DDOS is less like a nuke, and more like throwing a flash-bang grenade at someone.
Results of a systems penetration and perversion by contrast would depend on how good intrusion detection systems are on the target, and the nature of the target for an intrusion. Financial systems would be an obvious target. Subtle corruption of data might be harder to correct. Were I wearing my black hat and at my most destructive, I'd try for a major financial institution (one of the top 10 banks, the five major financial exchanges, or the federal reserve); try for something that inserted a human-possible error (digit transpose, single digit error, or doubling a digit) into one transaction in every 1E6 or so to start. Rig the code so that this rate remains constant for 30 days. After 30 days, the rate begins an acceleration program, doubling the error rate every ten days. I'd also drop in something to initiate financial transfers after about day 30 if I could.
I'd want a trustworthy and trained team of about 30 to do it; at least a dozen broadband zombies per team member, with scattered IP addresses and locations; probably three months to determine the best system entry point, about a month for studying system design (replacable by a spy with access to system documentation, and a week to study it), about a week for the sabotage coding, and about a day for the intrusion itself. If it wasn't caught quickly, they'll have a major headache.
Hacking is not directly useful for land/sea/air warfare. It is more useful for "cold" wars (spy games), or "cool" wars (economic warfare).
which is nice because the high-energy gammas you'd get from P+/P- annihilation would spall off neutrons from just about everything
While you're absolutely correct about positronium (hadn't noticed that in the article), I'm not sure you would get that problem with even regular antimatter. Yes, 900MeV is enough to knock a proton or neutron loose from an existing nucleus; in fact, I'd back-of-the-envelope that it's enough to completely blow apart any atom with a baryon count under 100, possibly higher. (Iron, count of 50ish and the strongest binding, is held together by about half a proton mass IIR.)
However, gamma rays above.511 MeV (electron mass) tend to "self-scatter" due to vacuum pair production. The photon tends to turn into an electron/positron pair. (Other more exotic particles are possible, but really exotics are less likely, and behave roughly the same.) If the pair comes back together, no-one notices, but this is less and less likely at higher and higher energy levels. Otherwise, you have a high energy (standard) Beta-Minus and high energy (antimatter) Beta-Plus, each averaging about half the original Gamma in mass/energy, with.511 MeV each tied up in mass. The Beta-Minus downscatters off matter in the area, resulting in lower energy beta-minus particles and X-rays (or gamma rays). The Beta-Plus will hit a normal electron (with presumably negligble kinetic energy of its own), and you will have two gammas headed off, each with about half the mass-energy of the moving poistron/stationary electron pair.
Vacuum pair production self-scatter is more and more likely the higher your energy level. So, you're pretty unlikely to directly detect 900 MeV Gammas at any range where your detector (or you) would survive.
Of course, you will get an EMP like the wrath of god from all those Beta-Minus particles, ionizing everything in the neighborhood. But you probably wouldn't get that many weird neutron-count isotopes.
1 kg antimatter mixed with equal matter yields about 42 megatons, half from matter conversion to energy, half from antimatter conversion to energy. The energy would initially be in the form of gamma rays at the neighborhoods of.5 and 900 MeV, but the latter would self-scatter (? correct term ?) due to electron positron emission/annihilation, and head down REAL fast towards the.5 MeV.
Do you actually consider land more important than life?
Seems to be a false dilemma. Why can't they build the wall at the agreed upon border? How would that be less effective at preserving life?
How do you know Israel has nukes, because Vanunu said so?
That he was convicted of treason and espionage after claiming so gives some credence. It also appears psychologically consistent for them to have desired nuclear weapons capability, and they did have a nuclear power facility. Means, motive, probable opportunity, and one eyewitness. A second eyewitness would be conclusive. This is (merely) highly suggestive.
I was basing my statement on the U.S. Constitution, which states that a person can bring suit for any amount >= $20.
That's amendment seven, which specifes that as the minimum size controversy you may demand the issue at law be decided by a jury. For under $20, you can't insist on a jury trial. (For a jury trial, you may not be eligible to use small claims, but don't hold me to that.) It's a bit more complicated than that, but the difference between the court of law and court of equity isn't really essential here, and is probably only of interest to law wonks, whether admitted to the bar or not. =)
There's no difference between Mel Brooks and the Zuckers, or the Farrellys.
Actually, I think Brooks is noticably more old-fashioned-- he's much more likely than the others to merely make crass jokes about bare female breasts, rather than showing them outright. He understands the old Vaudeville merits of the tease. It's rather mindboggling to imagine ("Baby, I'm not from Havana!"), but Mel may have some sense of restraint or taste in his work.
...yet. After all, Mel Brooks has something resembling a sense of humor. It might tickle his funny bone to try the kid out, just BECAUSE the Onion said it first. Of course, if the kid can't act... Brooks will be doing about his usual par, and doing about as well as Lucas did in his choice. =)
You can't make a case in Small Claims Court for anything less than $20.
Minimum claim varies from state to state, and in some venues may be as low as one cent (as apparently the City of Philadelphia allows). Last I checked my home state, it was $5. If you're too cheap to ask a lawyer (and IANAL), you can usually find out what the limits are from the court clerk before you file. Pain and suffering damages have been barred from small claims court in each state where I've lived, and I think probably are everywhere, so you can't use that to pad your claim.
However, judges tend to be unamused by people wasting their time, so for a de minimus claim, you may be at higher risk of being laughed out of court, not to mention putting yourself in danger of a countersuit for legal and travel expenses on a frivolous suit if you loose... which in turn might not be small claims. Not to mention the certainty of filing costs, which you only may recoup if you win... and if you remembered to include "plus filing costs" in your claim.
Aside from "Copy the game. Copy the CD-Key. Scratch the cds a little" and "Post Cd-keys somewhere on the net" (which is stupid-- you're sending the key to Blizzard, and giving them your address for your rebate check), the plan seems the seed of a potentially effective form of protest.
* Get a lot indignant consumers
* Buy Latest Blizzard game in droves
* Open the box. Start installing the game. Read the EULA end-to-end, noting the parts you don't like. Stop the install by declining the EULA.
* Attempt to return the package to the store; politely express disatisfaction about their refusal to accept EULA returns. Note the parts of the EULA you find unacceptable. Agree that you will take the issue up with the manufacturer.
* Contact Blizzard to obtain an RMA, politely informing them you want a rebate since you don't agree with the EULA, and your local vendor declines to provide one. Be sure to again note the parts that you find offensive, and why. Return all the game materials to Blizzard.
* Repeat every eight weeks. After all, you do want to see whether they've changed the agreement to something more reasonable. =)
Note, you may be out about six bucks per cycle doing this. If it weren't for that, I'd be pleased to join in such a movement. While I like Diablo, I'm afraid Warcraft bores me once I finish clicking through the "You're making me seasick!" gags.
A lot of the decisions were built upon Blizzard's stating that a person can take the software home, read the EULA, reject it, then take it back to the store for a refund within 30 days. I didn't see anywhere pointed out that you won't actually GET a refund in the real world.
It's not very well publicized by most software makers for obvious reasons, and policies may have changed in the last few years. But refunds direct from the manufacturer are often possible.
About two years ago, I picked up a piece of software from Staples. For one reason or another, I found the package thoroughly unsatisfactory. Can't remember whether it was incompatibility, an unacceptable EULA, or the software just plain sucked. I brought it back, Staples reiterated the open box policy, and said I needed to contact the manufacturer for a refund. When I did so, the maker listened to my problem, tried to resolve the problem, and when they couldn't, provided me a RMA number and shipping address. No major fuss involved. I sent them the software and a copy of my receipt. I got a check for the purchase price-- leaving me out about six bucks for shipping expenses. Eh.
It would be nice, but not realistic, to have gotten my shipping expenses back, too. I suspect most manufacturers have similar (unpublicized)policies. I also suspect that if it was because of a EULA refusal (or if you bought direct from the manufacturer's website), you could probably make yourself politely obnoxious, and either get the shipping costs refunded, or grounds for a case in small claims court. (And, since you refused the EULA, you can probably choose a local venue.) But you'll probably need to talk to a lawyer-- and IANAL.
So yes, it may not be possible to get the refund from the end vendor, but it may still be practically possible to get a refund directly from the manufacturer-- leaving Blizzard's statement accurate. Has anyone else tried getting a refund from various software makers in the last two years?
More seriously: insufficient engineering practice at this scale of wind power production (which many people are currently doing something about), load smoothing issues, and environmental impacts (from noise pollution, and from birdbrained birds either flying into the rotor blades and/or nesting inconveniently on the towers).
Information taken from here; I presume the information to be largely sound. Units work done with converter here; results matched my old engineering sense of unit size, and thus were not checked from my CRC HoC&P.
US Electricity production in 2003 was 3800 Billion KWh (=3.8 PWh =13 Quad); 21% nuclear (.76 PWh=2.6). For comparison, hydro was 7%; solar, geothermal, and other alternative sources about 1%.
Total energy consumption, however, is about 100 Quad, once you include all energy use ("petroleum, dry natural gas, coal, net hydro, nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, wood and waste electric power").
Since nuclear energy is used exclusively for electricity generation (neglecting the effect of a few floating cities), it would not be impossible to replace nuclear power with an expanded coal program, especially given the vast proven US coal reserves. However, coal-fired plants have arguably greater drawbacks-- coal ash is radioactive, and burning more coal would release more CO2.
Replacing nuclear power with an expanded alternatives program (wind or solar) would require an order of magnitude increase in generation capacity. It would also result in a cost increase; wind energy costs around .
Screw it, I've some karma to burn. I'd say the post ought be accurately modded "Interesting", "Informative", and "Troll".
The reasons for the first two are obvious (assuming the accuracy of sources quoted from "the web of a million lies"). The last, because the content is deliberately provocative and inadequately tied by rational discourse to the topic at hand, to wit, the possible manipulation by the Bush campaign of the nominally independent address of the leader of another semi-sovereign nation to our congress. Had the poster actually taken the trouble to insert the intermediate rational train of thought connecting the messages to the subject matter of the original article, rather than leaving it to inference and allegation, I would drop my "troll" assessment. They didn't; I wouldn't.
In further off-topic matters: For those who wonder at my political leanings, my listening to tonight's debate has solidified my assessment of the presidential election. If elected, John Kerry will be a disaster as president; if re-elected, George W. Bush will be an unmitigated disaster as president. Time to renew my passport.
Not necessarily. One guy I knew in college claimed he had never masturbated, because he had been getting laid regularly since age 14. He might even have been telling the truth-- he was the smoothest pickup artist I've ever seen. Besides his frequent one-night stands, he had a harem of half-a-dozen repeat customers throughout most of the year I knew him.
Fortunately, he was from a well-to-do family, otherwise, he probably couldn't have afforded his condom budget. He also put a cookie jar of disposable earplugs out for anyone in the suite who wanted them to block out distracting noises-- from his room or elsewhere. Helpful at exam season. =)
Some people seems to be convinced it's better to ban everything questionable / politically incorrect instead of acknowgleding responsability as a parent and keeping your kids from seeing stuff you don't want them exposed to.
And doing so is harmful. At some point, children SHOULD be exposed to harmful ideas: pornography, racism, loonie religious beliefs, and other horrible things. You probably don't want to expose them to all of it by age six, but you need to teach your kids, "these things are bad because of this, here is how you should deal with them when you encounter them."
If you don't expose your children to these things in a controlled fashion, their reaction on first meeting will be like a kid playing with fire: "ooooh... bright and colorful!" And then the kid gets burnt. Of course, with some things, it takes a few months to figure out what level of trouble they're in, rather than the fast feedback from a match.
Of course, if you do expose the kid to bad ideas, it is almost certain that they will do something stupid at some point. You do reduce the odds of their living as an angel from cradle-to-grave. But if you raise the kid in a "clean-room" environment, any first slip is much more likely to be large, radical, and permanently life-altering. And remember, "kills them outright" is a form of altering their life.
Kids need to be educated to make moral choices. The only way to be sure you've educated them is to expose them to moral choices while you still have some hope of offering guidance. God allows the existance of evil-- ever think maybe this is the reason?
"Flash Crowd", 1973; collected in "The Flight of the Horse".
"The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club", 1974; collected in "A Hole in Space".
Unfortunately, the solution is going to have to be different. The stories make a starting point for thinking about the problem.
without going into a lot of phyics is that between proven sources and the regenerative capacity of so-called breeder reactor
While breeder reactors are probably a good idea, there's two seriously noteworthy problems with them. First, without getting into engineering details, breeder reactors must use molten sodium metal as the primary coolant. This, as any self respecting lunatic pyro can tell you, poses non-trivial (albeit not unsolvable) engineering problems.
Second, breeders require reprocessing-- PUREX, plutonium/uranium extraction-- to be useful. Reprocessing leaves the risk of someone getting their hands on either radiological or A-bomb grade plutonium. (Not all produced Pu isotopes are bomb-suitable; all are, however, radioactive, poisonous, and nasty.) Sociopolitical parameters must also be considered constraints for real-world engineering.
I'd like to ask you, especially as a presidential candidate from the Green Party, about the main problem of power: generating it. =)
Oil is near or at the Hubbert peak for global production. Greens apparently are opposed to both fossil fuels and fission-based nuclear power. Hydrogen, while perhaps a viable storage mechanism, is not naturally available chemically unbound in measurable quantities, much less enough to constitute a fuel source. Modern American civilization is highly dependent on economical electricity and low-cost long range transportation of manufactured materials. And the Nixon era demonstrated the nasty effects of supply shocks on the economy, especially for something as fundamental as the cost of energy.
Annual energy use in the United States is on the rough order of 100 quad. How would you propose that the United States continue to meet demand?
Or, in three specific parts: What long-term technologies do you think we should pursue? What percentage reduction by conservation in the US annual energy use do you feel we should realistically try to achieve? And, most important, what technologies to you propose for use in the short term to sustain the supply needed (despite conservation) until whatever long-term technologies you plan for are successfully deployed?
Slashdot Mirror
Results of a systems penetration and perversion by contrast would depend on how good intrusion detection systems are on the target, and the nature of the target for an intrusion. Financial systems would be an obvious target. Subtle corruption of data might be harder to correct. Were I wearing my black hat and at my most destructive, I'd try for a major financial institution (one of the top 10 banks, the five major financial exchanges, or the federal reserve); try for something that inserted a human-possible error (digit transpose, single digit error, or doubling a digit) into one transaction in every 1E6 or so to start. Rig the code so that this rate remains constant for 30 days. After 30 days, the rate begins an acceleration program, doubling the error rate every ten days. I'd also drop in something to initiate financial transfers after about day 30 if I could.
I'd want a trustworthy and trained team of about 30 to do it; at least a dozen broadband zombies per team member, with scattered IP addresses and locations; probably three months to determine the best system entry point, about a month for studying system design (replacable by a spy with access to system documentation, and a week to study it), about a week for the sabotage coding, and about a day for the intrusion itself. If it wasn't caught quickly, they'll have a major headache.
Hacking is not directly useful for land/sea/air warfare. It is more useful for "cold" wars (spy games), or "cool" wars (economic warfare).
While you're absolutely correct about positronium (hadn't noticed that in the article), I'm not sure you would get that problem with even regular antimatter. Yes, 900MeV is enough to knock a proton or neutron loose from an existing nucleus; in fact, I'd back-of-the-envelope that it's enough to completely blow apart any atom with a baryon count under 100, possibly higher. (Iron, count of 50ish and the strongest binding, is held together by about half a proton mass IIR.)
However, gamma rays above .511 MeV (electron mass) tend to "self-scatter" due to vacuum pair production. The photon tends to turn into an electron/positron pair. (Other more exotic particles are possible, but really exotics are less likely, and behave roughly the same.) If the pair comes back together, no-one notices, but this is less and less likely at higher and higher energy levels. Otherwise, you have a high energy (standard) Beta-Minus and high energy (antimatter) Beta-Plus, each averaging about half the original Gamma in mass/energy, with .511 MeV each tied up in mass. The Beta-Minus downscatters off matter in the area, resulting in lower energy beta-minus particles and X-rays (or gamma rays). The Beta-Plus will hit a normal electron (with presumably negligble kinetic energy of its own), and you will have two gammas headed off, each with about half the mass-energy of the moving poistron/stationary electron pair.
Vacuum pair production self-scatter is more and more likely the higher your energy level. So, you're pretty unlikely to directly detect 900 MeV Gammas at any range where your detector (or you) would survive.
Of course, you will get an EMP like the wrath of god from all those Beta-Minus particles, ionizing everything in the neighborhood. But you probably wouldn't get that many weird neutron-count isotopes.
Still a hell of a chest X-ray to give the planet.
Seems to be a false dilemma. Why can't they build the wall at the agreed upon border? How would that be less effective at preserving life?
How do you know Israel has nukes, because Vanunu said so?
That he was convicted of treason and espionage after claiming so gives some credence. It also appears psychologically consistent for them to have desired nuclear weapons capability, and they did have a nuclear power facility. Means, motive, probable opportunity, and one eyewitness. A second eyewitness would be conclusive. This is (merely) highly suggestive.
Your points are fairly sound, otherwise.
That's amendment seven, which specifes that as the minimum size controversy you may demand the issue at law be decided by a jury. For under $20, you can't insist on a jury trial. (For a jury trial, you may not be eligible to use small claims, but don't hold me to that.) It's a bit more complicated than that, but the difference between the court of law and court of equity isn't really essential here, and is probably only of interest to law wonks, whether admitted to the bar or not. =)
Actually, I think Brooks is noticably more old-fashioned-- he's much more likely than the others to merely make crass jokes about bare female breasts, rather than showing them outright. He understands the old Vaudeville merits of the tease. It's rather mindboggling to imagine ("Baby, I'm not from Havana!"), but Mel may have some sense of restraint or taste in his work.
Minimum claim varies from state to state, and in some venues may be as low as one cent (as apparently the City of Philadelphia allows). Last I checked my home state, it was $5. If you're too cheap to ask a lawyer (and IANAL), you can usually find out what the limits are from the court clerk before you file. Pain and suffering damages have been barred from small claims court in each state where I've lived, and I think probably are everywhere, so you can't use that to pad your claim.
However, judges tend to be unamused by people wasting their time, so for a de minimus claim, you may be at higher risk of being laughed out of court, not to mention putting yourself in danger of a countersuit for legal and travel expenses on a frivolous suit if you loose... which in turn might not be small claims. Not to mention the certainty of filing costs, which you only may recoup if you win... and if you remembered to include "plus filing costs" in your claim.
* Get a lot indignant consumers
* Buy Latest Blizzard game in droves
* Open the box. Start installing the game. Read the EULA end-to-end, noting the parts you don't like. Stop the install by declining the EULA.
* Attempt to return the package to the store; politely express disatisfaction about their refusal to accept EULA returns. Note the parts of the EULA you find unacceptable. Agree that you will take the issue up with the manufacturer.
* Contact Blizzard to obtain an RMA, politely informing them you want a rebate since you don't agree with the EULA, and your local vendor declines to provide one. Be sure to again note the parts that you find offensive, and why. Return all the game materials to Blizzard.
* Repeat every eight weeks. After all, you do want to see whether they've changed the agreement to something more reasonable. =)
Note, you may be out about six bucks per cycle doing this. If it weren't for that, I'd be pleased to join in such a movement. While I like Diablo, I'm afraid Warcraft bores me once I finish clicking through the "You're making me seasick!" gags.
It's not very well publicized by most software makers for obvious reasons, and policies may have changed in the last few years. But refunds direct from the manufacturer are often possible.
About two years ago, I picked up a piece of software from Staples. For one reason or another, I found the package thoroughly unsatisfactory. Can't remember whether it was incompatibility, an unacceptable EULA, or the software just plain sucked. I brought it back, Staples reiterated the open box policy, and said I needed to contact the manufacturer for a refund. When I did so, the maker listened to my problem, tried to resolve the problem, and when they couldn't, provided me a RMA number and shipping address. No major fuss involved. I sent them the software and a copy of my receipt. I got a check for the purchase price-- leaving me out about six bucks for shipping expenses. Eh.
It would be nice, but not realistic, to have gotten my shipping expenses back, too. I suspect most manufacturers have similar (unpublicized)policies. I also suspect that if it was because of a EULA refusal (or if you bought direct from the manufacturer's website), you could probably make yourself politely obnoxious, and either get the shipping costs refunded, or grounds for a case in small claims court. (And, since you refused the EULA, you can probably choose a local venue.) But you'll probably need to talk to a lawyer-- and IANAL.
So yes, it may not be possible to get the refund from the end vendor, but it may still be practically possible to get a refund directly from the manufacturer-- leaving Blizzard's statement accurate. Has anyone else tried getting a refund from various software makers in the last two years?
Florida could discuss the problems with "fully" exploiting wind energy. Kinda hard to grab eight gigatons of energy, or about half the US's annual electric needs and dump it into the grid over a single day. Hope you have a really good surge protector!
More seriously: insufficient engineering practice at this scale of wind power production (which many people are currently doing something about), load smoothing issues, and environmental impacts (from noise pollution, and from birdbrained birds either flying into the rotor blades and/or nesting inconveniently on the towers).
US Electricity production in 2003 was 3800 Billion KWh (=3.8 PWh =13 Quad); 21% nuclear (.76 PWh=2.6). For comparison, hydro was 7%; solar, geothermal, and other alternative sources about 1%.
Total energy consumption, however, is about 100 Quad, once you include all energy use ("petroleum, dry natural gas, coal, net hydro, nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, wood and waste electric power").
Since nuclear energy is used exclusively for electricity generation (neglecting the effect of a few floating cities), it would not be impossible to replace nuclear power with an expanded coal program, especially given the vast proven US coal reserves. However, coal-fired plants have arguably greater drawbacks-- coal ash is radioactive, and burning more coal would release more CO2.
Replacing nuclear power with an expanded alternatives program (wind or solar) would require an order of magnitude increase in generation capacity. It would also result in a cost increase; wind energy costs around .
The reasons for the first two are obvious (assuming the accuracy of sources quoted from "the web of a million lies"). The last, because the content is deliberately provocative and inadequately tied by rational discourse to the topic at hand, to wit, the possible manipulation by the Bush campaign of the nominally independent address of the leader of another semi-sovereign nation to our congress. Had the poster actually taken the trouble to insert the intermediate rational train of thought connecting the messages to the subject matter of the original article, rather than leaving it to inference and allegation, I would drop my "troll" assessment. They didn't; I wouldn't.
In further off-topic matters: For those who wonder at my political leanings, my listening to tonight's debate has solidified my assessment of the presidential election. If elected, John Kerry will be a disaster as president; if re-elected, George W. Bush will be an unmitigated disaster as president. Time to renew my passport.
Not necessarily. One guy I knew in college claimed he had never masturbated, because he had been getting laid regularly since age 14. He might even have been telling the truth-- he was the smoothest pickup artist I've ever seen. Besides his frequent one-night stands, he had a harem of half-a-dozen repeat customers throughout most of the year I knew him.
Fortunately, he was from a well-to-do family, otherwise, he probably couldn't have afforded his condom budget. He also put a cookie jar of disposable earplugs out for anyone in the suite who wanted them to block out distracting noises-- from his room or elsewhere. Helpful at exam season. =)
And doing so is harmful. At some point, children SHOULD be exposed to harmful ideas: pornography, racism, loonie religious beliefs, and other horrible things. You probably don't want to expose them to all of it by age six, but you need to teach your kids, "these things are bad because of this, here is how you should deal with them when you encounter them."
If you don't expose your children to these things in a controlled fashion, their reaction on first meeting will be like a kid playing with fire: "ooooh... bright and colorful!" And then the kid gets burnt. Of course, with some things, it takes a few months to figure out what level of trouble they're in, rather than the fast feedback from a match.
Of course, if you do expose the kid to bad ideas, it is almost certain that they will do something stupid at some point. You do reduce the odds of their living as an angel from cradle-to-grave. But if you raise the kid in a "clean-room" environment, any first slip is much more likely to be large, radical, and permanently life-altering. And remember, "kills them outright" is a form of altering their life.
Kids need to be educated to make moral choices. The only way to be sure you've educated them is to expose them to moral choices while you still have some hope of offering guidance. God allows the existance of evil-- ever think maybe this is the reason?
"The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club", 1974; collected in "A Hole in Space".
Unfortunately, the solution is going to have to be different. The stories make a starting point for thinking about the problem.
Um, not in the vicinity of a water table it isn't.
Hey, if Mama nature can do it, we should be able to pull it off.
While breeder reactors are probably a good idea, there's two seriously noteworthy problems with them. First, without getting into engineering details, breeder reactors must use molten sodium metal as the primary coolant. This, as any self respecting lunatic pyro can tell you, poses non-trivial (albeit not unsolvable) engineering problems.
Second, breeders require reprocessing-- PUREX, plutonium/uranium extraction-- to be useful. Reprocessing leaves the risk of someone getting their hands on either radiological or A-bomb grade plutonium. (Not all produced Pu isotopes are bomb-suitable; all are, however, radioactive, poisonous, and nasty.) Sociopolitical parameters must also be considered constraints for real-world engineering.
Makes as much sense as anything about the Bush White House.
Oil is near or at the Hubbert peak for global production. Greens apparently are opposed to both fossil fuels and fission-based nuclear power. Hydrogen, while perhaps a viable storage mechanism, is not naturally available chemically unbound in measurable quantities, much less enough to constitute a fuel source. Modern American civilization is highly dependent on economical electricity and low-cost long range transportation of manufactured materials. And the Nixon era demonstrated the nasty effects of supply shocks on the economy, especially for something as fundamental as the cost of energy.
Annual energy use in the United States is on the rough order of 100 quad. How would you propose that the United States continue to meet demand? Or, in three specific parts: What long-term technologies do you think we should pursue? What percentage reduction by conservation in the US annual energy use do you feel we should realistically try to achieve? And, most important, what technologies to you propose for use in the short term to sustain the supply needed (despite conservation) until whatever long-term technologies you plan for are successfully deployed?
I'm sure us geeks have an opinion on support from Nigeria.
I thought the one across New York's East River was the traditional one to offer?