There's a difference between testing something in space, and actually using it. If it were enough just to test it, there'd be no reason to do it in space.
If industries are already moving towards more efficient processing technology, and people are already moving towards more efficient cars, why even sign the treaty? It should be obvious that the free market is already taking care of the problem.
The thing is that as power becomes more expensive, not only does industry move to more energy efficient technology, but renewable energy sources become more cost effective. Consumers do their part by selecting the lower cost, less energy intensive products made from plastics or fibers over more energy intensive products made form glass and metal.
Okay, what's the ratio of people who voted in the exit poll to people who voted total?
Are certain people more likely to choose to take an exit poll than others?
Were the polls conducted at random throughout the state, or at specific locations?
What do you suppose the margin of error on this kind of essentially unscientific poll are? Maybe it isn't as bad as the slash-dot polls are, but they're probably not all that accurate either.
I your statement that they are "not at all statistically similar" probably isn't as accurate as you think it is.
"Moreover, the federal elections should not be about states, but about all citizens in the country."
Okay, I can see that someone needs to be educated about what the federal government is supposed to do. The federal governments primary purpose as laid out in the constitution is to regulate trade between states and provide for the common security of the nation. That's it, no well-fare, not medicare, no federal highways, no federal funding of schools, no federally funded research (except maybe military). Nothing but trade and defense and foreign policy.
All this other crap that people seem to think is the job of the federal government was really just added by FDR and later on in the post-WWII era.
So no, the federal election is not about the citizens in the country, it is about the states in the country. Why do you think we even have states? In your world we should do away with all state and local government and do everything at the Federal level, but other people feel that this country is too big to be governed by only one body. I think the fact that the electoral college map shows that the edges are blue and the middle and the south are red certainly lends credence to this assessment. Let socialists have socialist state governments, there's no reason the whole country should have the same government.
No, I was aware that Bush is hated. I don't claim that this perception is media spin. I'm saying that the world hates bush because of media spin. That is to say, not the US media's spin, but the canadian media's spin.
I don't know why people in Canada care about the result of this election anyway. It's not likely that US foreign policy toward Canada has really changed in the last four years. Nor is it likely to change in the next four years, regardless of who is elected. Likewise, I don't know why people in many other parts of the world care. If Kerry is elected, it doesn't mean that we can take back the war in Iraq. Likewise, it isn't likely he'll change anything in Iraq. And I don't think that if Bush is elected he is likely to invade the nuclear powers of Iran and North Korea.
I think the problem is mostly that the foreign press overstates the significance of this election to the rest of the world. They mostly portray Bush as some kind of evil fascist retarded cowboy who is hell bent on taking over the world. This isn't really true. I mean, he does support global trade, which some people think is similar to imperialism, but so does Kerry. Moreover, foreign media tends to overstate the significance of the patriot act. A lot of people seem to have the impression that the US has become some kind of police state, in reality it's pretty much the same as it's always been.
I think the main problem is that most other countries lean more toward socialist governments with high taxes, universalized healthcare, higher levels of welfare, government subsidized industry, and so on and so fourth. In the US, most people don't want these things, and would rather be more independent and self-sufficient. I think that since the values that Bush has doesn't really mesh with the values most Europeans have, they tend to draw this us vs. them distinction with the US. And I think the foreign press tends to highlight those differences rather than highlight our common values.
I do read foreign media. I get almost all my information from the internet. I can tell you with-ought a doubt that the newspapers you trust are not giving you the full picture either. If you read two newspapers, even two american ones, they often imply different things. This is called spin, and our media does it too. If the news network you trust tells you one thing, and one you don't trust tells you another, it doesn't mean the untrusted news source is wrong, it means both could be wrong.
As for the CNN article, you probably shouldn't be surprised that it is paired down, not everyone wants to read the full transcript. All I was saying is that your original comment implies that the CNN article doesn't include Bin Laden taunting Bush. That is untrue. As nearest I can tell, the article touches on every point addressed in the actual video. It said that Bush mishandled 9/11, it said that our foreign policy was to blame for the attacks, and it said that no matter who was elected, attacks would continue until our foreign policy was revisited.
Besides, if you really were informed as you think you are, you'd probably realize that Kerry voted for the patriot act, and me supporting it does not make me republican. Nor does it mean that I am playing follow the leader, though you are because you fail to question the integrity of you own news sources.
As for "Anything critical of US foreign policy or the government gets toned down or completely censored out." I don't know how you can claim this and then also claim that you follow American media. I read reports every day with quotes from people opposing this administration. Most media coverage of the war on Iraq is with regard to negative issues.
It is true that each news source has it's own bias, but for the most part they all report the big stories. Just because I don't think the US is turning into a police state doesn't mean I'm uninformed. I just means that I live here and I know what's going on in my own country.
Ummm . . . I read that quote on CNN, which is a US news agency, so I think this is probably a really bad example of media self-censorship.
And for your information there a lot of US citizens exercising their right to free speech every day so don't get all self righteous and claim that there's no freedom in the US. I think the problem might be that you are misinformed by the self censorship of the media you listen to. Or are you claiming that can't happen because your news sources are totally unbiased?
Do you honestly think that the patriot act has permanently suspended all of out rights? This is absurd, all it really does is give law enforcement agencies more power to act on minimal intelligence. Do you think that's unreasonable? You should ask all those morons who said that Bush didn't do enough to stop terrorists before 9/11. They'll tell you that Bush made a mistake not acting immediately on extremely shaky information. Well, guess what, the patriot gives law enforcement agencies the power to do exactly that. Is it unconstitutional? Yes, a lot of the powers granted in the Patriot act are unconstitutional, and you know what? That means that when the supreme court strikes down clauses in the Patriot act, it will be rewritten to address the concerns of the supreme court and will no longer be unconstitutional. We still have all our rights under the constitution, and no act of congress short of passing an amendment can take any of them away.
Don't like the Department of Homeland Security? Maybe you should find out what it is before you judge it. The Department of Homeland was born out of the realization that government enforcement agencies were poorly coordinated, and worse still often worked against each other. After 9/11 it was found that if the FBI and the CIA had worked together, the tragedy could've been prevented. The solution is obvious, combine all the existing agencies together into the Department of Homeland Security, and restructure them in a more cohesive fashion.
People should learn the facts before assuming the worst.
Of course, that depends how you quantify resources. Do you use the dollar value of the resources, or the mass, or the volume? Perhaps some other index all together is in order. At any rate most of our food is domestically, and a good portion of that really isn't on the global market. Certainly our water consumption is not an issue since other countries could never use that.
Really the only resource we use a lot of is oil, and boy do we use a lot of that.
This is likely to be the only insightful comment in this whole thread.
And while I'm at it . . . I don't ever want to read the word straw-man ever again. I can't remember the URL, but there is a website where they list all kinds of invalid proofs with funny examples. One is proof by condescension, IE this step is trivial so we'll skip it. Simply calling an argument straw-man does not count as valid contradiction. Can you imagine if this kind of argument were used in a presidential debate.
Dan Rather: And Mr. Kerry, your response?
John Kerry: Well Mr. Bush, clearly your argument is a straw-man and I can't believe that retarded viewers back home fall for it. It just goes to show what a jack-ass you are.
See, while it may do a good job a insulting posters and readers alike, it doesn't do much to convince people that you're actually right.
While it was being developed strained silicon was primarily done by epitaxially growing crystalline silicon on single crystal germanium wafers. IBM still produces it this way, but then cuts the strained silicon off of the germanium wafer and attaches it to the grown silicon dioxide layer.
Intel achieves strained silicon by etching trenches in the wafer surface, and epitaxially growing germanium in the etched trenches. This "compresses" the surrounding silicon surface, allowing better "hole conduction" for p-type transistors. In order to improve n-type transistor performance, they heat up the wafer and grow silicon dioxide on top of it. As it cools, the silicon dioxide layer stretched the silicon surface, thereby allowing better electron conduction.
IBM's process allows for better performance due to the increased level of strain coupled with the insulating oxide layer. Intel's process is cheaper, and requires less modification to existing processes.
Okay, I've said before that I know he cooperated with inspectors during the pre-war months. That fact is not in dispute. All I am saying is that during the 8 year period before that he restricted their movements and went back on agreements.
Whether it was intended to allow him to rebuild his weapons programs or just the result of paranoia on his part, it is still suspicious behavior. The implication is that during those years he might have rebuilt his weapons program is such a way that it would not be easy to find. Most of the intelligence community at the time believed that he was rebuilding, and many believed during the prewar months that he was very successful at hiding his programs. Obviously this is what the Bush administration believed, since going to war would definitely show whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction.
During the prewar months, the UN demanded full disclosure of the fate of weapons in the possession of Iraq before the first Iraq war. What they got was a re-printing of a disclosure previously given them. Iraq did nothing to address the concerns of the UN which had compelled them to ask for full disclosure. This was interpreted by the Bush administration as the lack of effort on the part of Saddam to cooperate with with the UN in this regard, and rightly so. Saddam felt that he could call the UN's bluff as he had many times before, and the UN would do nothing. As it turns out, the UN was bluffing and they did nothing to respond.
Bush on the other hand, felt that it was time to put his food down and bring Saddam to justice. Was this the right decision? It turns out that Saddam was pretty much just fucking with us. Does this mean that Bush is a war-mongering irresponsible president? Probably not. Will the world be worse off in the long run as a result of Bush's actions? Maybe, but again probably not. After all Saddam wasn't exactly a good world citizen.
In their SSOI process, IBM grows silicon dioxide directly on their wafer substrate. They then etch through it for their p-type transistors, and directly apply strained silicon for their n-type transistors. This process doesn't incur added difficulty moving to 12" wafers since silicon dioxide growth is a process typically performed in microelectronic circuit fabrication.
The direct application of strained silicon is the tricky part.
AMD uses IBM's SSOI(strained silicon on insulator) process. This is the same process used to make the PowerPC 970.
IBM's strained silicon process is more advanced than Intel's, and offers better performance as a result. It's also more technically challenging to implement. Further, IBM's process incorporates SOI to reduce heat dissipation and increase energy efficiency. It is not surprising that the AMD chips perform better.
This alliance is good for both IBM and AMD since it allows them to share their development costs to better compete with Intel. In and ideal world all three companies would share development costs, and we would all benefit.
No, that's not true. He restricted access to government buildings. Also, he would not allow suprise inspections. All of these thigs were not permissable by our agreement with him.
"No, he let the weapons inspectors in and let them search anywhere."
Uh, I'm not sure if you were watching the news at all before then, but he most certainly did NOT allow inspectors to go wherever they pleased. That statement is just plain false. In the years after the first Iraq war, he continually kicked out and restricted access to inspectors. This was in contradiction to the agreement we had with him at that time.
It's a well documented fact that you can not sell items to people unless they are appealing in the first place. The reason these media corporations sell a lot of music is they know what kind of music sells, and the can put together bands in such a way that they have market appeal. Also, they can advertise that music, once produced, so as to give it as much market exposure as possible.
I've been modded to troll before for saying this, but I'm willing to say it again. Most independent artists do not make appealing music. The make experimental music that would leave most listeners wanting to tear their hair out. Why? Most independent artists make music for themselves as a hobby or something to do in their free time. Music labels, on the other hand, make music that sells. The music labels make is for the consumer. That's why most all of our playlists are comprised of music that is produced by major labels rather than by independent artists.
There are a few ways to produce hydrogen. High temperature electrolysis produces essentially pure hydrogen, and is nearly 50% efficient. The down side is that it requires high temperatures to produce it, which means that it's probably nuclear. Sulfuric acid electrolysis also produces essentially pure hydrogen, as well, but it is only about 30% efficient. It's really easy to do, but because of the electricity requirement, it's still more expensive per unit of hydrogen produced than the current method.
Catalysis of natural gas is the currently used method, and it's much more efficient than the other two methods. It produces much less pure hydrogen, and it uses natural gas, so it defeats the purpose, right? Wrong. Since it fits into the current energy infrastructure, it is easy to implement. This makes it an excellent method for moving from an oil economy to a hydrogen economy.
Demand for oil is currently skyrocketing due to demand from china. This has been noticeable due to the increasing price of Crude oil. What if it quadruples? Maybe it would if that much oil could be produced by todays prices, but in reality a lot of the oil we'd need to mine in order to produce that much oil would need to be more expensive to get access to. For example, shale oil requires new plants to be build, and massive environmental protection costs in order to be produced, so no oil will be produced by that method unless oil bets to be maybe twice as expensive as it is now. This means that the price of oil will continue increase until demand (which will be reduced by it's high price) can be met.
What all this means in the mean time is that power companies will be looking for less expensive ways to produce power than oil. What's the catch? Many people require petroleum specifically to power their cars, lawnmowers, generators, farm equipment, busses, and so on and so fourth. This is why a transition to hydrogen is preferable. Power companies can use it as a method of storing power from power plants, and also as a means of distribution to customers who can not use power from a power line for whatever they need power for. The really neat thing is that they could probably just do away with electricity as a means of distribution altogether. No more power outages, you just might run out of hydrogen.
As far a countries where they can't get other power are concerned, they probably can't afford power lines either, so hydrogen could potentially be a good solution for them as well.
Of corse there are other concerns. A lot people worry about storing hydrogen, because it's a reactive gas that must be stored under pressure. Of course that could be said about propane, and it doesn't really cause a lot of problems.
"capitalism will keep this from happening quickly"
Yeah, the government is so much faster at getting things done.
Seriously though, the reason "sustainable" energy isn't being used right now because it's more expensive to produce. As the price of oil increases, power companies will want to use "alternative" energy because it is cheeper.
They're already doing research on hydrogen technology, with the intent that it will allow us to store and transport energy for long periods of time and over long distances. I know that hydrogen production by electrolysis is only about 30% efficient, but fuel cells themselves are pretty efficient. You loose a lot of energy transmitting power long distances over power lines anyway.
Why do people think that State and Local governments are so unimportant. I hear a lot of complaints about the effect of Bush's domestic policies. Every time someone complains about them, they should bear in mind that when Clinton was in office, people in conservative states were disadvantaged by his more liberal domestic policy. The problem is not that Clinton and Bush have/had Liberal and Conservative domestic polities, but that the federal government itself has too much power. Despite what people often seem to believe, values differ drastically from state to state. It doesn't make any sense to have the same rules and regulations applied across the entire country.
Maybe the real problem is that the federal government has too much power. When the system was designed, the intent was that the federal government would mediate trade between states. From this stance, electoral college makes a lot of sense. If the state is to be represented, then it makes sense that representatives from the state should vote for president. Moreover, the executive branch was never meant to have as much power as it does. The stated mission of the executive is to carry out the will of the legislature (as in enforcement).
Unfortunately, as the federal government has become more and more powerful, the state and local governments have become less and less powerful. Likewise, as the executive branch has become more and more powerful, the legislature has become less and less powerful. It's drifted so far in this direction that most voters don't even care about state and local issues at all. The only election many people follow is the presidential election. It really makes sense that this would lead to parties, since all the eggs are in one basket groups of people are more willing to support a candidate who doesn't support some of their values, simply to ensure that other values will be supported. The ultimate extension of this the existence of only two parties.
Perhaps the best solution for states to stand up to the federal government and say "no, you can't hold federal funding over us because we gave that money to you in the first place".
Or maybe, we should do away with the elected president entirely and just have congress hire someone to be the CEO of the government. That way, if he gets out of line, they could just fire him and get someone else. Also, they'd be drawing from a slightly more talented pool than they are now.
I really don't like the direct representation idea. It draws attention away from state and local governments. People in different states often have different values, needs, and desires. I don't believe that one large government could ever be versatile enough to give everyone in the US what they need. It's not fair that conservative states like Texas or Alaska should have to suffer under liberal presidents, and it's not fair that liberal states like California and New York should have to suffer under conservative presidents.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a difference between testing something in space, and actually using it. If it were enough just to test it, there'd be no reason to do it in space.
If industries are already moving towards more efficient processing technology, and people are already moving towards more efficient cars, why even sign the treaty? It should be obvious that the free market is already taking care of the problem.
The thing is that as power becomes more expensive, not only does industry move to more energy efficient technology, but renewable energy sources become more cost effective. Consumers do their part by selecting the lower cost, less energy intensive products made from plastics or fibers over more energy intensive products made form glass and metal.
The first ion-powered spacecraft, Deep Space 1, was launched in 1998 by NASA. That's a lead of 5 years.
Okay, what's the ratio of people who voted in the exit poll to people who voted total?
Are certain people more likely to choose to take an exit poll than others?
Were the polls conducted at random throughout the state, or at specific locations?
What do you suppose the margin of error on this kind of essentially unscientific poll are? Maybe it isn't as bad as the slash-dot polls are, but they're probably not all that accurate either.
I your statement that they are "not at all statistically similar" probably isn't as accurate as you think it is.
"Moreover, the federal elections should not be about states, but about all citizens in the country."
Okay, I can see that someone needs to be educated about what the federal government is supposed to do. The federal governments primary purpose as laid out in the constitution is to regulate trade between states and provide for the common security of the nation. That's it, no well-fare, not medicare, no federal highways, no federal funding of schools, no federally funded research (except maybe military). Nothing but trade and defense and foreign policy.
All this other crap that people seem to think is the job of the federal government was really just added by FDR and later on in the post-WWII era.
So no, the federal election is not about the citizens in the country, it is about the states in the country. Why do you think we even have states? In your world we should do away with all state and local government and do everything at the Federal level, but other people feel that this country is too big to be governed by only one body. I think the fact that the electoral college map shows that the edges are blue and the middle and the south are red certainly lends credence to this assessment. Let socialists have socialist state governments, there's no reason the whole country should have the same government.
Well, if Osama Bin Ladin says it, it must be true.
"Your security is in your own hands."
~Osama Bin Laden
No, I was aware that Bush is hated. I don't claim that this perception is media spin. I'm saying that the world hates bush because of media spin. That is to say, not the US media's spin, but the canadian media's spin.
I don't know why people in Canada care about the result of this election anyway. It's not likely that US foreign policy toward Canada has really changed in the last four years. Nor is it likely to change in the next four years, regardless of who is elected. Likewise, I don't know why people in many other parts of the world care. If Kerry is elected, it doesn't mean that we can take back the war in Iraq. Likewise, it isn't likely he'll change anything in Iraq. And I don't think that if Bush is elected he is likely to invade the nuclear powers of Iran and North Korea.
I think the problem is mostly that the foreign press overstates the significance of this election to the rest of the world. They mostly portray Bush as some kind of evil fascist retarded cowboy who is hell bent on taking over the world. This isn't really true. I mean, he does support global trade, which some people think is similar to imperialism, but so does Kerry. Moreover, foreign media tends to overstate the significance of the patriot act. A lot of people seem to have the impression that the US has become some kind of police state, in reality it's pretty much the same as it's always been.
I think the main problem is that most other countries lean more toward socialist governments with high taxes, universalized healthcare, higher levels of welfare, government subsidized industry, and so on and so fourth. In the US, most people don't want these things, and would rather be more independent and self-sufficient. I think that since the values that Bush has doesn't really mesh with the values most Europeans have, they tend to draw this us vs. them distinction with the US. And I think the foreign press tends to highlight those differences rather than highlight our common values.
I do read foreign media. I get almost all my information from the internet. I can tell you with-ought a doubt that the newspapers you trust are not giving you the full picture either. If you read two newspapers, even two american ones, they often imply different things. This is called spin, and our media does it too. If the news network you trust tells you one thing, and one you don't trust tells you another, it doesn't mean the untrusted news source is wrong, it means both could be wrong.
As for the CNN article, you probably shouldn't be surprised that it is paired down, not everyone wants to read the full transcript. All I was saying is that your original comment implies that the CNN article doesn't include Bin Laden taunting Bush. That is untrue. As nearest I can tell, the article touches on every point addressed in the actual video. It said that Bush mishandled 9/11, it said that our foreign policy was to blame for the attacks, and it said that no matter who was elected, attacks would continue until our foreign policy was revisited.
Besides, if you really were informed as you think you are, you'd probably realize that Kerry voted for the patriot act, and me supporting it does not make me republican. Nor does it mean that I am playing follow the leader, though you are because you fail to question the integrity of you own news sources.
As for "Anything critical of US foreign policy or the government gets toned down or completely censored out." I don't know how you can claim this and then also claim that you follow American media. I read reports every day with quotes from people opposing this administration. Most media coverage of the war on Iraq is with regard to negative issues.
It is true that each news source has it's own bias, but for the most part they all report the big stories. Just because I don't think the US is turning into a police state doesn't mean I'm uninformed. I just means that I live here and I know what's going on in my own country.
Ummm . . . I read that quote on CNN, which is a US news agency, so I think this is probably a really bad example of media self-censorship.
And for your information there a lot of US citizens exercising their right to free speech every day so don't get all self righteous and claim that there's no freedom in the US. I think the problem might be that you are misinformed by the self censorship of the media you listen to. Or are you claiming that can't happen because your news sources are totally unbiased?
Do you honestly think that the patriot act has permanently suspended all of out rights? This is absurd, all it really does is give law enforcement agencies more power to act on minimal intelligence. Do you think that's unreasonable? You should ask all those morons who said that Bush didn't do enough to stop terrorists before 9/11. They'll tell you that Bush made a mistake not acting immediately on extremely shaky information. Well, guess what, the patriot gives law enforcement agencies the power to do exactly that. Is it unconstitutional? Yes, a lot of the powers granted in the Patriot act are unconstitutional, and you know what? That means that when the supreme court strikes down clauses in the Patriot act, it will be rewritten to address the concerns of the supreme court and will no longer be unconstitutional. We still have all our rights under the constitution, and no act of congress short of passing an amendment can take any of them away.
Don't like the Department of Homeland Security? Maybe you should find out what it is before you judge it. The Department of Homeland was born out of the realization that government enforcement agencies were poorly coordinated, and worse still often worked against each other. After 9/11 it was found that if the FBI and the CIA had worked together, the tragedy could've been prevented. The solution is obvious, combine all the existing agencies together into the Department of Homeland Security, and restructure them in a more cohesive fashion.
People should learn the facts before assuming the worst.
"I was horrified that the stylish and 'in' Apple notebooks didn't even have stereo speakers, what is Apple thinking"
They were probably thinking something like "why would you want stereo speakers on something that sits directly in front of you and is only 12" wide?"
Of course, that depends how you quantify resources. Do you use the dollar value of the resources, or the mass, or the volume? Perhaps some other index all together is in order. At any rate most of our food is domestically, and a good portion of that really isn't on the global market. Certainly our water consumption is not an issue since other countries could never use that.
Really the only resource we use a lot of is oil, and boy do we use a lot of that.
This is likely to be the only insightful comment in this whole thread.
And while I'm at it . . . I don't ever want to read the word straw-man ever again. I can't remember the URL, but there is a website where they list all kinds of invalid proofs with funny examples. One is proof by condescension, IE this step is trivial so we'll skip it. Simply calling an argument straw-man does not count as valid contradiction. Can you imagine if this kind of argument were used in a presidential debate.
Dan Rather: And Mr. Kerry, your response?
John Kerry: Well Mr. Bush, clearly your argument is a straw-man and I can't believe that retarded viewers back home fall for it. It just goes to show what a jack-ass you are.
See, while it may do a good job a insulting posters and readers alike, it doesn't do much to convince people that you're actually right.
While it was being developed strained silicon was primarily done by epitaxially growing crystalline silicon on single crystal germanium wafers. IBM still produces it this way, but then cuts the strained silicon off of the germanium wafer and attaches it to the grown silicon dioxide layer.
Intel achieves strained silicon by etching trenches in the wafer surface, and epitaxially growing germanium in the etched trenches. This "compresses" the surrounding silicon surface, allowing better "hole conduction" for p-type transistors. In order to improve n-type transistor performance, they heat up the wafer and grow silicon dioxide on top of it. As it cools, the silicon dioxide layer stretched the silicon surface, thereby allowing better electron conduction.
IBM's process allows for better performance due to the increased level of strain coupled with the insulating oxide layer. Intel's process is cheaper, and requires less modification to existing processes.
Okay, I've said before that I know he cooperated with inspectors during the pre-war months. That fact is not in dispute. All I am saying is that during the 8 year period before that he restricted their movements and went back on agreements.
Whether it was intended to allow him to rebuild his weapons programs or just the result of paranoia on his part, it is still suspicious behavior. The implication is that during those years he might have rebuilt his weapons program is such a way that it would not be easy to find. Most of the intelligence community at the time believed that he was rebuilding, and many believed during the prewar months that he was very successful at hiding his programs. Obviously this is what the Bush administration believed, since going to war would definitely show whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction.
During the prewar months, the UN demanded full disclosure of the fate of weapons in the possession of Iraq before the first Iraq war. What they got was a re-printing of a disclosure previously given them. Iraq did nothing to address the concerns of the UN which had compelled them to ask for full disclosure. This was interpreted by the Bush administration as the lack of effort on the part of Saddam to cooperate with with the UN in this regard, and rightly so. Saddam felt that he could call the UN's bluff as he had many times before, and the UN would do nothing. As it turns out, the UN was bluffing and they did nothing to respond.
Bush on the other hand, felt that it was time to put his food down and bring Saddam to justice. Was this the right decision? It turns out that Saddam was pretty much just fucking with us. Does this mean that Bush is a war-mongering irresponsible president? Probably not. Will the world be worse off in the long run as a result of Bush's actions? Maybe, but again probably not. After all Saddam wasn't exactly a good world citizen.
In their SSOI process, IBM grows silicon dioxide directly on their wafer substrate. They then etch through it for their p-type transistors, and directly apply strained silicon for their n-type transistors. This process doesn't incur added difficulty moving to 12" wafers since silicon dioxide growth is a process typically performed in microelectronic circuit fabrication.
The direct application of strained silicon is the tricky part.
AMD uses IBM's SSOI(strained silicon on insulator) process. This is the same process used to make the PowerPC 970.
IBM's strained silicon process is more advanced than Intel's, and offers better performance as a result. It's also more technically challenging to implement. Further, IBM's process incorporates SOI to reduce heat dissipation and increase energy efficiency. It is not surprising that the AMD chips perform better.
This alliance is good for both IBM and AMD since it allows them to share their development costs to better compete with Intel. In and ideal world all three companies would share development costs, and we would all benefit.
No, that's not true. He restricted access to government buildings. Also, he would not allow suprise inspections. All of these thigs were not permissable by our agreement with him.
I know all this, but to say that he was completely cooperative is at best misleading.
"No, he let the weapons inspectors in and let them search anywhere."
Uh, I'm not sure if you were watching the news at all before then, but he most certainly did NOT allow inspectors to go wherever they pleased. That statement is just plain false. In the years after the first Iraq war, he continually kicked out and restricted access to inspectors. This was in contradiction to the agreement we had with him at that time.
It's a well documented fact that you can not sell items to people unless they are appealing in the first place. The reason these media corporations sell a lot of music is they know what kind of music sells, and the can put together bands in such a way that they have market appeal. Also, they can advertise that music, once produced, so as to give it as much market exposure as possible.
I've been modded to troll before for saying this, but I'm willing to say it again. Most independent artists do not make appealing music. The make experimental music that would leave most listeners wanting to tear their hair out. Why? Most independent artists make music for themselves as a hobby or something to do in their free time. Music labels, on the other hand, make music that sells. The music labels make is for the consumer. That's why most all of our playlists are comprised of music that is produced by major labels rather than by independent artists.
There are a few ways to produce hydrogen. High temperature electrolysis produces essentially pure hydrogen, and is nearly 50% efficient. The down side is that it requires high temperatures to produce it, which means that it's probably nuclear. Sulfuric acid electrolysis also produces essentially pure hydrogen, as well, but it is only about 30% efficient. It's really easy to do, but because of the electricity requirement, it's still more expensive per unit of hydrogen produced than the current method.
Catalysis of natural gas is the currently used method, and it's much more efficient than the other two methods. It produces much less pure hydrogen, and it uses natural gas, so it defeats the purpose, right? Wrong. Since it fits into the current energy infrastructure, it is easy to implement. This makes it an excellent method for moving from an oil economy to a hydrogen economy.
Demand for oil is currently skyrocketing due to demand from china. This has been noticeable due to the increasing price of Crude oil. What if it quadruples? Maybe it would if that much oil could be produced by todays prices, but in reality a lot of the oil we'd need to mine in order to produce that much oil would need to be more expensive to get access to. For example, shale oil requires new plants to be build, and massive environmental protection costs in order to be produced, so no oil will be produced by that method unless oil bets to be maybe twice as expensive as it is now. This means that the price of oil will continue increase until demand (which will be reduced by it's high price) can be met.
What all this means in the mean time is that power companies will be looking for less expensive ways to produce power than oil. What's the catch? Many people require petroleum specifically to power their cars, lawnmowers, generators, farm equipment, busses, and so on and so fourth. This is why a transition to hydrogen is preferable. Power companies can use it as a method of storing power from power plants, and also as a means of distribution to customers who can not use power from a power line for whatever they need power for. The really neat thing is that they could probably just do away with electricity as a means of distribution altogether. No more power outages, you just might run out of hydrogen.
As far a countries where they can't get other power are concerned, they probably can't afford power lines either, so hydrogen could potentially be a good solution for them as well.
Of corse there are other concerns. A lot people worry about storing hydrogen, because it's a reactive gas that must be stored under pressure. Of course that could be said about propane, and it doesn't really cause a lot of problems.
"capitalism will keep this from happening quickly"
Yeah, the government is so much faster at getting things done.
Seriously though, the reason "sustainable" energy isn't being used right now because it's more expensive to produce. As the price of oil increases, power companies will want to use "alternative" energy because it is cheeper.
They're already doing research on hydrogen technology, with the intent that it will allow us to store and transport energy for long periods of time and over long distances. I know that hydrogen production by electrolysis is only about 30% efficient, but fuel cells themselves are pretty efficient. You loose a lot of energy transmitting power long distances over power lines anyway.
Then why are ranchers in Utah taking pot shots a the BLM?
Why do people think that State and Local governments are so unimportant. I hear a lot of complaints about the effect of Bush's domestic policies. Every time someone complains about them, they should bear in mind that when Clinton was in office, people in conservative states were disadvantaged by his more liberal domestic policy. The problem is not that Clinton and Bush have/had Liberal and Conservative domestic polities, but that the federal government itself has too much power. Despite what people often seem to believe, values differ drastically from state to state. It doesn't make any sense to have the same rules and regulations applied across the entire country.
Maybe the real problem is that the federal government has too much power. When the system was designed, the intent was that the federal government would mediate trade between states. From this stance, electoral college makes a lot of sense. If the state is to be represented, then it makes sense that representatives from the state should vote for president. Moreover, the executive branch was never meant to have as much power as it does. The stated mission of the executive is to carry out the will of the legislature (as in enforcement).
Unfortunately, as the federal government has become more and more powerful, the state and local governments have become less and less powerful. Likewise, as the executive branch has become more and more powerful, the legislature has become less and less powerful. It's drifted so far in this direction that most voters don't even care about state and local issues at all. The only election many people follow is the presidential election. It really makes sense that this would lead to parties, since all the eggs are in one basket groups of people are more willing to support a candidate who doesn't support some of their values, simply to ensure that other values will be supported. The ultimate extension of this the existence of only two parties.
Perhaps the best solution for states to stand up to the federal government and say "no, you can't hold federal funding over us because we gave that money to you in the first place".
Or maybe, we should do away with the elected president entirely and just have congress hire someone to be the CEO of the government. That way, if he gets out of line, they could just fire him and get someone else. Also, they'd be drawing from a slightly more talented pool than they are now.
I really don't like the direct representation idea. It draws attention away from state and local governments. People in different states often have different values, needs, and desires. I don't believe that one large government could ever be versatile enough to give everyone in the US what they need. It's not fair that conservative states like Texas or Alaska should have to suffer under liberal presidents, and it's not fair that liberal states like California and New York should have to suffer under conservative presidents.