You will get NO net jobs. Every penny spent on a "stimulus" must be taken from taxpayers, either directly or indirectly, either now or in the future, and that penny will NOT be spent creating jobs elsewhere. At best, you are taking away future jobs to support current ones, or, to state exactly the same thing in different terms, you are borrowing from the future to support unsustainable lifestyles now . . . which is exactly what got us into this mess to begin with.
Out of pure necessity, I use the term "Open Source" to sell Free Software.
Ultimately I do value the freedom of Free Software, and I understand that most of its value derives at least indirectly, and more often directly, from its freedom.
But many people in business equate "free" with "crap."
Worse, many people in business do not understand the value of freedom itself, either for its own sake, or for the practical benefits that it confers. That is partly why the economy is in its current mess.
While Stallman is dead-on right, and even prophetic, more often than not, the world rarely listens to people of principle. It listens only to results.
So I use the results of Free and Open Source software to sell the ideals of Freedom to those who would otherwise not understand. I hope in doing so to benefit both them, through the benefits this software provides, and the larger community as a whole, which I believe does benefit at least indirectly from each person and each organization who not only uses Free Software, but comes to embrace, share, and in time support the ideals of freedom itself, in every sense of the term.
Because, even as far back as when I worked with him (10+ years ago) he had significant clients in both DC and the Cleveland/Akron area, and thus spent a ridiculous amount of time traveling between the two.
I worked with Mike Connell for a year or so in the mid-1990s (before most of his work with the national GOP). He was not an angel. He was a flawed human being as all of us are. But his children (very little then, now in their teens) ADORED him. I can personally attest to this. He leaves them behind. He started and ran a medical mission to El Salvador. He leaves this behind as well. It is sad, regardless of what whatever flaws he may have had. The death of any human being always is. I do hope that the truth behind all of this comes out. I suspect it is not pretty. But first and foremost, I feel terrible for his family. They will remain in my thoughts and prayers for a long time.
To a constitutionalist (which I am), pork may be defined defined as any spending that is not authorized by the Constitution, and, therefore, by the 9th and 10th Amendments, prohibited. Every constitutionalist understands that infrastructure not spanning multiple States is a State matter, not a federal one.
To a libertarian (which I also am), pork may be defined as any spending not necessary for the protection of life, liberty or property. Every libertarian understands that infrastructure is too important to leave in the hands of a monopoly (whether government or any other kind), and tries to envision ways to build and maintain it with minimal impact to taxpayers or anyone else.
To an anarchist (which I also am), pork may be defined as any spending that is not voluntary. Period. Doesn't matter how much or what it's for. Every anarchist understands that you have the right to spend YOUR money, not mine (at least not without my consent) and that I have the right to spend MY money, not yours, at least not without your consent. Every anarchist further understands that infrastructure, while important, does not justify the coercion or violence that is inherent in anything governments do, and both can and must be built and maintained through entirely voluntary and peaceful means.
See the link in my sig for a more detailed and eloquent explanation of the above.
As a believer both in God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, please trust me when I tell you that you do NOT wish to see the FSM's tentacles anywhere near you, or for that matter anyplace else that can't be quickly and easily cleaned. (And if you don't believe in the FSM . . . just try feeding spaghetti, preferably with sauce, to any child under the age of 4.)
OK, fair enough. But we really can't perceive most things directly . . only their effects. We do not see objects; we see light reflected off of them. We do not hear explosions, but only the periodic changes in air pressure over time that cause our eardrums to vibrate (unless it's a sci-fi movie and the explosion was in space, in which case we are perceiving the effects of the script writer's imagination, and nothing more). Sometimes we observe effects whose causes cannot be ascertained with certainty, or at least not by the scientific method (observation, experimentation, etc.) We can perceive the effect, but must somehow infer the cause from that effect. To others who do not agree with our inferences, our actions may appear to be "ritual" whereas to us they seem completely logical and rational, or vice versa.
I'm 41, and for most of my life I've suffered from depression, insomnia and other problems which have made it difficult to concentrate, focus, or remember things. It's like an advance preview of mild senility, and it isn't always pleasant. Nonetheless, I've found ways to compensate, and have managed to remain a reasonably successful software developer in spite of these.
First and foremost is that I assume *nothing* about my memory, and write down anything I do not wish to forget. Second, I have developed a discipline for breaking down complex or overwhelming objectives into smaller and more manageable tasks. This is part of what helps me to be a good developer - this is the same skill that allows analyzing business problems or algorithms to come up with a solution so simple that even I can understand and implement it.:) Third, I try to be realistic about my strengths and limitations. I realize I couldn't do graphical design or sales to save my life, so I leave these kinds of things to others, and instead focus on the things I know I can do well.
Every person has a different mix of skills, abilities, aptitudes, and interests, which predisposes him or her to success in different areas. Mine doesn't include the ability to remember precise details from decades past, but that's OK. I do learn from both successes and mistakes from the past, and even if I know I won't remember what a particular regex means unless I comment it (which I do!!), I still can learn from the problem I used it to fix, and hopefully anticipate and prevent that same sort of problem in future systems. Even though I can't always remember, I can always learn, and I suspect that's true of everyone, regardless of age or any related challenges that may bring.
"Drug use" would not be seen as a problem. ALL of us use drugs. The only difference is that the government approves of some of those drugs (alcohol, caffeine, etc.) but not others (cocaine, marijuana, etc.)
A much bigger problem is Obama's long track record of shredding Constitutionally guaranteed rights as a senator . . and his announced intention of doing so even further. Not that the Repugs have been/would be much if any better.
But the biggest problem by far is not them, but us. It is that we as a nation were willing to elect anyone, of either party, who has amply demonstrated his or her willingness to violate the very rights they are sworn to protect. It is our willingness to give up liberty in exchange for the illusory promise of "security" or "prosperity" or anything else. Without liberty there can be neither of those things in the first place. What has made our nation weak, sick, vulnerable, and poor is the fact that we allow and even insist that others rule over and provide for us, rather than each of us ruling and providing for ourselves and our own loved ones. Until that changes, we can only expect things to get worse, not better, regardless of who is elected, and regardless of how many non-government-approved drugs he or she did or did not ingest.
One thing that is not taught in schools but learned "on the battlefield" is the instincts of when a project is going to go bad before it starts. You can simply smell it on the proposal or project schematic.
I'm the guy who gets those projects that everyone knows are going to go bad before they start, you insensitive clod!
Seriously . . . I have a reputation for being able to pull off some of these nearly impossible types of projects. I've learned some skills that help me to do that. One of them is the ability to smell a bad or inappropriate tool, framework, design, or architecture. It's not that hard. If it helps you to follow the principles of KISS (Keep It Simple, S******d) and DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) then it is probably good and appropriate. If it makes it more difficult or even impossible to do so, then it is inappropriate and/or bad.
Generally, I've avoided other people's frameworks when possible. I've tended to find them more trouble than they are worth. I don't find it particularly difficult to write code that will write good SQL for me, or to navigate between the relational and object worlds without confusing the two (partly because I have DB design background). I don't have a problem refactoring as I go, or creating sufficiently flexible designs that most requirement changes don't break them.
But I don't feel any particular need to reinvent things like languages, file formats, database engines, or operating systems. There are great choices out there to meet most any need, most of them Open Source, and I make a point to leverage them where possible.
I guess it boils down to this . . . I don't feel a need to reinvent a wheel, if it is truly round. But I also don't feel a need to re-use a "wheel" that actually is shaped like a square, and that requires special roads in order to run. If I encounter one, I immediately find a way to re-pave the road, if I can, so that a normal wheel would suffice, and if I can't, then I write an abstraction layer of my own, complete with inertial dampers, gyroscopes, and whatever else is needed, so that the rest of the code can exist just as if it did have a functional wheel and road to depend on.:)
While starting with CO2 may be a bad idea (too expensive), the broader idea is very sound. We want to both (a) produce energy cheaply and (b) store and transport it in liquid form without much loss. Optionally we also want (c) to be carbon-neutral. It turns out that given enough political will and sufficiently modern designs, nuke plants can make energy cheaply and safely. It also turns out that we throw away or ignore a lot of crap (including literal crap, but also things like high-sulfur coal) that could be converted into much cleaner liquid fuels given sufficient cheap energy. So the combination of technologies - nuclear electricity to refine bad fuels into good ones - may very well be the way of the future. Everything we need is already here, except the political will.
I'm curious. I am sorry that apparently you or someone you know have been beaten up, arrested, and/or insulted because of your skin color. I have been too. But how does the skin color of the next President change that? Do you think Obama will empty the jails of nonviolent drug abusers, allowing them to love and provide for their families once again? Do you think he will repeal the "gun control" laws that keep otherwise law-abiding Black and other minority people from defending themselves against the thugs that roam their streets unmolested? Do you think he will restore competition and choice to health care markets, as opposed to more of the same socialist/fascist crap that broke them in the first place? Do you think his planned war with Iran will help the economy to grow, or that only rich white kids will die in that war?
The reality is that Obama is an establishment thug, just like McCain. You might feel he is marginally better than McCain. I probably would agree. But both are establishment thugs. If you want something different, then VOTE for something different (a third party candidate), or don't vote at all. Either way you would be sending a message to both parties that thuggery-as-usual is no longer acceptable to you. If enough others do, then still others will be motivated to do so as well, and sooner or later, you might start to see real change. I think most of us agree that it is desperately needed. I just don't think Obama is some magical savior whose election alone, or even in combination with any other reasonably likely set of circumstances, is going to bring about that change.
Yes, and I agree with those reasons. But I have a problem with the idea that some people have a right to rule over others without the latter's consent. Regardless of who is smarter, and regardless of who is better informed. That is why I prefer for people to rule themselves, insofar as possible . . . with external rule being imposed ONLY in cases where one person or entity chooses to interfere with the rights of another. And even that is dangerous in the extreme.
Which is why I am not only a libertarian but also an anarchist. I've come to realize that any government big enough to PROTECT rights can, and very likely will, VIOLATE those rights instead. Coercive government in its present form is, or at least I'm hoping it is, a doomed institution, very much like the institution of chattel slavery - and for the very same reasons. Both systems presume that some have the right to, in essence, own others. I reject that notion, and look forward to the day when enough others do as well to do something about it (e.g., secede peacefully, and create the world's first modern free society).
Of course, that day can never truly arrive until people learn to rule themselves. But with the impending demise of the current federal system, the world empire it ruled, the world financial system it wrecked, and all of the fallout certain to result, we may soon find ourselves at least a little bit closer to that day. Those who are willfully ignorant, lazy, and short-sighted will NOT survive what is coming. Those who do survive will find challenges - but also opportunities - that don't exist today. Including opportunities to build a world that is fundamentally based on voluntary cooperation, rather than the threatened or actual force and violence that constitute the sum total of all of the activities of today's so-called "governments."
In a true multiparty system you must get concensus to get anything done so it is difficult to get unpopular things done.
True enough, but the right thing and the popular thing are often not the same. As a libertarian I would say that a broad consensus, across a wide and diverse group of people, varied in terms of income, geography, race, gender, rural vs. urban, etc., should be a necessary but NOT sufficient condition for the passage of any law. Interestingly that is exactly why the U.S. Constitution was written the way it was . . it was designed to make exactly such a consensus a necessary (but not sufficient) prerequisite for any governmental action at the federal level. Unfortunately those checks and balances have mostly come apart, so we now have a mostly national (not federal) system in which people want to believe they have some stake and some semblance of control, but in which the same unelected oligopoly actually holds most of the power regardless of who wins elections.
Until something goes wrong, which, in my experience, it frequently does. You can review the Apache source code to figure out what's going on. More importantly, others can too, so if others have had the same problem you have, there's a very good chance that a fix is already available . . . EVEN if the Apache devs themselves did not come up with it themselves.
That's been my experience with every pair of analogous MS/Free projects. Even if the MS offering has some features or advantages that the Free offering does not, the Free offering is still infinitely easier to work with over long periods of time. There's more of a learning curve, but that learning curve only has to happen once, and the knowledge gained thereby lasts a long, long time.
Freedom is valuable for its own sake, but there are practical benefits too.
By default you have all rights to the extent that they do not injure the rights of others. But included in those rights is the right to contract. Generally that means you give up, in some small fashion, the ability to exercise one right in exchange for the other party doing the same. If you work for an employer, you give up the right to free use of some of your time, in exchange for the employer giving up the right to free use of some of its money. Those arrangements work best in the presence of competition, which is one reason why "laws" that pretend to grant monopoly status to members of particular bar associations or unions or patent holders (to name just a few examples) tend to be a very bad idea. But, in general, yes, you may agree to give up the exercise of your rights, if someone is willing to make it worth your while to do so.
And yes, "intellectual property laws" tend to grant unearned monopoly status and an excuse for some parties to initiate force against others. Some more so than others. I see no problem with trademarks for instance; they are there mostly to combat fraud, and fraud is never a good thing. Even some kinds of copyrights, for instance those that exist for a genuinely limited time and cover a genuinely original and creative expression of thought, could find justification in some versions of libertarian theory. But I can't think of a single good reason for allowing mathematical ideas to be "patented." And much software, including codecs, consist primarily of expressions of mathematical ideas. I tend to oppose the idea that these things can be copyrighted or patented. But, as a practical matter, I try to fight this abuse of IP "laws" not by violating them, but by working around them using and supporting FOSS to the greatest extent possible.
My point is not to say that CO2 cannot be stored safely, only that it definitely can be stored unsafely, and that lives could be lost if this were to happen.
Of course, I'm not really sure why it makes sense to burn coal in the first place, even if it can be done cleanly, when we still depend on liquid fuels for the mid-term future. Why wouldn't we crack the coal instead using nuclear or hydroelectric energy? Sure, there would be some net energy loss, but it would reduce our dependence on petroleum (imported or otherwise) and hopefully buy us some time to figure out how to do transportation on an un-densely-populated continent this large without making such extensive use of fossil fuels.
Being an energy industry guy, can you tell me if is there some reason I'm missing why this wouldn't work, aside from the obvious but hopefully short-term problem that we refuse to build the necessary nuclear plants?
Most moral/ethical issues seem clearcut to me. This one really doesn't.
As a libertarian I am reluctantly forced to concede that it can be acceptable to sell ones and zeroes, and to forbid the buyer, as a condition of that sale, from redistributing those ones and zeroes without the seller's permission. This is acceptable because all things that are not forbidden are allowed, no matter how repugnant we might find them, and the only things that are forbidden are those which violate people's rights (namely, initiation of force and/or fraud).
But such arrangements cannot be enforced against innocent third parties without initiation of force. Those third parties were not parties to the original deal. They never agreed not to use the ones and zeroes in question. They can be prevented from doing so only by use of force, typically through some type of government-enforced "copyright" scheme. Libertarians don't, or at least shouldn't, condone this type of force.
The only libertarian-friendly recourse the original seller may have would be to go after the person who wrongfully redistributed the ones and zeroes. Copyright allows them instead to go after third parties who were never party to the agreement in the first place.
Does Canonical violate libertarian principles by selling software that is encumbered, whose owners forbid it to be redistributed apart from its agreement? My take is that it does, albeit only indirectly, and in a way that can be arguably justified by saying that while it does not directly infringe anyone's freedom, it does form part of a strategy that will ultimately expand freedom, by increasing the adoption and popularity of free software, i.e. software that clearly does respect the rights of its users. This is an argument the FSF itself has used in the past, when it acquired proprietary UNIX code for the explicit purpose of creating free replacements for that code. So it should not be dismissed lightly.
But the same argument could be (and frequently has been) used to justify things like pre-emptive military invasions. "We are using violence to make the world a less violent place in the end." It rarely works that way. In reality, violence almost always leads to more violence, not less. That is true regardless of whether the violence is "legally" sanctioned by a government or not. Indeed, the former kind is usually on a vastly larger scale, and hence vastly worse, than the work of random thugs or smaller groups of people.
There is something a bit sad about the state of affairs where Canonical, in order to increase the adoption of Linux, feels compelled to even temporarily participate in another party's use of unjustifiable aggression and violence (via government's enforcement of "copyright") against innocents. I am not sure I am smart enough to say for sure that Canonical is wrong to do this. But I do feel pretty strongly that only in a really screwed up world is it necessary for them to even consider it.
In a more sane and free world, you would not be able to use violence against party C just because parties A and B agreed to a restrictive sharing arrangement. You might need to do a better job of making sure party B doesn't violate his or her agreement. You might need to require him or her to purchase a bond or insurance or some other instrument by which party B could make party A whole again. And, while even this goes too far for me, you might need a mechanism to make the ones and zeroes useless to party C or any other third party who did not acquire them via authorized means. But you would not be able to justify violence against him or her just because your business model was too fragile to allow for the fact that some people will make unauthorized copies whether you want them to or not.
Ask the folks in Lake Nyos. Natural CO2 escaped from a lake and killed something like 2,000 people. That CO2 needs to be stored very securely and away from centers of population.
Conservatives are more likely to believe something that supports their belief system after it has been refuted by experts.
That can readily be explained by the perception that "experts" in many fields have a distinctly leftist bias. (From my perspective, they have a rather statist bias, which may or may not be leftist depending on the issue. Given that most "experts" are funded at least in part by the state, that should not be surprising. But it also is possible that my libertarian/anarchist leanings are partly responsible for my perception as well.)
First, ask them what the ten commandments are. This will trip 95% of them up and they'll walk away without bothering you. If they say that the commandments are not important, tell them you think the same about the rest of the Bible.
No believer in creation should be afraid of what science concludes. but many are. It's silly.
Agreed. But by the same token, no believer in evolution should be afraid of what creationists or ID proponents have to say either. If it is false they should refute it. If it is outside the realm of science (which is what I tend to think for the most part) they should point that out. If creationists happen to agree with evolutionists in many, many areas - which they do, though both sides are loath to admit this - then both sides should use that agreement as a common ground on which to base a discussion of their differences.
But in no case should they be afraid. When people are afraid, and feel the need to ridicule their opponents rather than refuting their ideas, it makes me suspect those people are less than entirely certain of their beliefs.
As an aspiring Christian I have no interest in "lynching" or otherwise harming anyone, except possibly for those who deliberately harm others without provokation. The two great commands given by Christ are to love God with all your being, and also love your neighbor (i.e., all other people) as yourself. I don't see how "lynching" people you disagree with could possibly be consistent with either of these commands. Hence, when I see or hear about so-called "Christians" acting hatefully toward other people, sometimes even other Christians, I have no choice but to think they are doing this not because of their faith, but in direct contradiction to it. Sure, "Christianity" may be the excuse for doing wrong. But not the reason. If they did not have that excuse, they would surely pick some other. To genuinely follow the Prince of Peace, one must follow peace. One must love not only one's friends, but even one's enemies. I must admit I do not do this perfectly, or even particularly well, but I understand that I must at least try, and seek God's help, and seek forgiveness from Him and from those whom I have wronged when I mess up.
Also . . . I believe that God created everything. I do not pretend to know how, nor do I pretend that the knowledge we gain from science, and the knowledge we gain from faith, will ever be identical. If they were, then one would not be necessary. But I do think they are consistent, or at least should be. If not then something is wrong. As I understand it, God created us with the ability and desire to learn about our universe. I'm not afraid of where that learning will lead. I oppose the teaching of dogma - *any* dogma - as if it were science. But I'm also pretty convinced that people who are informed and open-minded will eventually converge upon similar understandings of similar truths, regardless of the path they choose to take in order to get there. Until then, if we must agree to disagree, that's OK with me.
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You will get NO net jobs. Every penny spent on a "stimulus" must be taken from taxpayers, either directly or indirectly, either now or in the future, and that penny will NOT be spent creating jobs elsewhere. At best, you are taking away future jobs to support current ones, or, to state exactly the same thing in different terms, you are borrowing from the future to support unsustainable lifestyles now . . . which is exactly what got us into this mess to begin with.
Out of pure necessity, I use the term "Open Source" to sell Free Software.
Ultimately I do value the freedom of Free Software, and I understand that most of its value derives at least indirectly, and more often directly, from its freedom.
But many people in business equate "free" with "crap."
Worse, many people in business do not understand the value of freedom itself, either for its own sake, or for the practical benefits that it confers. That is partly why the economy is in its current mess.
While Stallman is dead-on right, and even prophetic, more often than not, the world rarely listens to people of principle. It listens only to results.
So I use the results of Free and Open Source software to sell the ideals of Freedom to those who would otherwise not understand. I hope in doing so to benefit both them, through the benefits this software provides, and the larger community as a whole, which I believe does benefit at least indirectly from each person and each organization who not only uses Free Software, but comes to embrace, share, and in time support the ideals of freedom itself, in every sense of the term.
Because, even as far back as when I worked with him (10+ years ago) he had significant clients in both DC and the Cleveland/Akron area, and thus spent a ridiculous amount of time traveling between the two.
I worked with Mike Connell for a year or so in the mid-1990s (before most of his work with the national GOP). He was not an angel. He was a flawed human being as all of us are. But his children (very little then, now in their teens) ADORED him. I can personally attest to this. He leaves them behind. He started and ran a medical mission to El Salvador. He leaves this behind as well. It is sad, regardless of what whatever flaws he may have had. The death of any human being always is. I do hope that the truth behind all of this comes out. I suspect it is not pretty. But first and foremost, I feel terrible for his family. They will remain in my thoughts and prayers for a long time.
Not everyone on the planet . . .only those who really hated Saddam Hussein.
To a constitutionalist (which I am), pork may be defined defined as any spending that is not authorized by the Constitution, and, therefore, by the 9th and 10th Amendments, prohibited. Every constitutionalist understands that infrastructure not spanning multiple States is a State matter, not a federal one.
To a libertarian (which I also am), pork may be defined as any spending not necessary for the protection of life, liberty or property. Every libertarian understands that infrastructure is too important to leave in the hands of a monopoly (whether government or any other kind), and tries to envision ways to build and maintain it with minimal impact to taxpayers or anyone else.
To an anarchist (which I also am), pork may be defined as any spending that is not voluntary. Period. Doesn't matter how much or what it's for. Every anarchist understands that you have the right to spend YOUR money, not mine (at least not without my consent) and that I have the right to spend MY money, not yours, at least not without your consent. Every anarchist further understands that infrastructure, while important, does not justify the coercion or violence that is inherent in anything governments do, and both can and must be built and maintained through entirely voluntary and peaceful means.
See the link in my sig for a more detailed and eloquent explanation of the above.
As a believer both in God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, please trust me when I tell you that you do NOT wish to see the FSM's tentacles anywhere near you, or for that matter anyplace else that can't be quickly and easily cleaned. (And if you don't believe in the FSM . . . just try feeding spaghetti, preferably with sauce, to any child under the age of 4.)
OK, fair enough. But we really can't perceive most things directly . . only their effects. We do not see objects; we see light reflected off of them. We do not hear explosions, but only the periodic changes in air pressure over time that cause our eardrums to vibrate (unless it's a sci-fi movie and the explosion was in space, in which case we are perceiving the effects of the script writer's imagination, and nothing more). Sometimes we observe effects whose causes cannot be ascertained with certainty, or at least not by the scientific method (observation, experimentation, etc.) We can perceive the effect, but must somehow infer the cause from that effect. To others who do not agree with our inferences, our actions may appear to be "ritual" whereas to us they seem completely logical and rational, or vice versa.
Once upon a time we could not see (much less measure germs). Therefore, by your logic, they must not have existed either.
I'm 41, and for most of my life I've suffered from depression, insomnia and other problems which have made it difficult to concentrate, focus, or remember things. It's like an advance preview of mild senility, and it isn't always pleasant. Nonetheless, I've found ways to compensate, and have managed to remain a reasonably successful software developer in spite of these.
First and foremost is that I assume *nothing* about my memory, and write down anything I do not wish to forget. Second, I have developed a discipline for breaking down complex or overwhelming objectives into smaller and more manageable tasks. This is part of what helps me to be a good developer - this is the same skill that allows analyzing business problems or algorithms to come up with a solution so simple that even I can understand and implement it. :) Third, I try to be realistic about my strengths and limitations. I realize I couldn't do graphical design or sales to save my life, so I leave these kinds of things to others, and instead focus on the things I know I can do well.
Every person has a different mix of skills, abilities, aptitudes, and interests, which predisposes him or her to success in different areas. Mine doesn't include the ability to remember precise details from decades past, but that's OK. I do learn from both successes and mistakes from the past, and even if I know I won't remember what a particular regex means unless I comment it (which I do!!), I still can learn from the problem I used it to fix, and hopefully anticipate and prevent that same sort of problem in future systems. Even though I can't always remember, I can always learn, and I suspect that's true of everyone, regardless of age or any related challenges that may bring.
"Drug use" would not be seen as a problem. ALL of us use drugs. The only difference is that the government approves of some of those drugs (alcohol, caffeine, etc.) but not others (cocaine, marijuana, etc.)
A much bigger problem is Obama's long track record of shredding Constitutionally guaranteed rights as a senator . . and his announced intention of doing so even further. Not that the Repugs have been/would be much if any better.
But the biggest problem by far is not them, but us. It is that we as a nation were willing to elect anyone, of either party, who has amply demonstrated his or her willingness to violate the very rights they are sworn to protect. It is our willingness to give up liberty in exchange for the illusory promise of "security" or "prosperity" or anything else. Without liberty there can be neither of those things in the first place. What has made our nation weak, sick, vulnerable, and poor is the fact that we allow and even insist that others rule over and provide for us, rather than each of us ruling and providing for ourselves and our own loved ones. Until that changes, we can only expect things to get worse, not better, regardless of who is elected, and regardless of how many non-government-approved drugs he or she did or did not ingest.
One thing that is not taught in schools but learned "on the battlefield" is the instincts of when a project is going to go bad before it starts. You can simply smell it on the proposal or project schematic.
I'm the guy who gets those projects that everyone knows are going to go bad before they start, you insensitive clod!
Seriously . . . I have a reputation for being able to pull off some of these nearly impossible types of projects. I've learned some skills that help me to do that. One of them is the ability to smell a bad or inappropriate tool, framework, design, or architecture. It's not that hard. If it helps you to follow the principles of KISS (Keep It Simple, S******d) and DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) then it is probably good and appropriate. If it makes it more difficult or even impossible to do so, then it is inappropriate and/or bad.
Generally, I've avoided other people's frameworks when possible. I've tended to find them more trouble than they are worth. I don't find it particularly difficult to write code that will write good SQL for me, or to navigate between the relational and object worlds without confusing the two (partly because I have DB design background). I don't have a problem refactoring as I go, or creating sufficiently flexible designs that most requirement changes don't break them.
But I don't feel any particular need to reinvent things like languages, file formats, database engines, or operating systems. There are great choices out there to meet most any need, most of them Open Source, and I make a point to leverage them where possible.
I guess it boils down to this . . . I don't feel a need to reinvent a wheel, if it is truly round. But I also don't feel a need to re-use a "wheel" that actually is shaped like a square, and that requires special roads in order to run. If I encounter one, I immediately find a way to re-pave the road, if I can, so that a normal wheel would suffice, and if I can't, then I write an abstraction layer of my own, complete with inertial dampers, gyroscopes, and whatever else is needed, so that the rest of the code can exist just as if it did have a functional wheel and road to depend on. :)
While starting with CO2 may be a bad idea (too expensive), the broader idea is very sound. We want to both (a) produce energy cheaply and (b) store and transport it in liquid form without much loss. Optionally we also want (c) to be carbon-neutral. It turns out that given enough political will and sufficiently modern designs, nuke plants can make energy cheaply and safely. It also turns out that we throw away or ignore a lot of crap (including literal crap, but also things like high-sulfur coal) that could be converted into much cleaner liquid fuels given sufficient cheap energy. So the combination of technologies - nuclear electricity to refine bad fuels into good ones - may very well be the way of the future. Everything we need is already here, except the political will.
I'm curious. I am sorry that apparently you or someone you know have been beaten up, arrested, and/or insulted because of your skin color. I have been too. But how does the skin color of the next President change that? Do you think Obama will empty the jails of nonviolent drug abusers, allowing them to love and provide for their families once again? Do you think he will repeal the "gun control" laws that keep otherwise law-abiding Black and other minority people from defending themselves against the thugs that roam their streets unmolested? Do you think he will restore competition and choice to health care markets, as opposed to more of the same socialist/fascist crap that broke them in the first place? Do you think his planned war with Iran will help the economy to grow, or that only rich white kids will die in that war?
The reality is that Obama is an establishment thug, just like McCain. You might feel he is marginally better than McCain. I probably would agree. But both are establishment thugs. If you want something different, then VOTE for something different (a third party candidate), or don't vote at all. Either way you would be sending a message to both parties that thuggery-as-usual is no longer acceptable to you. If enough others do, then still others will be motivated to do so as well, and sooner or later, you might start to see real change. I think most of us agree that it is desperately needed. I just don't think Obama is some magical savior whose election alone, or even in combination with any other reasonably likely set of circumstances, is going to bring about that change.
Yes, and I agree with those reasons. But I have a problem with the idea that some people have a right to rule over others without the latter's consent. Regardless of who is smarter, and regardless of who is better informed. That is why I prefer for people to rule themselves, insofar as possible . . . with external rule being imposed ONLY in cases where one person or entity chooses to interfere with the rights of another. And even that is dangerous in the extreme.
Which is why I am not only a libertarian but also an anarchist. I've come to realize that any government big enough to PROTECT rights can, and very likely will, VIOLATE those rights instead. Coercive government in its present form is, or at least I'm hoping it is, a doomed institution, very much like the institution of chattel slavery - and for the very same reasons. Both systems presume that some have the right to, in essence, own others. I reject that notion, and look forward to the day when enough others do as well to do something about it (e.g., secede peacefully, and create the world's first modern free society).
Of course, that day can never truly arrive until people learn to rule themselves. But with the impending demise of the current federal system, the world empire it ruled, the world financial system it wrecked, and all of the fallout certain to result, we may soon find ourselves at least a little bit closer to that day. Those who are willfully ignorant, lazy, and short-sighted will NOT survive what is coming. Those who do survive will find challenges - but also opportunities - that don't exist today. Including opportunities to build a world that is fundamentally based on voluntary cooperation, rather than the threatened or actual force and violence that constitute the sum total of all of the activities of today's so-called "governments."
In a true multiparty system you must get concensus to get anything done so it is difficult to get unpopular things done.
True enough, but the right thing and the popular thing are often not the same. As a libertarian I would say that a broad consensus, across a wide and diverse group of people, varied in terms of income, geography, race, gender, rural vs. urban, etc., should be a necessary but NOT sufficient condition for the passage of any law. Interestingly that is exactly why the U.S. Constitution was written the way it was . . it was designed to make exactly such a consensus a necessary (but not sufficient) prerequisite for any governmental action at the federal level. Unfortunately those checks and balances have mostly come apart, so we now have a mostly national (not federal) system in which people want to believe they have some stake and some semblance of control, but in which the same unelected oligopoly actually holds most of the power regardless of who wins elections.
Until something goes wrong, which, in my experience, it frequently does. You can review the Apache source code to figure out what's going on. More importantly, others can too, so if others have had the same problem you have, there's a very good chance that a fix is already available . . . EVEN if the Apache devs themselves did not come up with it themselves.
That's been my experience with every pair of analogous MS/Free projects. Even if the MS offering has some features or advantages that the Free offering does not, the Free offering is still infinitely easier to work with over long periods of time. There's more of a learning curve, but that learning curve only has to happen once, and the knowledge gained thereby lasts a long, long time.
Freedom is valuable for its own sake, but there are practical benefits too.
By default you have all rights to the extent that they do not injure the rights of others. But included in those rights is the right to contract. Generally that means you give up, in some small fashion, the ability to exercise one right in exchange for the other party doing the same. If you work for an employer, you give up the right to free use of some of your time, in exchange for the employer giving up the right to free use of some of its money. Those arrangements work best in the presence of competition, which is one reason why "laws" that pretend to grant monopoly status to members of particular bar associations or unions or patent holders (to name just a few examples) tend to be a very bad idea. But, in general, yes, you may agree to give up the exercise of your rights, if someone is willing to make it worth your while to do so.
And yes, "intellectual property laws" tend to grant unearned monopoly status and an excuse for some parties to initiate force against others. Some more so than others. I see no problem with trademarks for instance; they are there mostly to combat fraud, and fraud is never a good thing. Even some kinds of copyrights, for instance those that exist for a genuinely limited time and cover a genuinely original and creative expression of thought, could find justification in some versions of libertarian theory. But I can't think of a single good reason for allowing mathematical ideas to be "patented." And much software, including codecs, consist primarily of expressions of mathematical ideas. I tend to oppose the idea that these things can be copyrighted or patented. But, as a practical matter, I try to fight this abuse of IP "laws" not by violating them, but by working around them using and supporting FOSS to the greatest extent possible.
My point is not to say that CO2 cannot be stored safely, only that it definitely can be stored unsafely, and that lives could be lost if this were to happen.
Of course, I'm not really sure why it makes sense to burn coal in the first place, even if it can be done cleanly, when we still depend on liquid fuels for the mid-term future. Why wouldn't we crack the coal instead using nuclear or hydroelectric energy? Sure, there would be some net energy loss, but it would reduce our dependence on petroleum (imported or otherwise) and hopefully buy us some time to figure out how to do transportation on an un-densely-populated continent this large without making such extensive use of fossil fuels.
Being an energy industry guy, can you tell me if is there some reason I'm missing why this wouldn't work, aside from the obvious but hopefully short-term problem that we refuse to build the necessary nuclear plants?
Most moral/ethical issues seem clearcut to me. This one really doesn't.
As a libertarian I am reluctantly forced to concede that it can be acceptable to sell ones and zeroes, and to forbid the buyer, as a condition of that sale, from redistributing those ones and zeroes without the seller's permission. This is acceptable because all things that are not forbidden are allowed, no matter how repugnant we might find them, and the only things that are forbidden are those which violate people's rights (namely, initiation of force and/or fraud).
But such arrangements cannot be enforced against innocent third parties without initiation of force. Those third parties were not parties to the original deal. They never agreed not to use the ones and zeroes in question. They can be prevented from doing so only by use of force, typically through some type of government-enforced "copyright" scheme. Libertarians don't, or at least shouldn't, condone this type of force.
The only libertarian-friendly recourse the original seller may have would be to go after the person who wrongfully redistributed the ones and zeroes. Copyright allows them instead to go after third parties who were never party to the agreement in the first place.
Does Canonical violate libertarian principles by selling software that is encumbered, whose owners forbid it to be redistributed apart from its agreement? My take is that it does, albeit only indirectly, and in a way that can be arguably justified by saying that while it does not directly infringe anyone's freedom, it does form part of a strategy that will ultimately expand freedom, by increasing the adoption and popularity of free software, i.e. software that clearly does respect the rights of its users. This is an argument the FSF itself has used in the past, when it acquired proprietary UNIX code for the explicit purpose of creating free replacements for that code. So it should not be dismissed lightly.
But the same argument could be (and frequently has been) used to justify things like pre-emptive military invasions. "We are using violence to make the world a less violent place in the end." It rarely works that way. In reality, violence almost always leads to more violence, not less. That is true regardless of whether the violence is "legally" sanctioned by a government or not. Indeed, the former kind is usually on a vastly larger scale, and hence vastly worse, than the work of random thugs or smaller groups of people.
There is something a bit sad about the state of affairs where Canonical, in order to increase the adoption of Linux, feels compelled to even temporarily participate in another party's use of unjustifiable aggression and violence (via government's enforcement of "copyright") against innocents. I am not sure I am smart enough to say for sure that Canonical is wrong to do this. But I do feel pretty strongly that only in a really screwed up world is it necessary for them to even consider it.
In a more sane and free world, you would not be able to use violence against party C just because parties A and B agreed to a restrictive sharing arrangement. You might need to do a better job of making sure party B doesn't violate his or her agreement. You might need to require him or her to purchase a bond or insurance or some other instrument by which party B could make party A whole again. And, while even this goes too far for me, you might need a mechanism to make the ones and zeroes useless to party C or any other third party who did not acquire them via authorized means. But you would not be able to justify violence against him or her just because your business model was too fragile to allow for the fact that some people will make unauthorized copies whether you want them to or not.
Ask the folks in Lake Nyos. Natural CO2 escaped from a lake and killed something like 2,000 people. That CO2 needs to be stored very securely and away from centers of population.
Conservatives are more likely to believe something that supports their belief system after it has been refuted by experts.
That can readily be explained by the perception that "experts" in many fields have a distinctly leftist bias. (From my perspective, they have a rather statist bias, which may or may not be leftist depending on the issue. Given that most "experts" are funded at least in part by the state, that should not be surprising. But it also is possible that my libertarian/anarchist leanings are partly responsible for my perception as well.)
First, ask them what the ten commandments are. This will trip 95% of them up and they'll walk away without bothering you. If they say that the commandments are not important, tell them you think the same about the rest of the Bible.
The two that matter most according to Jesus are:
All the rest are details.
No believer in creation should be afraid of what science concludes. but many are. It's silly.
Agreed. But by the same token, no believer in evolution should be afraid of what creationists or ID proponents have to say either. If it is false they should refute it. If it is outside the realm of science (which is what I tend to think for the most part) they should point that out. If creationists happen to agree with evolutionists in many, many areas - which they do, though both sides are loath to admit this - then both sides should use that agreement as a common ground on which to base a discussion of their differences.
But in no case should they be afraid. When people are afraid, and feel the need to ridicule their opponents rather than refuting their ideas, it makes me suspect those people are less than entirely certain of their beliefs.
As an aspiring Christian I have no interest in "lynching" or otherwise harming anyone, except possibly for those who deliberately harm others without provokation. The two great commands given by Christ are to love God with all your being, and also love your neighbor (i.e., all other people) as yourself. I don't see how "lynching" people you disagree with could possibly be consistent with either of these commands. Hence, when I see or hear about so-called "Christians" acting hatefully toward other people, sometimes even other Christians, I have no choice but to think they are doing this not because of their faith, but in direct contradiction to it. Sure, "Christianity" may be the excuse for doing wrong. But not the reason. If they did not have that excuse, they would surely pick some other. To genuinely follow the Prince of Peace, one must follow peace. One must love not only one's friends, but even one's enemies. I must admit I do not do this perfectly, or even particularly well, but I understand that I must at least try, and seek God's help, and seek forgiveness from Him and from those whom I have wronged when I mess up.
Also . . . I believe that God created everything. I do not pretend to know how, nor do I pretend that the knowledge we gain from science, and the knowledge we gain from faith, will ever be identical. If they were, then one would not be necessary. But I do think they are consistent, or at least should be. If not then something is wrong. As I understand it, God created us with the ability and desire to learn about our universe. I'm not afraid of where that learning will lead. I oppose the teaching of dogma - *any* dogma - as if it were science. But I'm also pretty convinced that people who are informed and open-minded will eventually converge upon similar understandings of similar truths, regardless of the path they choose to take in order to get there. Until then, if we must agree to disagree, that's OK with me.