passage from James that I think you're referring to also illustrates one of the results of that state: a person in it can claim to "believe," but only in the same way that the devils also do, and with the exact same results. I do not believe that salvation is determined purely by choice, but mainly by the calling and purposes of God; but supposing that on that point I were mistaken: there certainly are times I would choose it, but there are also other times when I would not. A person with such wavering intentions cannot expect the blessing of God. That is one reason I think the Reformers' understanding and teaching about salvation makes more sense: it is God's calling and His election, not ours; it is pure grace, and works, even the work of believing, is evidence of salvation rather than its cause (Eph. 2:10).
Without my admittedly superficial and limited knowledge of Christ and of Christianity, I would still have morals, but no power to live up to them, and nothing to empower or teach me to do better. I would still have friends and family to live for, but, again, no real power to become the kind of person who deserves to have them to begin with. Arguably, I'd have *more* to look forward to after I die. Given how much I've failed to love God with all my being, or to love my neighbor as myself, I expect to burn. Forever. I'd much rather just cease to exist. I don't have that option. But if I could choose between a universe in which I had everything I could want except no God, or on the other hand the one in which God Is, I would choose the latter without hesitation. I believe that most of my family and friends will go to be with Him one day, and that He will eventually put an end to sin and the suffering and death that inevitably follows. I believe His plan for creation is good, even if I am not. I am glad He is there, even if He must be my judge and not my Savior.
USians, except in inner cities, have no conception of what war truly is. To many, it is the patriotic and commendable practice of sending our boys "there" so they don't have to fight the eeevil "terrorists" here. When you're on the other side, the one being mass murdered instead of the one doing the murdering, it looks very different. It's maiming, grief, loss of precious loved ones, destruction of everything including all means of earning an income, relatively fast but painful death from bullets and bombs and burning alive, slower and even more painful death from hunger and malnutrition and preventable illnesses such as cancers and birth defects caused by chemical and nuclear weapons including depleted uranium. It is the negation and the violent slaughter not only of all possible life, but of everything that could possibly make life worth living. War is not merely evil; it is the sum of all evils (Stonewall Jackson?). Those who start it, and those on the aggressor side(s) who participate in it in any way that could possibly be avoided, deserve to burn in a thousand hells, concurrently, for a thousand eternities. I am a USian myself, and beyond ashamed. I took an oath to defend my country against aggressors, back at a time when I was blissfully unaware that the US itself is the greatest aggressor nation of all time. I now honor that oath in one of only a few ways I possibly can, by trying to educate myself and others about, among other things, the incredible amount of enslaving, kidnapping, rape, and murder perpetrated by the U.S. government, on people both here and abroad. It must stop, and it will stop, and I will continue to do all I can, until they imprison or kill me, to make it stop.
Al Jazeera, in Arabic, is available in northeast Ohio. Not sure about Farsi, and not sure whether it is cable or satellite - my guess is the latter.
Recovery efforts on a military installation are military action and can be lawfully attacked.
Only if the war is lawful. It is a war crime to begin an unlawful war, and/or to prosecute it in any fashion whatsoever.
Agreed. I do not use Mono at home, on machines I control, for exactly this reason. It's dangerous and it helps Microsoft, which, though I must use its products at work, I have no great wish to do. On the other hand, I do advocate including Mono support for the .NET applications my employer builds. Doing so opens up at least the possibility that parts of our .NET code base could be ported to non-Microsoft platforms in the future, and, if nothing else, at least helps us to identify and hopefully avoid functionality specific to Windows (or worse, to specific Windows versions). Let me say here for purposes of full disclosure that I do think .NET is a pretty nice platform for Windows development. If a truly open-source, non-patent-encumbered, and complete (WPF) implementation existed, I'd be using it on other platforms too. It then could potentially evolve into true competition for Java. As it stands now, the platform does tie us more tightly to Windows and to Microsoft than what I consider safe, but I do hope someday that might change.
Profit is not bad unless it is achieved at the expense of someone else's rights. Failing to respect the rights of users (or anyone else) is bad, but you can respect those rights while still making a nice profit; the two concepts are completely orthogonal. As for Wine and Samba, I don't see them as encouraging Windows use; I see them as opening doors for people who need to interoperate with Windows software and/or networks, and who otherwise might not be able to use Linux or other Free Software at all.
That is why strictly speaking I am an anarchist, not just a libertarian. Most libertarians would be OK with a hypothetical government that could protect individual rights without violating those very same rights. I'm fairly convinced that no such institution could exist; if it is capable of protecting liberty then it is capable of destroying it as well. I would prefer that no institution had such power, and certainly no such institution will ever have my willing cooperation or support.
Like the GP I am a theologically and culturally conservative aspiring Christian, and also a libertarian (anarchist actually, but for purposes of this discussion the difference doesn't matter). And I was an enthusiastic member of the ACLJ when it first started up. But in recent years I've found its behavior quite troubling; for instance, I can think of no reason why trying to prevent Muslims from building a mosque in lower Manhattan helps to protect liberty and/or justice, for anyone; all I can see resulting is an increase in the level of hostility and a further erosion of liberty for everyone. They do not seem to understand, at least not consistently, that if we demand respect for our rights we must also respect the rights of others, including those who may be different than ourselves. I still applaud some of the work they do, but cringe at much of the rest, and I no longer support them financially or in any other way.
Well, first of all, it isn't possible. We have a one-party-masquerading-as-two system. Voting one bastard out means you get an only slightly different and very possibly worse one. Ask anyone who voted for Obama.
But, leaving that aside, you vote someone out when they do a crappy job, not when they seriously attempt to violate your inalienable human rights, you know, the ones they took an oath to DEFEND, and leave you with no other recourse.
I believe that the requirement of due process is satisfied when a public figure openly admits to committing a crime, in this case, conspiracy to defraud American citizens of their Constitutionally-protected rights under color of law (18 USC 1842 I believe). There is no question of either fact or law for due process to resolve. They deserve summary judgment and the prescribed legal penalty for their offense.
Note that here the crime is not their speech; it is that, *through* their speech, they are committing a different crime (conspiracy to defraud); just as existing law covers all of the legitimate cases they are arguing should be changed. Telling a hit man you'll pay him 50 bucks to whack someone is not a crime because of it being speech; it's a crime because through your speech you are commissioning a different crime (murder).
Now, I do not like violence, nor do I ever condone it except when all other options have been ruled out. But does ANYONE see any completely non-coercive way to prevent thugs like this from trampling not only our inalienable human rights, but the rights of countless generations not even born? Or to deter future thugs from doing similar or even worse things? I don't, which poses an ethical dilemma I won't pretend to know how to solve. I don't want the current level of violence in our society, which is already way too high, to be escalated. I don't want the blowback that will surely result if legislators and other government thugs start getting openly whacked.
But I will say this much . . it is probably just short of being enough to get arrested, but sooner or later I will be anyway, so here goes: I won't lose any sleep if some of them woke up in the morning with the proverbial horse's head lying next to them, with an anonymous note saying "DON'T TREAD ON ME," and implying that something worse might happen if they ignore that warning. Perhaps they might be just a little bit less aggressive next time they decide that the rights of our children and all future children need to be curtailed "for their own good." Politicians pursue their own good, not ours. I only wish more people understood that.
Freedom isn't free. It must be defended, not by murdering random people overseas, but by being willing to use all available means, including force if (and only if) necessary, to prevent government thugs, or anyone else including the corporations and other institutions they create, from trampling it.
Have them go out on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney.
So your temporary illusion of temporary prosperity justifies the murder of hundreds of millions of people during and as a direct result of WW2? Wow. I thought the neocons were evil. Hell, I thought *I* was evil, for knowing about some of the atrocities committed by this "government," and doing less than everything I could to oppose it. If I'm understanding you correctly . . . and I hope and pray I'm not . . . then yours is the single most evil opinion I've heard voiced.
I'd love it if that were the case. It may well be in Arizona. I doubt that it is in my part of the country (Rust Belt). At least not until we have politically and economically acceptable ways for efficiently converting electricity into liquid fuels. Honestly, I think that was always the harder problem to begin with. Given the political will, nuclear could be done far more cheaply and safely than it is now, and that has been true for 20-25 years at least. And solar could gradually have supplanted that as costs continued to come down. But there was never a point if there wasn't a cheap way to get that power from where it's generated to where it's needed (e.g., cars). And deeply entrenched political interests have fought it pretty successfully, even for powering the grid; those same interests fight and will continue to fight against adoption of solar power, and probably in much the same ways. Ironically, because it is now clear to everyone that government works for them, not us, it should be equally obvious that getting government OUT of the way is the best way to ensure that sustainable and renewable energy will gain enough of a foothold to ensure eventual dominance.
They would be turning around right now if the culture of Detroit and its immediate environs were not so hostile to business. The falling dollar and lower labor costs due to the recession should be making American manufacturing competitive again. But not many investors are brave enough to invest in a place where workers don't want to work, unions don't want to let them, city government is famously corrupt, regulations at all levels stifle anything resembling innovation, a communist thug like Michael Moore is a local hero, and crime of all kinds abounds. Manufacturing will come back to the South first, to less hostile parts of the Midwest next, and to places like Cleveland and Detroit only when the people who live in and run those places decide they want to welcome business instead of bashing it.
You're probably referring to Steelyard Commons . . . actually it has been a great thing for city and inner-suburb residents who'd otherwise have to drive way out to North Olmsted or Mentor to be able to buy anything, or may be constrained by lack of public transportation from getting to retail outlets at all. But a similar project in Garfield Heights, built over a landfill, has had significant problems due to methane leakage. There is always significant risk when building on, over or near brownfields, and for every project that is successful there are several that are not.
Cleveland also has vast tracts of uninhabited land where the steel mills and factories used to be. I don't know if it would be possible for anyone to live or work there now, due to all the hazardous waste dumping that occurred since they closed. I imagine that (to a lesser extent than Cleveland or Detroit) the same is true of many other Rust Belt cities. Cleanup would be possible, but difficult and expensive, and, for most purposes, it's more practical just to build in exurban areas half an hour away, some of which are also abandoned due to the collapse of the market for new homes, but don't have the pollution or crime issues of the central city.
African-American children also are herded into some of the most disgracefully horrible K-12 "schools" in the developed world. I'm not a fan of AA, but I do believe that government-run "education" has so miserably failed all children - especially minority children - that it needs to be seriously rethought.
Heck. I've got a LOT of people who would give me the "pillow treatment" without me even having to be terminally ill!
A lot of this is just bad architecture and design. If you have to create a FloogManagerFactoryFactory to create a FloogManagerFactory to create the FloogManager to interface with your Snerg, and so on and so forth, all just to perform a simple database query, then you (or someone) is doing it wrong. Simple things should be simple to implement, and complex things should be possible. And design patterns and frameworks are meant to solve problems, not to use "just because" and thereby create more. I find the Java world so polluted with over-design and gratuitous, unnecessary complexity that for the most part I steer clear. Something about the Java culture, compared to say C# or Python, seems to encourage this. It isn't anything inherent to Java itself; it's possible to write reasonably clean and elegant code in it. I just don't see people actually doing that. Apparently most of them would rather use 3 incompatible ORMs, 4 dependency injectors, 5 test driven development frameworks to run tests that are utterly irrelevant to the business case, 15 XML files per line of actual code, and literally every design pattern in the GoF book, just because those things are "cool." As a seasoned but not quite senile developer (age 44, about 20 years experience), I'm not opposed to using any tool that helps solve a problem, but I won't use any tool just for its own sake, because I have a fiduciary responsibility to my employers and/or clients to deliver the best possible value at the least possible cost, and doing things "just because" doesn't do that.
If you aren't worried about CO2, you think that burning fossil fuels is OK.
I'm not worried about CO2 but I still prefer that we move past burning fossil fuels because of its many other harmful effects, not to mention that, leaving aside the possibility of abiogenesis or dramatic improvements in extraction technology, it's not going to be cheap for very much longer.