Coal & gas plants can survive rapid political winds of yes-we-can / no-it's-bad, but this nuclear stuff takes a longer term commitment. You can't change your mind on a dime.
Yucca mountain was scoped, zoned, and marketed as million-year storage, no wonder there's opposition. By me too. But as a "temporary" staging area until reprocessing and burning up, it may well be our best option.
Too bad there's such a garbage-man mentality around. Recycle your own wastes? Communism! Islam! Illegal immigrants! Drug-dealing! Or whatever the tea-party crowd wants to launder it as. The Greens are likewise a bit irresponsible in this regard.
Wait, what? What does "the tea-party crowd" have to do with this? Unless I'm terribly mistaken about the only people opposed to reprocessing fuel are either the greenies, because they hate nukes no matter what, or anti-nuclear weapons people because they don't know that it can be done without the output equaling bombs. Where are tea party people in that mix of people? Hell, for that matter who could seriously argue against cost effective reuse of materials?
lol you are making the mistake of thinking the argument is about common sense. Its about politics.
It's far worse than that. It's about irrational fear on one hand and unknowledgeable hardcore anti-nuclear power fanatics on the other. How many times have we heard the anti-nuclear power crowd go on and on about there's no where to store the waste, and then when you bring up Yucca they switch to "well no you have to transport it!". What they really want to say is "Ban all nuclear power! Power everything with rainbow farts from Unicorns!"
Am I the only one who would be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for an HD downloaded non-DRMed copy?
Netflix is close with their service but you have to keep re-streaming the thing every time. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable fee for a service where I could get something similar to what one could get from the newsgroups. That being a fast and high quality download without DRM that I can stick on my local server and watch anywhere in the house.
But no.. it's easier to just sue everyone and try and force people to buy the service you're providing by killing all alternatives.
you don't need to regulate every last detail of the domain arguably under your control.
Oddly enough, though, it does make sense if you assume that you will face a court challenge. If you have only partial regulation, the immediate challenge will be based on either that you drew the line in the wrong place or that you did not have the right to draw the line. If you make it a black and white proposition, the argument that you drew the line in the wrong place does not hold and the court must decide solely on the right to regulate. And, once you've been given the right to regulate, you can then re-draw the line where you want to without the pesky "right to regulate" challenge looming.
Now, I'm playing devil's advocate here, but why does not the city not have the right to regulate breeding and sale of animals? We already have local ordinances regulating cruelty with respect to animals that have been upheld. If you are a politician that sees pet ownership as "animal slavery" or the destruction of innocent animal life as a "right to life" issue, should not one try to prevent breeding of excess animals while other ones are being euthanized? Would a local ordinance trying to prevent this not be a good thing?
(Again, note that I am playing devil's advocate here. I actually think that breeding animals is a good thing, with them being so tasty and all...)
Could one not still argue that they both had no right to regulate, and even if they did they went too far in it?
I think this law is wrong on many levels but they are not legislating your right to own a dog, what they are legislating is your right to sell dogs.
The idea here is things like puppy mills exist because pet stores provide a market for the product. There is really no need for these things because plenty of puppies and kittens, dogs, cats, etc are waiting in animal shelters to be adopted. If you want a pet they want you to adopt one from a shelter. They feel that we should no be breeding companion animals while we are euthanizing others in shelters because they can't find homes for all of them.
I don't like the government making this choice for people. I suppose there are those who really really want a certain bread of dog or cat and this is the sort of thing that gets in the way of that. Personally I would never want my money going to one of these breeders, and have never had a problem finding a cat I like either at shelter or from someone who needs to give it one up; but I don't think the government should trample peoples rights here.
I don't like what many of these breeders do so I boycott them and would encorage others to do the same, but I don't think government should FORCE others to do the same.
Also, this will just cause those people who are just crazy for a particular breed or something to simply drive outside the city and get what they want. Personally, I don't really understand people buying dogs and cats because as you stated there are tons of them for virtually free in shelters. That said, some people just have to have breed X.
Because, Mr. Gerrie, believe it or not, you don't need to regulate every last detail of the domain arguably under your control.
Sure he does. It's a biological need to meddle in other people's lives that's just as great as that of the conservative who makes buggery illegal.
Correct. Thus one of the core problems is exposed. It isn't merely so-called liberal vice so-called conservative that is the issue. But meddling government of any kind that is the problem.
Many pets are specifically bred to be sold. If there are no buyers, people are not going to breed these animals
Ferrets make a particularly good example - As induced ovulators, the females will remain in estrus until they mate or die. For that reason, you almost never see non-fixed ferrets for sale. Though considering the city involved here, they probably already ban ferrets outright. Horrid, vicious things, with their cute burbling and playful nipping - Can't have that, why, someone might leave a newvborn alone with one after starving it for a month!
However, I found one particular quote from the article especially revealing about the mindset involved here...
"Why fish? Why not fish?" said Philip Gerrie, a member of the city's Commission of Animal Control and Welfare and a coauthor of the proposal.
Why not fish? Because, Mr. Gerrie, believe it or not, you don't need to regulate every last detail of the domain arguably under your control. Until something becomes a clear problem, just leave it the hell alone. "Not fish", because NO ONE ABUSES FISH. Because you don't see stray fish picking through garbage outside restaurants. Because you don't hear about feral fish attacks when a child wanders down the wrong alley. Because fish lead to as close to zero potential for abuse as you could hope from any possible pet-animal.
I am sick and tired of the rampant lying on slashdot lately. You know damn well that as the government of the most meddlesome city in the US that damn well have to regulate every single thing they can. If it isn't in their domain (and how is this in their domain? Is it really in their charter?) they'll just get right on enlarging their domain. Sheesh. Free thought uncontrolled in San Francisco? Perish the thought!
I was pretty annoyed by the way that faceless evil corporations are polluting the world while everyone else is trying to clean it up, when the reality is that the pollution exists because of the rampant consumerism that people love so much (myself included).
"It's not me, it's the other end of the supply chain"
Don't forget also that they weren't just polluting while everyone else was trying to clean it up, they were polluting almost purely because they were evil. They weren't producing pollution as a byproduct. It was their product and they were just looking for the most evil way to dump it. I'm half surprised they didn't have the evil corporations fill puppies with the pollution and then stuff them down dolphin throats while kicking kittens.
The link is pretty obviously between the consequences of floods and population growth. But just to make the case: more people, more AGW, more floods.
Your statement only holds true if one presumes/agrees that AGW is gospel. If it is not, then your statement isn't true. Additionally, more people with better production of energy eliminates the link as well, assuming there was one. On top of all of that, where is your evidence that AGW caused the flooding on the Mississippi? The article itself implies that the flooding is due far more to the meddlesome interference of environmentalists than any other factor.
If the corps of engineers had been allowed to run the dam system the way it was designed, we wouldn't likely be having this conversation. Instead they had to run it in a way to satisfy the political whims of a small vocal minority who unfortunately has the ear of certain elected officials.
Wake up! China's birth control laws are "voluntary" in name only. The fact is that if a woman is discovered to be pregnant (in any term) after having registered a birth, she will be "counseled" (i.e. kidnapped & tortured) until she "decides" to have an abortion. If she decides otherwise, she'll be committed to a mental institution where she will have an abortion anyway.
My other thought for this thread in general is this: Dr. Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber) expressed similar views in his "manifesto". He believed that technology was harmful to human society and he became an activist in an effort to "correct the problem". Many people in this thread would seem to agree with Kaczynski's ends but not necessarily his means.
As a point of order, what you say may or may not have been true before. However, whether it was or not it isn't true now. Now it is more a matter of "get an abortion" or "pay a heavy fine".
This illustrate a problem: People think that CS degree is a degree training programmers - they are simply wrong.
Which also illustrates an ongoing problem in many parts of the world. The believe that a degree, any degree, is necessary and an absolute requirement for a non-doctorate field.
Not to say that it is worthless, but why would a programmer need a degree? So they can start out life tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in debt?
The requirements for carrying identification/immigration paperwork are exactly the same as the federal laws.
Except that this law, and the bigoted environment in Arizona, codify anti-latino racial profiling and harassment. You don't see Canadians or Koreans being stopped citing SB 1070. Because that's not what this law is about.
Amusingly (in the darkly tragic sort of way), the law was actually written by a known white supremacist (Kris Kobach, a member of FAIR, a known hate group). He literally handed it off to Brewer's administration to push through. Which she did, because it was an Election year and she needed the bigot vote to keep her job.
Call me a troll if you like, but I'm compelled to point out that illegal immigration from Canada and Korea are pretty low. Canada not being a third world crap hole and there being an ocean, vice a line on the map, between the US and the Koreas. Not saying people don't get smuggled in from less fortunate places oceans away, just that their numbers don't reach "millions". Further, please don't cite SPL for anything more complicated than the weather. Asking them for unbiased information would be like asking the Klan about segregation. Just because SPL lists you as a "hate group" doesn't mean you are one unless your stated policies, or at least actions, include anything like actual hate.
That said, I will agree with others in saying that the current immigration system in the US is garbage. I don't really believe that the vast majority of illegal immigrants come here to cause trouble and make life suck for everyone else. However, people who do scam the system and come here illegally make it a fuck load harder on those trying to do it the right way. So speaking as someone who has dealt with the mess that the scammers and illegals have indirectly caused, I must say I'm tempted to toss them a big bucket of fuck you.
I don't know if this law is the solution or not. It probably isn't. Yet, you can't hardly say that it is racist simply because it ends up impacting one group more than another. Are laws against crack cocain racist because it is more popular with blacks than whites? What about laws against meth? Racist because white people tend to do it more?
In the end, we're dancing around an important subject. These people who are "targeted" are only targeted if they broke the law. Is the immigration law broke and in need of fixing? Hell yes. Does that make it "right" to just hop the border and do as you please? No. If you think it does, try to illegally immigrate to Mexico and see how that goes.
Really? I thought it was the old ammo that keeps better because they put preservatives in the primers to allow them to be kept in crates since WWII. I buy old ammo for my Mosin Nagant some of it from this era, and it fires quite nicely.
Nah, I'm not sure what they would use for that anyway. Older primers used various "corrsive" materials in them, which is why people shooting older ammo are so fanatical about cleaning their weapons post shooting. It is also where the idea of cleaning after every shooting session comes from, even though it isn't really necessary these days. At least not as often anyway.:)
Is also a poor investment, since it can spoil if stored improperly, and become dangerous to use. Granted, proper storage will protect the gunpowder, but still, stocking up for an unknown period of time in the future can cause problems. Ten years is about the limit of recommended time I could find.
Modern ammo never "spoils". People have safely fired extremely old ammo and there has been a market for milsurp ammo far older than ten years for a long time. Keep it dry and it'll be fine.
But iCloud is going to be out by the end of the year. That will make the iTunes argument moot. Every iOS device that ships essentially comes with a free cloud experience. I'm guessing Google already offer such a deal, but the key will be how well it works compared to the iOS experience.
Android isn't a steaming pile. It's just that Apple know how, and are in a better position to, deliver a more polished experience. The thing is, polish, when it comes to computing, is much more important that it is on a car in the yard.
It seems generally true that the Apple devices are, so far, more polished and you're right that is mainly because of their position as regarding the platform. Which is to say their total lock down and control of it. Google may or may not offer such a thing. No idea to be honest at the moment as I'm not sure it is something that would really interest me either way. That said, the iDevices will still be locked down and tied to only what Apple approves of. Whether Android devices go that same way in the future remains to be seen.
AmberBlackCat never even said anything about the GTab, just wanted to point that out. I do agree however about most of the tablets available aren't great or overpriced, etc. It depends on what the user needs/wants though in the end as well as having the vendor continue to support the product.
True, it wasn't mentioned by name. However, it seems likely that is what she meant give the number one complaint about the Gtab is poor viewing angles. Did Viewsonic make another tablet prior to the Gtab that I'm not aware of?
Side note, I'm posting this from my Zpad which is a device you could call the father of the Gtab and several other 10 inch Android tablets. Can't really say I've too many complaints really.
I haven't read the article and don't care to. But I'd like to note, my guy wanted to avoid the iPad and was all for Android. He tried some Viewsonic tablet. He had problems with the screen quality and the pressure-sensitive screen instead of a capacitive screen. And other general problems. Then he tried an Archos 70. He had problems with the sound and viewing angles, and some weird overheating issue. Then he got a Motorola Xoom. The memory card slot has an I-O-U on it, promising it will work one day even though the package says it has a memory card slot now. He also said it was slow to respond and had a dark screen. Finally he got an iPad. While it's not perfect, he's finally happy. All the while, his Android phone is flaking out.
So maybe the article is bad. But it is possible Apple has the best tablet, at least for some people, even if they're biased in favor of Android.
I feel bad for your guy that his entire Android tablet experience was the Gtab, Archos 70 and Xoom. The Gtab does have terrible viewing angles and the Archos 70, much like Archos the company, is a pile of garbage. The Xoom was/is overpriced and half baked. I'm happy he likes his iPad though it is unfortunate he got it before the Asus Transformer or even Acer Iconia came out.
This to me illustrates the single problem with anyone getting all hopped up on Android tablet issues. Until the Xoom there really weren't any real Android tablets. There were overgrown phones which may or may not be able to make calls. The first real tablet, sadly, was the Xoom. The Gtab was an impressive piece of hardware, viewing angles aside, but its software was crap.
The thing is, at the moment, why would anyone want an Android experience except for diehard Android geeks?
One word: iTunes.
Speaking for purely my circle, I know a good number of people who outright refuse to buy iAnything because of the lockdown and the iTunes requirement. Some object because they are Linux users and Apple's well known thoughts of iAnything and Linux. Others object because they don't want to drop several hundred bucks on a device and then be told how they can and cannot use it. Others just don't want the damned hassle of having to hook their tablet to their computer so iTunes can play with it.
There are some really neat apps on iOS. That said, I do not understand why people keep saying that Android is a steaming pile, or at least implying it. Though, perhaps your sig is showing your personal preferences.:)
I'm not likely to agree politically with the crowd of DailyKos readers or whatnot who are so into this, but even if I did, why the big interest in Palin's official emails rather than, say, Mitt Romney's, Tim Pawlenty's, or Gary Johnson's? They're ex-governors as well, and they're actually running, while Palin isn't and probably won't be.
Because they aren't Sarah Palin and for some reason some people think we MUST DESTROY SARAH PALIN!!!11!!one!!!111!!!
As someone living up here in the Northeast, when you come up here to lecture us about history (there are 391 years of it here), you'd better know your shit.
But no, she came up here, didn't know, tried to make some sort of point that I'm still trying to figure out, and is arrogant about it. And that's just recent history. Just trying to parse her word salad on a day to day basis must make any political aide or reporter go insane.
Yet she has aspirations to be President some day.
Stupid isn't bad, if you're not bull-headed. Arrogant isn't bad if you know your stuff. Stupid *and* arrogant? You really want that?
The hatred is not irrational.
-- BMO
Not irrational? Hmmm... I suppose we have different definitions about that. However, that being said I have to ask if you merely accepted the story that Palin was an idiot on those comments or did you bother to look around and do some reading? At least NPR did do some asking around and such.
I think his point was that you've chosen an arbitrary amount.
I've chosen the most appropriate starting place.
There are people with a lot of power who are not on that list,
Yes, but let's start with those with the most power.
and there are people on that list who are not much involved in politics
Everything is politics. The extent to which you are involved in politics correlates with the amount of power you have.
You need to show why the people on that list are lesser citizens than yourself, deserving of fewer rights.
We all have the right to secrecy in matters of little consequence to others. None of us have the right to secrecy when making decisions which have the potential for great impact on others. A right doesn't necessarily affect each person equally: property law can only act to restrict the man without property, for example - such laws are of no benefit to the man yet they still apply to him because they are considered to benefit society at large. This is the basis for all law.
Really? So simply because they have over X amount of dollars you feel they should have no right to privacy? I'm sure in your role as mother, father, son, daughter, manager, supervisor or something you also make decisions that impact others. So, we can have all your emails, personal files and thoughts too, right? It's for the benefit of society at large!
I thought we should be protecting more people's privacy not trying to come up with more reasons to spy on them. Or is it that it's okay to spy on them because they're rich/different/gay/straight/christian/muslim/jewish/what-the-hell-ever-the-excuse-of-the-moment-is?
Spideroak sucks. The software is buggy as hell, their bandwidth must be purchased by the strawful as the transfer speeds are comparable to what I was getting on dialup in the 90s, syncing is hit or miss at best and it's a gigantic resource hog. It cost my company $90 to beta test this POS and the company insists that all sales are final so too bad for me. Stay away from Spideroak!
As to the rest, Sparkleshare shows promise so far. I'm also intrigued by Aero FS (http://www.aerofs.com/) but they're still in closed beta and I haven't been able to score an invite.
I'm trying spideroak right now along side dropbox as dropbox is blocked in some parts of the world. So far, I can't say I'm highly impressed. It works, sorta. There was another one who's name escapes my memory I was going to try. However, their answer to "linux client?" was "pound sand". Or more accurately, "we'll kinda sorta farm that out to someone who is too busy to actually do it and can only use the least useful and most bug ridden interface to our system."
You could be sent to gitmo if you try to try what the dissidents in some other countries do - organize with the explicit purpose of overthrowing the government. Or if you go to Washington DC with a giant mob and start looting and shooting at police. Etc, etc. You get my point. As a private person, you can say whatever the heck you please in nearly all of those "oppressed" countries. It's the action that gets you in trouble everywhere, including here.
Thrown in gitmo? Doubtful. There are several, probably hundreds, of different groups around the country dedicated to one level or another to over throwing this and that. The population of gitmo doesn't seem to be overflowing with such people, no?
Yeah, you'd probably get thrown in jail and tried if you started committing crimes. There is nothing surprising and "oppressive" about that in and of itself. As to saying whatever you want in those "oppressed" places. Fly over to Iran and find the first cop and tell him the Ayatollah is a . Or hop over to Thailand and say the King is a . Presuming we ever here from you again, let us know how that went.
My point being you could do exactly that here and whether it made you popular or not, it wouldn't get you arrested and charged with anything. Even if the cop in question was dumb enough to arrest you the charges wouldn't stick and the ACLU would be all over it.
People here who speak of how oppressive, which is again not to say it is perfect by any means, the US is clearly have no idea what real oppression is.
So what exactly is this oppression you're speaking of?
Well, there's Javed Iqbal who wound up sentenced to 6 1/2 years for offering a cable channel the government didn't like -- al-Manar. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/nyregion/25tv.html There are dozens of cases of muslims who were convicted and jailed as the result of entrapment or sometimes even innocent activities like holding paintball games.
The FBI treatment of the Black Panthers is probably the best recent textbook example of oppression of a political movement because of their beliefs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton
I would tend to agree that getting sentenced to 6.5 years for offering an unapproved cable channel would be a bit much by several hundred miles. However, that alone doesn't make for a case of "oppression". You and another person both picked cases of Muslims being "oppressed". Yet, I don't seem to recall when the mosques were burned down. Nor do I recall when the mass deportations occurred. When was that exactly?
Point being, yes there are cases here and there but there is little to no evidence of systemic oppression as many people on slashdot and elsewhere seem to believe. Like it or not you can speak of Nazism openly here. Try that in France or Germany. You can openly say "maybe the terrorists are right!". Will it make you popular, probably not. Will it get you arrested if it isn't followed by "and lets do X!". Probably not.
So again I say, where is this tremendous oppression everyone seems to say exists here. I've been to some of those "other countries", have you? Have those who are crying out "oppression"?
Slashdot Mirror
Coal & gas plants can survive rapid political winds of yes-we-can / no-it's-bad, but this nuclear stuff takes a longer term commitment. You can't change your mind on a dime.
Yucca mountain was scoped, zoned, and marketed as million-year storage, no wonder there's opposition. By me too. But as a "temporary" staging area until reprocessing and burning up, it may well be our best option.
Too bad there's such a garbage-man mentality around. Recycle your own wastes? Communism! Islam! Illegal immigrants! Drug-dealing! Or whatever the tea-party crowd wants to launder it as. The Greens are likewise a bit irresponsible in this regard.
Wait, what? What does "the tea-party crowd" have to do with this? Unless I'm terribly mistaken about the only people opposed to reprocessing fuel are either the greenies, because they hate nukes no matter what, or anti-nuclear weapons people because they don't know that it can be done without the output equaling bombs. Where are tea party people in that mix of people? Hell, for that matter who could seriously argue against cost effective reuse of materials?
lol you are making the mistake of thinking the argument is about common sense. Its about politics.
It's far worse than that. It's about irrational fear on one hand and unknowledgeable hardcore anti-nuclear power fanatics on the other. How many times have we heard the anti-nuclear power crowd go on and on about there's no where to store the waste, and then when you bring up Yucca they switch to "well no you have to transport it!". What they really want to say is "Ban all nuclear power! Power everything with rainbow farts from Unicorns!"
Am I the only one who would be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for an HD downloaded non-DRMed copy?
Netflix is close with their service but you have to keep re-streaming the thing every time. I'd be happy to pay a reasonable fee for a service where I could get something similar to what one could get from the newsgroups. That being a fast and high quality download without DRM that I can stick on my local server and watch anywhere in the house.
But no.. it's easier to just sue everyone and try and force people to buy the service you're providing by killing all alternatives.
you don't need to regulate every last detail of the domain arguably under your control.
Oddly enough, though, it does make sense if you assume that you will face a court challenge. If you have only partial regulation, the immediate challenge will be based on either that you drew the line in the wrong place or that you did not have the right to draw the line. If you make it a black and white proposition, the argument that you drew the line in the wrong place does not hold and the court must decide solely on the right to regulate. And, once you've been given the right to regulate, you can then re-draw the line where you want to without the pesky "right to regulate" challenge looming.
Now, I'm playing devil's advocate here, but why does not the city not have the right to regulate breeding and sale of animals? We already have local ordinances regulating cruelty with respect to animals that have been upheld. If you are a politician that sees pet ownership as "animal slavery" or the destruction of innocent animal life as a "right to life" issue, should not one try to prevent breeding of excess animals while other ones are being euthanized? Would a local ordinance trying to prevent this not be a good thing?
(Again, note that I am playing devil's advocate here. I actually think that breeding animals is a good thing, with them being so tasty and all...)
Could one not still argue that they both had no right to regulate, and even if they did they went too far in it?
I think this law is wrong on many levels but they are not legislating your right to own a dog, what they are legislating is your right to sell dogs.
The idea here is things like puppy mills exist because pet stores provide a market for the product. There is really no need for these things because plenty of puppies and kittens, dogs, cats, etc are waiting in animal shelters to be adopted. If you want a pet they want you to adopt one from a shelter. They feel that we should no be breeding companion animals while we are euthanizing others in shelters because they can't find homes for all of them.
I don't like the government making this choice for people. I suppose there are those who really really want a certain bread of dog or cat and this is the sort of thing that gets in the way of that. Personally I would never want my money going to one of these breeders, and have never had a problem finding a cat I like either at shelter or from someone who needs to give it one up; but I don't think the government should trample peoples rights here.
I don't like what many of these breeders do so I boycott them and would encorage others to do the same, but I don't think government should FORCE others to do the same.
Also, this will just cause those people who are just crazy for a particular breed or something to simply drive outside the city and get what they want. Personally, I don't really understand people buying dogs and cats because as you stated there are tons of them for virtually free in shelters. That said, some people just have to have breed X.
Because, Mr. Gerrie, believe it or not, you don't need to regulate every last detail of the domain arguably under your control.
Sure he does. It's a biological need to meddle in other people's lives that's just as great as that of the conservative who makes buggery illegal.
Correct. Thus one of the core problems is exposed. It isn't merely so-called liberal vice so-called conservative that is the issue. But meddling government of any kind that is the problem.
Many pets are specifically bred to be sold. If there are no buyers, people are not going to breed these animals
Ferrets make a particularly good example - As induced ovulators, the females will remain in estrus until they mate or die. For that reason, you almost never see non-fixed ferrets for sale. Though considering the city involved here, they probably already ban ferrets outright. Horrid, vicious things, with their cute burbling and playful nipping - Can't have that, why, someone might leave a newvborn alone with one after starving it for a month!
However, I found one particular quote from the article especially revealing about the mindset involved here...
Why not fish? Because, Mr. Gerrie, believe it or not, you don't need to regulate every last detail of the domain arguably under your control. Until something becomes a clear problem, just leave it the hell alone. "Not fish", because NO ONE ABUSES FISH. Because you don't see stray fish picking through garbage outside restaurants. Because you don't hear about feral fish attacks when a child wanders down the wrong alley. Because fish lead to as close to zero potential for abuse as you could hope from any possible pet-animal.
I am sick and tired of the rampant lying on slashdot lately. You know damn well that as the government of the most meddlesome city in the US that damn well have to regulate every single thing they can. If it isn't in their domain (and how is this in their domain? Is it really in their charter?) they'll just get right on enlarging their domain. Sheesh. Free thought uncontrolled in San Francisco? Perish the thought!
so would you consider Yucca Mountain a good or bad idea?
Hush you. Don't you know that anything that helps the nuclear industry in any way, shape or form is automatically Evil(trademark, patent pending)? :)
I was pretty annoyed by the way that faceless evil corporations are polluting the world while everyone else is trying to clean it up, when the reality is that the pollution exists because of the rampant consumerism that people love so much (myself included).
"It's not me, it's the other end of the supply chain"
Don't forget also that they weren't just polluting while everyone else was trying to clean it up, they were polluting almost purely because they were evil. They weren't producing pollution as a byproduct. It was their product and they were just looking for the most evil way to dump it. I'm half surprised they didn't have the evil corporations fill puppies with the pollution and then stuff them down dolphin throats while kicking kittens.
The link is pretty obviously between the consequences of floods and population growth.
But just to make the case: more people, more AGW, more floods.
Your statement only holds true if one presumes/agrees that AGW is gospel. If it is not, then your statement isn't true. Additionally, more people with better production of energy eliminates the link as well, assuming there was one. On top of all of that, where is your evidence that AGW caused the flooding on the Mississippi? The article itself implies that the flooding is due far more to the meddlesome interference of environmentalists than any other factor.
If the corps of engineers had been allowed to run the dam system the way it was designed, we wouldn't likely be having this conversation. Instead they had to run it in a way to satisfy the political whims of a small vocal minority who unfortunately has the ear of certain elected officials.
Wake up! China's birth control laws are "voluntary" in name only. The fact is that if a woman is discovered to be pregnant (in any term) after having registered a birth, she will be "counseled" (i.e. kidnapped & tortured) until she "decides" to have an abortion. If she decides otherwise, she'll be committed to a mental institution where she will have an abortion anyway.
My other thought for this thread in general is this: Dr. Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber) expressed similar views in his "manifesto". He believed that technology was harmful to human society and he became an activist in an effort to "correct the problem". Many people in this thread would seem to agree with Kaczynski's ends but not necessarily his means.
As a point of order, what you say may or may not have been true before. However, whether it was or not it isn't true now. Now it is more a matter of "get an abortion" or "pay a heavy fine".
This illustrate a problem: People think that CS degree is a degree training programmers - they are simply wrong.
Which also illustrates an ongoing problem in many parts of the world. The believe that a degree, any degree, is necessary and an absolute requirement for a non-doctorate field.
Not to say that it is worthless, but why would a programmer need a degree? So they can start out life tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in debt?
The requirements for carrying identification/immigration paperwork are exactly the same as the federal laws.
Except that this law, and the bigoted environment in Arizona, codify anti-latino racial profiling and harassment. You don't see Canadians or Koreans being stopped citing SB 1070. Because that's not what this law is about.
Amusingly (in the darkly tragic sort of way), the law was actually written by a known white supremacist (Kris Kobach, a member of FAIR, a known hate group). He literally handed it off to Brewer's administration to push through. Which she did, because it was an Election year and she needed the bigot vote to keep her job.
Call me a troll if you like, but I'm compelled to point out that illegal immigration from Canada and Korea are pretty low. Canada not being a third world crap hole and there being an ocean, vice a line on the map, between the US and the Koreas. Not saying people don't get smuggled in from less fortunate places oceans away, just that their numbers don't reach "millions". Further, please don't cite SPL for anything more complicated than the weather. Asking them for unbiased information would be like asking the Klan about segregation. Just because SPL lists you as a "hate group" doesn't mean you are one unless your stated policies, or at least actions, include anything like actual hate.
That said, I will agree with others in saying that the current immigration system in the US is garbage. I don't really believe that the vast majority of illegal immigrants come here to cause trouble and make life suck for everyone else. However, people who do scam the system and come here illegally make it a fuck load harder on those trying to do it the right way. So speaking as someone who has dealt with the mess that the scammers and illegals have indirectly caused, I must say I'm tempted to toss them a big bucket of fuck you.
I don't know if this law is the solution or not. It probably isn't. Yet, you can't hardly say that it is racist simply because it ends up impacting one group more than another. Are laws against crack cocain racist because it is more popular with blacks than whites? What about laws against meth? Racist because white people tend to do it more?
In the end, we're dancing around an important subject. These people who are "targeted" are only targeted if they broke the law. Is the immigration law broke and in need of fixing? Hell yes. Does that make it "right" to just hop the border and do as you please? No. If you think it does, try to illegally immigrate to Mexico and see how that goes.
Really? I thought it was the old ammo that keeps better because they put preservatives in the primers to allow them to be kept in crates since WWII. I buy old ammo for my Mosin Nagant some of it from this era, and it fires quite nicely.
Nah, I'm not sure what they would use for that anyway. Older primers used various "corrsive" materials in them, which is why people shooting older ammo are so fanatical about cleaning their weapons post shooting. It is also where the idea of cleaning after every shooting session comes from, even though it isn't really necessary these days. At least not as often anyway. :)
Is also a poor investment, since it can spoil if stored improperly, and become dangerous to use. Granted, proper storage will protect the gunpowder, but still, stocking up for an unknown period of time in the future can cause problems. Ten years is about the limit of recommended time I could find.
Modern ammo never "spoils". People have safely fired extremely old ammo and there has been a market for milsurp ammo far older than ten years for a long time. Keep it dry and it'll be fine.
But iCloud is going to be out by the end of the year. That will make the iTunes argument moot. Every iOS device that ships essentially comes with a free cloud experience. I'm guessing Google already offer such a deal, but the key will be how well it works compared to the iOS experience.
Android isn't a steaming pile. It's just that Apple know how, and are in a better position to, deliver a more polished experience. The thing is, polish, when it comes to computing, is much more important that it is on a car in the yard.
It seems generally true that the Apple devices are, so far, more polished and you're right that is mainly because of their position as regarding the platform. Which is to say their total lock down and control of it. Google may or may not offer such a thing. No idea to be honest at the moment as I'm not sure it is something that would really interest me either way. That said, the iDevices will still be locked down and tied to only what Apple approves of. Whether Android devices go that same way in the future remains to be seen.
AmberBlackCat never even said anything about the GTab, just wanted to point that out. I do agree however about most of the tablets available aren't great or overpriced, etc. It depends on what the user needs/wants though in the end as well as having the vendor continue to support the product.
True, it wasn't mentioned by name. However, it seems likely that is what she meant give the number one complaint about the Gtab is poor viewing angles. Did Viewsonic make another tablet prior to the Gtab that I'm not aware of?
Side note, I'm posting this from my Zpad which is a device you could call the father of the Gtab and several other 10 inch Android tablets. Can't really say I've too many complaints really.
I haven't read the article and don't care to. But I'd like to note, my guy wanted to avoid the iPad and was all for Android. He tried some Viewsonic tablet. He had problems with the screen quality and the pressure-sensitive screen instead of a capacitive screen. And other general problems. Then he tried an Archos 70. He had problems with the sound and viewing angles, and some weird overheating issue. Then he got a Motorola Xoom. The memory card slot has an I-O-U on it, promising it will work one day even though the package says it has a memory card slot now. He also said it was slow to respond and had a dark screen. Finally he got an iPad. While it's not perfect, he's finally happy. All the while, his Android phone is flaking out.
So maybe the article is bad. But it is possible Apple has the best tablet, at least for some people, even if they're biased in favor of Android.
I feel bad for your guy that his entire Android tablet experience was the Gtab, Archos 70 and Xoom. The Gtab does have terrible viewing angles and the Archos 70, much like Archos the company, is a pile of garbage. The Xoom was/is overpriced and half baked. I'm happy he likes his iPad though it is unfortunate he got it before the Asus Transformer or even Acer Iconia came out.
This to me illustrates the single problem with anyone getting all hopped up on Android tablet issues. Until the Xoom there really weren't any real Android tablets. There were overgrown phones which may or may not be able to make calls. The first real tablet, sadly, was the Xoom. The Gtab was an impressive piece of hardware, viewing angles aside, but its software was crap.
We'll see what the next year brings, no? :)
The thing is, at the moment, why would anyone want an Android experience except for diehard Android geeks?
One word: iTunes.
Speaking for purely my circle, I know a good number of people who outright refuse to buy iAnything because of the lockdown and the iTunes requirement. Some object because they are Linux users and Apple's well known thoughts of iAnything and Linux. Others object because they don't want to drop several hundred bucks on a device and then be told how they can and cannot use it. Others just don't want the damned hassle of having to hook their tablet to their computer so iTunes can play with it.
There are some really neat apps on iOS. That said, I do not understand why people keep saying that Android is a steaming pile, or at least implying it. Though, perhaps your sig is showing your personal preferences. :)
I'm not likely to agree politically with the crowd of DailyKos readers or whatnot who are so into this, but even if I did, why the big interest in Palin's official emails rather than, say, Mitt Romney's, Tim Pawlenty's, or Gary Johnson's? They're ex-governors as well, and they're actually running, while Palin isn't and probably won't be.
Because they aren't Sarah Palin and for some reason some people think we MUST DESTROY SARAH PALIN!!!11!!one!!!111!!!
As to they why.. no clue..
>irrational
Speak for yourself.
As someone living up here in the Northeast, when you come up here to lecture us about history (there are 391 years of it here), you'd better know your shit.
But no, she came up here, didn't know, tried to make some sort of point that I'm still trying to figure out, and is arrogant about it. And that's just recent history. Just trying to parse her word salad on a day to day basis must make any political aide or reporter go insane.
Yet she has aspirations to be President some day.
Stupid isn't bad, if you're not bull-headed. Arrogant isn't bad if you know your stuff. Stupid *and* arrogant? You really want that?
The hatred is not irrational.
--
BMO
Not irrational? Hmmm... I suppose we have different definitions about that. However, that being said I have to ask if you merely accepted the story that Palin was an idiot on those comments or did you bother to look around and do some reading? At least NPR did do some asking around and such.
I think his point was that you've chosen an arbitrary amount.
I've chosen the most appropriate starting place.
There are people with a lot of power who are not on that list,
Yes, but let's start with those with the most power.
and there are people on that list who are not much involved in politics
Everything is politics. The extent to which you are involved in politics correlates with the amount of power you have.
You need to show why the people on that list are lesser citizens than yourself, deserving of fewer rights.
We all have the right to secrecy in matters of little consequence to others. None of us have the right to secrecy when making decisions which have the potential for great impact on others. A right doesn't necessarily affect each person equally: property law can only act to restrict the man without property, for example - such laws are of no benefit to the man yet they still apply to him because they are considered to benefit society at large. This is the basis for all law.
Really? So simply because they have over X amount of dollars you feel they should have no right to privacy? I'm sure in your role as mother, father, son, daughter, manager, supervisor or something you also make decisions that impact others. So, we can have all your emails, personal files and thoughts too, right? It's for the benefit of society at large!
I thought we should be protecting more people's privacy not trying to come up with more reasons to spy on them. Or is it that it's okay to spy on them because they're rich/different/gay/straight/christian/muslim/jewish/what-the-hell-ever-the-excuse-of-the-moment-is?
Spideroak sucks. The software is buggy as hell, their bandwidth must be purchased by the strawful as the transfer speeds are comparable to what I was getting on dialup in the 90s, syncing is hit or miss at best and it's a gigantic resource hog. It cost my company $90 to beta test this POS and the company insists that all sales are final so too bad for me. Stay away from Spideroak!
As to the rest, Sparkleshare shows promise so far. I'm also intrigued by Aero FS (http://www.aerofs.com/) but they're still in closed beta and I haven't been able to score an invite.
I'm trying spideroak right now along side dropbox as dropbox is blocked in some parts of the world. So far, I can't say I'm highly impressed. It works, sorta. There was another one who's name escapes my memory I was going to try. However, their answer to "linux client?" was "pound sand". Or more accurately, "we'll kinda sorta farm that out to someone who is too busy to actually do it and can only use the least useful and most bug ridden interface to our system."
You could be sent to gitmo if you try to try what the dissidents in some other countries do - organize with the explicit purpose of overthrowing the government. Or if you go to Washington DC with a giant mob and start looting and shooting at police. Etc, etc. You get my point. As a private person, you can say whatever the heck you please in nearly all of those "oppressed" countries. It's the action that gets you in trouble everywhere, including here.
Thrown in gitmo? Doubtful. There are several, probably hundreds, of different groups around the country dedicated to one level or another to over throwing this and that. The population of gitmo doesn't seem to be overflowing with such people, no?
Yeah, you'd probably get thrown in jail and tried if you started committing crimes. There is nothing surprising and "oppressive" about that in and of itself. As to saying whatever you want in those "oppressed" places. Fly over to Iran and find the first cop and tell him the Ayatollah is a . Or hop over to Thailand and say the King is a . Presuming we ever here from you again, let us know how that went.
My point being you could do exactly that here and whether it made you popular or not, it wouldn't get you arrested and charged with anything. Even if the cop in question was dumb enough to arrest you the charges wouldn't stick and the ACLU would be all over it.
People here who speak of how oppressive, which is again not to say it is perfect by any means, the US is clearly have no idea what real oppression is.
So what exactly is this oppression you're speaking of?
Well, there's Javed Iqbal who wound up sentenced to 6 1/2 years for offering a cable channel the government didn't like -- al-Manar. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/nyregion/25tv.html There are dozens of cases of muslims who were convicted and jailed as the result of entrapment or sometimes even innocent activities like holding paintball games.
The FBI treatment of the Black Panthers is probably the best recent textbook example of oppression of a political movement because of their beliefs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton
I would tend to agree that getting sentenced to 6.5 years for offering an unapproved cable channel would be a bit much by several hundred miles. However, that alone doesn't make for a case of "oppression". You and another person both picked cases of Muslims being "oppressed". Yet, I don't seem to recall when the mosques were burned down. Nor do I recall when the mass deportations occurred. When was that exactly?
Point being, yes there are cases here and there but there is little to no evidence of systemic oppression as many people on slashdot and elsewhere seem to believe. Like it or not you can speak of Nazism openly here. Try that in France or Germany. You can openly say "maybe the terrorists are right!". Will it make you popular, probably not. Will it get you arrested if it isn't followed by "and lets do X!". Probably not.
So again I say, where is this tremendous oppression everyone seems to say exists here. I've been to some of those "other countries", have you? Have those who are crying out "oppression"?