What he said. The dust bowl WAS caused by human actions. I doubt you'll look it up though to correct your own ignorance, so I'll tell you what happened. We overfarmed the shit out of the soil. Also, Deep plowing killed the grasses that were holding the topsoil in place. When combined with a drought, the topsoil just... blew away. Oops.
Funnily enough, a large amount of people seem to care..... I care. I bet that guy over there cares too. Plenty of people are taking everyday action to help, even if in small ways. So, basically, you're making excuses because that's easier than caring, let alone doing small things that aren't even that hard.
You know, climate effects weather.... That's kind of the point. One is a subset of the other.
Just because it's snowing (weather) doesn't mean the globe (climate) is getting colder. Whereas if the global climate WAS getting colder, we WOULD see weather effects. Pretty much opposite the ones that we're seeing I suppose.
Stay off my public roads. And don't use my public lines for your electricity. Don't flush that toilet and put your waste into my public sewer system. Don't be protected by my public police, and don't let your house catch on fire, those are my public firemen. Don't be protected by the public legal system. Don't listen to the radio, regulated by the government. Don't use any spectrum at all. Hope you're not on wireless. Oh, and give back your public education. You probably shouldn't have a job, since the company probably benefits from all this stuff too. You probably shouldn't eat anything that was shipped to you over U.S. Highways.
I don't mean to be an ass. I get where you're coming from. Our government is pretty annoying sometimes. I'm just pointing out that we take a LOT of government good for granted. That's a sign of success as far as I'm concerned, and an indicator that the role of government is an important one.
You realized there's pictures of Bush holding hands with Saudi princes, yes? The Saudis love us. We buy their oil. We love them. They sell us oil. Also, as the next person pointed out, Saudi Arabia was where they were from, not where they were based.
The government of Afghanistan had nothing to do with it. Afghanistan is not centrally strong like most countries. When you go out of the cities, it's mostly ruled by clerics or warlords. The citizens say "yes sir" to whomever's pointing a gun at them at any given time.
Not that we went to war on Terror, not against Afghanistan. Also note that we invaded a country because of the actions of a few people in that country. That's a pretty scary precident. If some Fundamental Americans bomb an abortion clinic overseas, will they invade us? No, our governments will get together, do a joint operation, and go WACO on someone... and that's what should have happened instead of the clusterfuck of two wars.
If radical Canadians had flown a plane into one of our buildings, we would have expressed our displeasure to the Canadian government, done a joint operation, and WACO'ed the shit out of them. We would not have invaded Canada.
If radical Canadians had set up a training facility in Mexico and flown a plane into one of our buildings, we would have worked with the Mexican government, done a joint operation, and WACO'ed the shit out of them. We would not have invaded Mexico OR Canada.
Why did we invade a country because a handful of it's citizens did something bad?
Why did we invade a country when we're the ones that trained Bin Laden to fight the Russians?
Who thinks that, given that we just spend a decade training the Afghan army and police force, and given that we keep killing innocents in not so targed drone strikes, that they won't be back, exactly like before?
Who's fault is that? And how will we react NEXT time this happens?
As for suggestions, I say there is no terrorist threat. I'm much more likely to die driving my car than to die from a terrorist attack. So, lets just let the FBI and the CIA do their job and get on with life. Lets NOT create the next generation of terrorists with our actions. Lets go over to Afghanistan and start handing out farm machinery, lets rig up electrical, water, sewer systems. Lets build a shit ton of schools. Lets set up some factories and give a LOT of afghanis some jobs. It'd be FAR CHEAPER than what we're doing now, and it would actually reduce terrorism and reduce the power of the warlords who run the country by giving the Afghani people some options.
Of we could keep giving them military training and then bombing them, all the while doing nothing about the poverty and ignorance that is ever present. I'm sure that'll work out well.
Jimmy Carter was amazing. The problem wasn't Carfter. It's You. We will always be at war as long as people like you are around. Look at us. Osama Bin Laden WON. He didn't pay for shit. He got exactly what he wanted. We went crazy, invaded two countries, clamped down on our own citizens, and spent a small mountain of money for nothing. To boot, we're LOSING in Afghanistan. We've accomplished NOTHING over there.
Oh yeah, we showed them.... Meanwhile, you pooh pooh one of the most honest presidents we've ever had.
Punishing people doesn't change behavior. We crack down on crime, hasn't changed shit. We crack down on drugs, hasn't changed shit. We punish the people that attack us, yet they're going to attack us again.
Lately I've been reading books on how to raise a child. (Yay!). Look up Magda Gerber. Anyway, one of the main ideas is that punishing a child doesn't work, because they don't have the logical equipment to equate action with reaction. Also, they WANT you to like them. The best way to train a child is to reward good behavior and give no special attention to the bad. It seems a decent way to run the world too. Anyway, I digress. You're a fool and your attitude is what's dangerous to the world.
Ok. armed revolutions don't work. Political revolutions do. I don't want to get into this, except to point out that despite your armed revolution fantasy (good luck with that. Let me know how an AR-15 armed moron does against trained military personnel and military equipment) there is some truth to your point. Stop Fucking Shopping.
Some would argue that the Alabama bus boycotts in the 60's did more to change the system than all the marches. I would. Money talks.
There are 300 million Americans. If they stopped shopping at... picking someone at random.... Taco Bell, why not... for just ONE day a month in protest, Taco Bell would be screaming for change in the middle of Congress. People have FAR more power than they suspect.
Unfortunately, they rarely use it. The week that the BP oil spill started I was standing outside my house watching the two gas stations near my house at the time. Arco and Shell. People were streaming into the ARCO station (Part of B.P., it's right on the sign) because the gas was 5 cents cheaper a gallon. The average gas tank is, what, 10-15 gallons? They were saving 75cents max. They could have sent a message, but they didn't care to. This is also why I don't believe in the invisible hand of the free market.
This reminds me of the Communist Manifesto. Marx always said the people would rise up. That's what you're calling for. The people to rise up. News flash... They rarely do.
So, I'm not going to count on People. They've shown me time and again that they don't care enough to take the basic actions to force change. I'll throw my lot in with Lawrence Lessig. He's shown himself to be an honest and dedicated guy who gets results.
so. The government, filled with reps, 90% of whom are millionares, is redistributing wealth away from the wealthy to welfare leeches......
I find it much more likely that the government, filled with reps, 90% of whom are millionares, is redistributing wealth away from middle class to rich leeches. Oddly enough, MY scenario fits with the rise in income inequality, and yours.... doesn't hold with real world data.
Whenever we have an example of some senator doing a cozy deal or bit of pork, is it EVER to some random poor dude? No....
Also.... redistributing wealth is the JOB of government. Government is there to create basic legal and physical infrastructure that benefits us ALL. And that takes money. They take it from people, and build roads/bridges/courts/etc. That's their JOB. So quite whining about wealth redistribution. You sound crazy. There are LOT of very REAL problems with our government. Go fight some of those.
I love how people who are so obviously full of !@#$ always end their posts by claiming that they're going to be persecuted/modded down, as if the INSERT CONSPIRACY extends all the way down to Slashdot posts.
Maybe people are just sick of listening to the crazy guy in the corner? No. That couldn't be. I'm sure YOU'RE the victim here.
OK, this is going to be full of people saying climate change isn't real. They'll be saying that it's all a hoax by 99% of the world's scientists, or they're in cahoots, or they just want that sweet sweet grant money..... Then there are the folks who will say that those of us that respect scientists and science in general are just drinking the kool-aid.
On top of that, you can see the stupid data yourself with a few seconds work. Here. I'll give you that too. http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...
You can quite clearly see a rise in temp that started around the 1900s(almost looks like... some sort of.... hockey stick....). You can quite clearly see which data is from historical data, which is from readings from instruments, and which is reconstructed from tree rings and the like.
I wonder what happened right around that time that was so different from all of our history before that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... There's even a lag time for a hysteresis effect, which one would expect.
In ending, I will paraphrase Dawkins when speaking of how EASY it would be to disprove evolution. All you have to do is find ONE modern fossil in the wrong era. Just one. One duck fossil next to a T-rex fossil would throw doubt on the whole thing. Just one. And it's never been found. It's EASY to disprove evolution. It's never been done, because it's right. Same thing here. Just show that tree ring growth doesn't correspond to temperature, and the entire thing goes out the window. Just show that C02 isn't a greenhouse gas. Just show that the global mean temperatures are NOT rising. Bring your data. It's so EASY to disprove, and you have nothing but FUD.
Doing nothing certainly isn't going to fix it.... It IS a lot easier though.:/ How's that really annoying saying go? Freedom isn't free. It's a constant battle. Who ever thought otherwise?
Lessig is amazing. I signed up. The question is, will all of you? Everyone here likes to complain about politics and politicians. Everyone agrees there's a problem. Here's a guy we know isn't bought trying to fix it. Put your money where your mouth is, or never open it again.
It's really easy to complain and do nothing. It's really not that difficult to actually do something...
I shouldn't touch this. It's off topic flamebait by an Anonymous Coward. I KNOW I shouldn't touch this.
The Benghazi "scandal" is either 1. A fuck up. They didn't do security right, and people died. Then they quibbled about it when asked. This is probably the actual scenario and I'm not too worried about it. The fact of life is that you can't be prepared all the time, everywhere. Terrorism works because you can't see it coming. That's kind of the point. Start TSA'ing all the planes, they'll use busses next time. Start TSA'ing busses and they'll use something else. So, it's an understandable fuck up.
Or 2. It's a secret plot by Hillary Clinton to do.... What? Ruin her own presidential chances?
The TLAs can't keep us safe all the time. Shit is GOING to happen. I could bring this country to it's knees with $500 in cash and a home depot, and they'd never catch me. So shut up already.
As people have already mentioned, if the USPS isn't paying taxes, and gets cushy breaks..... What exactly makes them any different that every single large corporation out there?
I work for Intel in Oregon. Do you think they've payed their fair share of taxes to Hillsboro? Bwaaaaahahahahah!
1. I change my voting registration online. I download forms. My wife just changed her name online. (Hi Honey! Yay!) I email my reps regularly. People use the internet to provide necessary services.
2. Everyone needs internet. Try getting a job without it.
Are you really going to argue that the internet isn't essential for modern life? Dude, HOBOS have smart phones for the internet. Come on....
hey Anonymous Coward. I don't know about Canada. What you say may be true. Wait, Canada HAD internet back in '99? I kid, I kid.... I'm still willing to bet that the only reason you and your friends got to do what you did is because of common carrier rules. I'm guessing you were just ignorant of the regulations saving your ass. Just like you probably are now. Regulation bad! Go live in China and breathe deep. Tell us all how no regulation works out for you.
Slashdot Mirror
I love it. :D
Ow my brain..... I think I'm going to stop trying to correct you people. It just hurts too much.
What he said. The dust bowl WAS caused by human actions. I doubt you'll look it up though to correct your own ignorance, so I'll tell you what happened. We overfarmed the shit out of the soil. Also, Deep plowing killed the grasses that were holding the topsoil in place. When combined with a drought, the topsoil just... blew away. Oops.
Yes, it's sad.... I agree.
Funnily enough, a large amount of people seem to care..... I care. I bet that guy over there cares too. Plenty of people are taking everyday action to help, even if in small ways. So, basically, you're making excuses because that's easier than caring, let alone doing small things that aren't even that hard.
You know, climate effects weather.... That's kind of the point. One is a subset of the other.
Just because it's snowing (weather) doesn't mean the globe (climate) is getting colder. Whereas if the global climate WAS getting colder, we WOULD see weather effects. Pretty much opposite the ones that we're seeing I suppose.
Anyway.....
Stay off my public roads. And don't use my public lines for your electricity. Don't flush that toilet and put your waste into my public sewer system. Don't be protected by my public police, and don't let your house catch on fire, those are my public firemen. Don't be protected by the public legal system. Don't listen to the radio, regulated by the government. Don't use any spectrum at all. Hope you're not on wireless. Oh, and give back your public education. You probably shouldn't have a job, since the company probably benefits from all this stuff too. You probably shouldn't eat anything that was shipped to you over U.S. Highways.
I don't mean to be an ass. I get where you're coming from. Our government is pretty annoying sometimes. I'm just pointing out that we take a LOT of government good for granted. That's a sign of success as far as I'm concerned, and an indicator that the role of government is an important one.
You realized there's pictures of Bush holding hands with Saudi princes, yes? The Saudis love us. We buy their oil. We love them. They sell us oil. Also, as the next person pointed out, Saudi Arabia was where they were from, not where they were based.
The government of Afghanistan had nothing to do with it. Afghanistan is not centrally strong like most countries. When you go out of the cities, it's mostly ruled by clerics or warlords. The citizens say "yes sir" to whomever's pointing a gun at them at any given time.
Not that we went to war on Terror, not against Afghanistan. Also note that we invaded a country because of the actions of a few people in that country. That's a pretty scary precident. If some Fundamental Americans bomb an abortion clinic overseas, will they invade us? No, our governments will get together, do a joint operation, and go WACO on someone... and that's what should have happened instead of the clusterfuck of two wars.
Oh shut up.....
If radical Canadians had flown a plane into one of our buildings, we would have expressed our displeasure to the Canadian government, done a joint operation, and WACO'ed the shit out of them. We would not have invaded Canada.
If radical Canadians had set up a training facility in Mexico and flown a plane into one of our buildings, we would have worked with the Mexican government, done a joint operation, and WACO'ed the shit out of them. We would not have invaded Mexico OR Canada.
Why did we invade a country because a handful of it's citizens did something bad?
Why did we invade a country when we're the ones that trained Bin Laden to fight the Russians?
Who thinks that, given that we just spend a decade training the Afghan army and police force, and given that we keep killing innocents in not so targed drone strikes, that they won't be back, exactly like before?
Who's fault is that? And how will we react NEXT time this happens?
As for suggestions, I say there is no terrorist threat. I'm much more likely to die driving my car than to die from a terrorist attack. So, lets just let the FBI and the CIA do their job and get on with life. Lets NOT create the next generation of terrorists with our actions. Lets go over to Afghanistan and start handing out farm machinery, lets rig up electrical, water, sewer systems. Lets build a shit ton of schools. Lets set up some factories and give a LOT of afghanis some jobs. It'd be FAR CHEAPER than what we're doing now, and it would actually reduce terrorism and reduce the power of the warlords who run the country by giving the Afghani people some options.
Of we could keep giving them military training and then bombing them, all the while doing nothing about the poverty and ignorance that is ever present. I'm sure that'll work out well.
Jimmy Carter was amazing. The problem wasn't Carfter. It's You. We will always be at war as long as people like you are around. Look at us. Osama Bin Laden WON. He didn't pay for shit. He got exactly what he wanted. We went crazy, invaded two countries, clamped down on our own citizens, and spent a small mountain of money for nothing. To boot, we're LOSING in Afghanistan. We've accomplished NOTHING over there.
Oh yeah, we showed them.... Meanwhile, you pooh pooh one of the most honest presidents we've ever had.
Punishing people doesn't change behavior. We crack down on crime, hasn't changed shit. We crack down on drugs, hasn't changed shit. We punish the people that attack us, yet they're going to attack us again.
Lately I've been reading books on how to raise a child. (Yay!). Look up Magda Gerber. Anyway, one of the main ideas is that punishing a child doesn't work, because they don't have the logical equipment to equate action with reaction. Also, they WANT you to like them. The best way to train a child is to reward good behavior and give no special attention to the bad. It seems a decent way to run the world too. Anyway, I digress. You're a fool and your attitude is what's dangerous to the world.
Ok. armed revolutions don't work. Political revolutions do. I don't want to get into this, except to point out that despite your armed revolution fantasy (good luck with that. Let me know how an AR-15 armed moron does against trained military personnel and military equipment) there is some truth to your point. Stop Fucking Shopping.
Some would argue that the Alabama bus boycotts in the 60's did more to change the system than all the marches. I would. Money talks.
There are 300 million Americans. If they stopped shopping at... picking someone at random.... Taco Bell, why not... for just ONE day a month in protest, Taco Bell would be screaming for change in the middle of Congress. People have FAR more power than they suspect.
Unfortunately, they rarely use it. The week that the BP oil spill started I was standing outside my house watching the two gas stations near my house at the time. Arco and Shell. People were streaming into the ARCO station (Part of B.P., it's right on the sign) because the gas was 5 cents cheaper a gallon. The average gas tank is, what, 10-15 gallons? They were saving 75cents max. They could have sent a message, but they didn't care to. This is also why I don't believe in the invisible hand of the free market.
This reminds me of the Communist Manifesto. Marx always said the people would rise up. That's what you're calling for. The people to rise up. News flash... They rarely do.
So, I'm not going to count on People. They've shown me time and again that they don't care enough to take the basic actions to force change. I'll throw my lot in with Lawrence Lessig. He's shown himself to be an honest and dedicated guy who gets results.
so. The government, filled with reps, 90% of whom are millionares, is redistributing wealth away from the wealthy to welfare leeches......
I find it much more likely that the government, filled with reps, 90% of whom are millionares, is redistributing wealth away from middle class to rich leeches. Oddly enough, MY scenario fits with the rise in income inequality, and yours.... doesn't hold with real world data.
Whenever we have an example of some senator doing a cozy deal or bit of pork, is it EVER to some random poor dude? No....
Also.... redistributing wealth is the JOB of government. Government is there to create basic legal and physical infrastructure that benefits us ALL. And that takes money. They take it from people, and build roads/bridges/courts/etc. That's their JOB. So quite whining about wealth redistribution. You sound crazy. There are LOT of very REAL problems with our government. Go fight some of those.
I love how people who are so obviously full of !@#$ always end their posts by claiming that they're going to be persecuted/modded down, as if the INSERT CONSPIRACY extends all the way down to Slashdot posts.
Maybe people are just sick of listening to the crazy guy in the corner? No. That couldn't be. I'm sure YOU'RE the victim here.
OK, this is going to be full of people saying climate change isn't real. They'll be saying that it's all a hoax by 99% of the world's scientists, or they're in cahoots, or they just want that sweet sweet grant money..... Then there are the folks who will say that those of us that respect scientists and science in general are just drinking the kool-aid.
To them, I give this link. http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/02/...
On top of that, you can see the stupid data yourself with a few seconds work. Here. I'll give you that too. http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...
You can quite clearly see a rise in temp that started around the 1900s(almost looks like ... some sort of.... hockey stick....). You can quite clearly see which data is from historical data, which is from readings from instruments, and which is reconstructed from tree rings and the like.
I wonder what happened right around that time that was so different from all of our history before that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... There's even a lag time for a hysteresis effect, which one would expect.
In ending, I will paraphrase Dawkins when speaking of how EASY it would be to disprove evolution. All you have to do is find ONE modern fossil in the wrong era. Just one. One duck fossil next to a T-rex fossil would throw doubt on the whole thing. Just one. And it's never been found. It's EASY to disprove evolution. It's never been done, because it's right. Same thing here. Just show that tree ring growth doesn't correspond to temperature, and the entire thing goes out the window. Just show that C02 isn't a greenhouse gas. Just show that the global mean temperatures are NOT rising. Bring your data. It's so EASY to disprove, and you have nothing but FUD.
That is all.
So.... We're getting closer to the sun?! Shit!
Doing nothing certainly isn't going to fix it.... It IS a lot easier though. :/ How's that really annoying saying go? Freedom isn't free. It's a constant battle. Who ever thought otherwise?
Doing nothing certainly isn't going to fix it.... It IS a lot easier though. :/
Everyone's arguing (uselessly) instead of doing anything. Armchair generals, all of you.
I actually lobby. It's not that hard. Talk accomplishes nothing.
For those that don't know Lessig, here's a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Here's his TED talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Stop arguing (uselessly) with each other and HELP.
And here's a man trying to BUY THEM BACK. Get off your asses and HELP HIM.
Lessig is amazing. I signed up. The question is, will all of you? Everyone here likes to complain about politics and politicians. Everyone agrees there's a problem. Here's a guy we know isn't bought trying to fix it. Put your money where your mouth is, or never open it again.
It's really easy to complain and do nothing. It's really not that difficult to actually do something...
I shouldn't touch this. It's off topic flamebait by an Anonymous Coward. I KNOW I shouldn't touch this.
The Benghazi "scandal" is either 1. A fuck up. They didn't do security right, and people died. Then they quibbled about it when asked. This is probably the actual scenario and I'm not too worried about it. The fact of life is that you can't be prepared all the time, everywhere. Terrorism works because you can't see it coming. That's kind of the point. Start TSA'ing all the planes, they'll use busses next time. Start TSA'ing busses and they'll use something else. So, it's an understandable fuck up.
Or 2. It's a secret plot by Hillary Clinton to do.... What? Ruin her own presidential chances?
The TLAs can't keep us safe all the time. Shit is GOING to happen. I could bring this country to it's knees with $500 in cash and a home depot, and they'd never catch me. So shut up already.
As people have already mentioned, if the USPS isn't paying taxes, and gets cushy breaks..... What exactly makes them any different that every single large corporation out there?
I work for Intel in Oregon. Do you think they've payed their fair share of taxes to Hillsboro? Bwaaaaahahahahah!
1. I change my voting registration online. I download forms. My wife just changed her name online. (Hi Honey! Yay!) I email my reps regularly. People use the internet to provide necessary services.
2. Everyone needs internet. Try getting a job without it.
Are you really going to argue that the internet isn't essential for modern life? Dude, HOBOS have smart phones for the internet. Come on....
hey Anonymous Coward. I don't know about Canada. What you say may be true. Wait, Canada HAD internet back in '99? I kid, I kid.... I'm still willing to bet that the only reason you and your friends got to do what you did is because of common carrier rules. I'm guessing you were just ignorant of the regulations saving your ass. Just like you probably are now. Regulation bad! Go live in China and breathe deep. Tell us all how no regulation works out for you.