Your right, it wouldn't matter. In fact, that was part of the point, he had to sue in order to prove it didn't matter. The movie companies on the other hand, had different ideas altogether and thought it would matter and that it would allow them to scalp more of the money- which was the other part of the point with the Hollywood accounting).
Cops do IR camera fly-bys, looking for the heat generated by a grow op (falls, debatedly, under "in plain sight"). Or if they have reason to suspect, they subpoena the utility for the records.
Last I head, it was a Fourth Amendment issue for them to do that. I know that Kyllo mentioned devices not in general use by the public, but the key to it was in the case wasn't the devices but the expectation of privacy. The device usage and availability simply noted that the expectation hadn't diminished. In fact, I would doubt that any device could diminish the expectation of privacy in the home as it's specifically mentioned in the constitution as a protected area.
I think there is a point missing here. The programs and abilities you speak of is entirely true and happened or is still happening. Even the patriot act is still in full swing despite people winning elections by saying it would go away.
Anyways, this is something that private organizations will have to willingly submit to. No law is needed as close federal, state, and local interaction, regulation, and requirements have been placed on the services considered to be critical. Most of this is specialty stuff like the electric grids, long range water supplies, damn gates and so on. Anyways, this stuff isn't random surveillance, it's more like specialized and targeted surveillance no different then background checks on people working for those companies which are required by law.
In fact, it can be looked at in similar ways as the reporting requirements for hiring employees at these companies for people who will work on these so called critical things. They have to notify the government of the hire, after the back ground check, a government agent does another background check, when they transfer the people from one facility to another, they have to report it to the government, and when they fire someone, they report it too. So what they are basically doing is requiring the companies to put boxes or devices in place that monitor communications to the areas that are deemed critical or in communications with something deemed critical, then report it to the government when something odd happens.
And this really isn't anything new, that's how the government knew it was a software bug at an Ohio based utility that caused the last blackout that took most the north east coast and parts of Canada out. The tracking system that pointed to the problem and the logging requirements that lead to the actual problem and fix was mandated by the government in much the same way as this is. The only difference is that we know about it before hand and some people's knees jerked so hard, it hit them in the head and made them senseless.
I'm not sure it's advocated as a panacea as much as the obvious first step. You see, it's belligerently obvious that when you don't want your internal network exposed to the risks of the internet, your first priority is to not put it on the internet and hide it behind a router and firewall. And when the concern is a foreign, criminal, or terrorist organization attacking something with Critical in the official title through the internet, well, we shouldn't have to draw a picture should we?
Here is the problem I have with paying a grand a month to keep firemen occupied and alter. The cable companies have got an exclusive license to steal in most cities where the city allows only one franchise. The city should have free cable to these locations as an obligation to having that franchise. In fact, it appears that it is a stipulation of the agreement that was originally made in the 80's and someone should remind them of that.
I'm not big on governments suing corporations, but in this case, I think a trip to the city attorneys office and asking them to look into it might present the opportunity to remind the cable company of their obligations and how that obligation had not changed when their tech did (in other words, because they changed systems does not mean the city should get any less then the FREE basic cable as the agreement states regardless of any extra equipment that might be needed because of the change). If a confident resolution can't be found, I would encourage the city to revoke the franchise agreement, immediately start taking open bids to replace Comcast, and look into suing them for any perceived benefit they might have acquired by being the only legal cable provider in the area for so long. Or at least present the case where that might happen to make Comcast wake up.
It may well be that the people he has talked with so far are somewhat unaware of the details and obligations of the agreement and when it is brought up, the supervisor they go to is clueless too. Perhaps getting the attention of the legal department is what will fix his problem.
P.S. Have you tried reading a book instead? Supernatural and CSI are not necessities of life.
I guess you have a point, however it totally ignores his point. He could read a book instead of enjoying his life the way he is used to enjoying it, but that all misses the fact that he has to change what he is doing because of someone else' greed.
And while I'm not one to generally bash corporations or businesses because they make money, when some corporations have legal monopolies and make changes like this because of their greed with the knowledge that their franchise agreement has given them the power to piss consumers off without retribution, then it becomes a notable problem. Whether they are scrambling it to force him to pay or if they are compressing it to get more out of their existing system which has the same effect is inconsequential at this point. Both boil down to unanswered greed that abuses the position they are in that was a direct result of pretending to benefit the public trust.
I can put it in a useless analogy if you want. I can even work cars into it if you want. The bottom line is that he has to change his way because of greed from a company that receives special treatment because they are supposed to be providing a certain service to the community that this move seems to undermine.
How about at the point of usage. The other points you mention are pretty much insignificant at this point seeing how the purpose was to show that solar energy can be created and used when the sun isn't shining. We still cannot wave a magic wand or trick some omnipotent being into speaking the stuff into existence, so for now, we have to build from what we can in order to move into what we want.
I don't doubt that you think you know about it. It's just that all "official" sources of information tend to gravitate towards the 15 to 30 cent mark without inverters and storage for POV solar.
And by official, I don't mean that your numbers aren't true, I mean that these are the numbers presented by advocates that are selling or handling the stuff in a professional way of some sort. They all seem to gravitate back to the same set of numbers. Of course this could be as you mentioned, " (I think) they're based on a survey of existing installations rather than the cost of a new installation going forward" or it could be that you are considering your own labor as free in your calculations or something. The reports I can find do seem to be a year or more old.
Here is an interesting but somewhat outdated site that expands on the notions a little better. What is interesting is the chart they included on the differences in hours of good sunlight in different areas of the US. Southern California can see 9 hours where Ohio is lucky to get 5 hours optimal sun. And even though prices have changed and all, if you look, you will notice that that he didn't even bother with batteries to store the energy. I guess it doesn't make sense to use batteries when you are selling the power back to the utility company. But then there ar drawbacks there too.
Yes, but not really. Your right in that driving is considered a privilege, but not about being pulled over for any reason. There has to be a lawful reason in which the cop can engage you regardless of driving or not.
Driving does open up the possibilities for more reasons, but it doesn't give the cop carte blanche or anything.
It's not my anecdote, it's yours. If it doesn't show anything, fine, it doesn't show anything. But it's not me that was using it to make a point - it was you.
Your right, it's not your anecdote. However, it was the point of the GP that I was countering. He said "The fact is *most* people *don't* have "religious objects or objects to the organ donation system itself"". He has to be speaking from his personal experience seeing how every state allows you to become an organ donor when you renew your ID.
Not, that is not correct, and anyone that tells you it is is either very foolish or trying to mislead you. Here's what Obama said regarding woman's question about spirit:
Hmm.. It looks like he said exactly what I said he said. Your transcript is pretty much on the point, it lacks all the Ummm Umm Umm Uhh Uhh pauses while he reaches for the words but it appears accurate. In a response to a question concerning the treatment of a particular woman who wanted to live and got a Pace Maker, Obama said among other things,
But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.
And he follows up with some more but pay particular attention to a few key words.
And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decision, and that -- that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care, that's something we can achieve.
Notice how he says "those good decisions"? Presumably he doesn't care or is actively working against the not good decisions or perhaps even the bad decisions. This means that someone is going to have to determine what decisions are good and what are not good and this means that someone else will be making some of those decisions, perhaps against the patient's will. I'm not making this up, seriously, it's in what you cited.
If I'm wrong on that, then please tell me what was meant by "those good decisions", and where we can find information backing that interpretation up? You see, Good is an descriptive word subject to interpretation. Well, unless he meant it to part of economics in which case Good and be a physical product that can be used to satisfy some desire or need. The problem is that Desire and Need are both subjective terms too so it won't eliminate someone evaluating you decisions and possibly overriding them. And that is after all, the big scare of an opt out system for organ donation, that someone or something will over ride your decision, and instead of taking every last chance possible to save you, they give up prematurely to save the organs for another use.
If you read that you will see that Obama is not introducing some cutoff point, and he's certainly not advocating any death panels.
The logic in that statement just doesn't parse with reality. OK, so there is a cut off point introduced, who decides when that cut off point is? If it is anyone other then the patient, then it's a panel that decides who dies under what circumstances. It's a damn death panel. Or do you have some other explanation to how someone other then the patient and immediate care physician making the decisions on when to stop saving someone's life is anything other then a death panel?
I think you'll find that most people would object. Try going up to a random person and asking to borrow their car if you don't believe me...
I think you are missing the point. Your personal anecdotal evidence is meaningless when you are talking about the possessions of someone else completely. And yes, it's my liver, it's my eyes, it's my body parts whether I am dead or alive. If I'm dead, custody of my possessions go to my heirs, not the state or some fat bastard I couldn't stand when I was alive. Just like everything else, you need permission when the shit doesn't belong to you.
Well, the people who are so gullible that they believe Limbaugh and the far-right corporate apologists when they create doctored videos, despite the fact that full videos and transcripts are available online, can just go and opt-out.
I would have to ask you the same, why are you so gullible? I mean the full videos and transcripts are available online and Obama did say that they couldn't take the patient's spirit into consideration and there would be something set up to tell patients that this might not work, take the pain pill and die instead of the life saving treatment. Is that not correct? Because every full video and transcripts that are available online in which I can find says that. Then there are the sayings of Obama's aids and relatives of his aids which employ the use of death panels to decide who is or isn't worthy of a treatment. You have people like Robert Reich who basically said the old need to die and the young need to die younger when making a point on the health care reform. Then there is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of Obama's top adviser who was also close to Obama until news of his death pannels started going out, who open advocates "social justice" in treatment for patients- more particularly end of life treatment where he wants to give them a pill and worry about the young people.
You might want to look up the actual transcript so you can see that where your conservative idols have told you that Obama advocates euthanasia, death panels and all manner of other scary ideas what he actually said was that the old lady should have received her pacemaker faster without so much corporate money spinning from the insurers.
Perhaps it is you who should just stop believing what they are told and look it up on your own. Obama was not talking about speeding any process up, he was specifically talking about setting rules in place to tell patients that this procedure might not help, maybe you should just take a pill and die. He is talking about saving money instead of extending the life of some woman another 5 years and counting. Now the video makes that point clear, the transcripts make that point clear. How you thought it was about cutting red tape and getting the pacemaker fast is beyond me. Please point to where that is mentioned or even insinuated in the comment to the lady?
I especially like where you use Latin sounding names and words as if they were real to give the appearance that you were smart and exposing your IQ and not just a troll popping around message boards adding absolutely nothing to the conversation nor even mentioning part of the topic in order to elevate your measly existence of a life into something you are personally capable of accepting. I sure am glad that I am here to give you the chance to avoid killing yourself for one more day. Now go ahead and post something else that isn't even close to the topic so you can feel a little better about yourself. I bet it really hurt when your mom pointed out that they weren't laughing with you, they were laughing at you.
Hey, I got an idea, why don't you wait until tomorrow to reply.. That way you will have the opportunity to attempt to put me down again and thereby elevating yourself while not even touching the topic on hand and then you have another reason not to walk into traffic on a busy interstate. Well, best wishes to you, and don't forget to wear your helmet on the short bus.
The vast majority of those Chinese were in California which didn't become a state until 1850 and was disputed territory and part of the Spanish American war a decade or so before that. If I remember right, most of the railroads had been built by then so the Chinese probably weren't screwed over for long by the US, just a state that got into the US.
Why wouldn't you worry about going in for your own procedure, something happening and you take a turn for the worse, and instead of the blood transfusion or expensive drug that will save your life, the doc decides to let you die because he can make money from the transplant he will be doing.
I mean healthy people do have accidents and need surgeries sometimes. Those doctors performing the surgeries perform other surgeries. A buddy of mine wrecked his motorcycle similar to what you described, but it was two or three days before he got the most invasive surgery (had 3 total in the course of a 5 days). That's plenty of time to be out of the ER and possible into the hands of someone with a transplant patient.
Wow, I can't believe you asked that. Most people don't (that is Do Not) have any objections (religious or otherwise) when I ask to barrow their car for a day. If they normally don't care "why the hell should the law assume they do". I mean I shouldn't automatically be in trouble because I didn't ask to use your car, and who knows, you may be just like everyone one else I have asked and said you didn't mind, or you may be a prick and say no, especially seeing how you don't know me.
Now it isn't just about religious objections. What about those people who think that if they are an organ donor that they won't save their life if they can harvest the organs? I mean it's not unheard of and the threat is even more real when you have death panels set up by the government to decide who is worthy of a life saving procedure or not. Especially when the president of the United States of America tells a person that her mom should have taken a pain pill instead of getting a life saving medical treatment that had extended her life by 5 years as of the time the question was asked.
The economic issues are a smoke screen. Besides, what I recommended was that the government create nonprofit orgs to produce solar power. By cutting out the profit at the generation level, solar power would likely be *cheaper* than nuclear, though coal would still be cheaper.
If it's a smoke screen, that's only because there is a fire burning underneath. Seriously, economics is the key problem here and needs to be front and center when a good portion of the population is unemployed or making so little they have difficulties paying their bills. And the answers to Obama's famous quote of "under my plan, your electric bill will neccesarily skyrocket" or whatever he said to the same effect, but the answer of raising taxes and the government giving the money away just doesn't cut it and will make problem entirely worse. We can debate the tax and spend or trickle down economics all you want, one thing they both have in common is that you don't over burden the majority of the population in times of economic stress.
Even if you were pushing non-profits run by the government, they still have to break even on costs, pay their employees, and being a government facility, they will have to pay union employees which means more money, and they will have to hire more people then what is needed. But hey, it's not like we don't have Amtrak or American Airlines as historical examples to look at or anything.
So the question becomes: do you like widespread pollution? That's what this really comes down to. If you want to have nearly unbreathable air like China does, we could have really, really cheap power. Just build a whole crapload of coal plants. That doesn't make it a good decision.
Lol.. NO I don't like wide spread pollution. But I also don't like the idea of shooting myself in the foot in order to get out of it either. Obviously, you are so focused on pushing solar onto the masses that you don't mind. You certainly aren't listening to what people have to say. If you were, you wouldn't have even bothered asking me that question as I already offered an alternative to pushing overly expensive solar onto the people. That alternative by the way involves using solar, it's just that the money at this point would be better spend making it more economical and offering those advances to whoever wants to use them in the US so when solar is cheaper then coal or gas or nuclear, it's the obvious choice to use.
Secondarily, in the short term, solar is only moderately expensive, but in the long term, it is likely to be much cheaper than using natural gas, diesel, and eventually coal. We only have so much fossil fuel in the ground, and prices are already increasing. In ten years, those solar installations are going to look like a windfall compared with gas-powered peaker plants, and that's even if the cost of solar doesn't drop (which it will).
That depends on how long your terms are. We certainly have enough fossil fuels to address out needs for well over half a century. But hey, who knows, there could be a break through next week which makes solar 1/3 the price of Gas or coal without artificially raising the prices. So which would you rather have in ten years? A solar plant that costs ten times as much as what we have today, a gas powered peak plant that costs 20% more then today to operate, or a solar power that is cheaper then the energy we consume today?
Because with an expected life span of 25-30 years, what you build today is what you will be stuck with in a decade. They aren't going to abandon a solar plant or gas plant to install newer tech. Especially when the government is involved.
You're joking, right? The square footage alone would be absurd. The energy required to keep said people from dying of heat exhaustion would far exceed the power produced, so it would inherently be net energy negative! Further, a sizable percentage of the solar
Thanks for the link. It does appear that what I said is still true. It doesn't take into consideration the fact that only a few hours are peak for solar and solar is useless half of the time if not more where nuclear is useful almost 24/7. Once that is figured in, it's completely out of range for practical comparisons in real life use.
You forgot something. For unemployment, you have to have been employed, and as such, paying unemployment *Insurance* premiums.
One small detail. In most states, it's the employer not the employee who is paying the unemployment insurance. And yes, while the feds pretend to be involved in unemployment insurance, it is properly administered and controlled by the states as the federal government has absolutely no constitutional or other authority to be involved in it. The feds do little more then offer money to the states if it's spent in a certain way. If you are self employed and lay yourself off, there is a good change you won't even qualify for unemployment.
Generally we frown on insurance policies that try to take the money and run.
For some reason, though, that seems to be exactly what the Republicans want the Feds to do with the UI insurance programs.
Can you explain this one a tad but more. It's sort of confusion because the last I heard, the republicans wanted the states to deal with it and were apposed to the feds mucking around and perpetually extending it. Perhaps we both are missing something here?
Hmm.. So if we did this for 3 years, we would be looking at something in the neighborhood of $2,381,000 before adding in the "Taking away time with meetings from 15 other employees because the contractors don't know what they're doing: ~$500,000 in lost time" and infuriating parts. Face it, you will always have idiots and people or things that infuriate you.
So to get this to $100/semester as the parent suggested, we would divide by 2 (2 semesters in a year still right? I know DeVry did some trimester BS in the 80's and 90's) which gives us $9,122,000, we need to divide that by the 3 years, which gives us $1,520,333. This means you would need roughly 91,220 students per year going to school all year and paying the $100 twice a year for a total of 3 years in order to pay for it. You could probably increase that number by 12-20 percent of you account for loans to implement the tech and the interest paid on them in order to make it happen. Does that sound doable to you? While on the surface, it might with the large campuses, but schools like Ohio State and others have regional campuses that would probably need the stuff duplicated at meaning for every person enrolled less then the 90k number at each campus would need to increase offset at another campus. So if there is only 10k people at a branch campus, then the 90k students at the main branch would have to become 170K.
What I'm getting at is that I don't think it can happen for 100/student per semester. And I don't think it can happen at some of the smaller universities. I guess the real question might be if the amount of government money going to the university is greater then or less then the costs of implementing something like this. If it's less, then some universities might just tell the federal government to keep walking. That actually might be a good thing as most federal money has strings attached in some way.
Giving a loan at less than the going rate is still spending money, because you could have lent those money at the going rate, so you are out the discount that you are giving on the cheap loan
Actually, it's a little more costs then that. Often the money has to be borrowed in the first place which costs money. If the low interest loan is at or less then the original interest, then not only are you losing the time value of the money, you are also losing the actual costs to provide it.
However, as I understand it, the government isn't actually giving a loan in this case, it is guaranteeing the loan. Which means the government does not have to put up the 2 billion, but it will have to reimburse the people giving the loan if the company is unable to pay back. That is still spending money - the money you are spending is on average two billion dollars times the chance that the company won't make a profit. We don't have a good idea of what that chance is, even though it is surely non-zero. So money is being spent, we just can't tell how much it is.
You are absolutely right here. And with the current technology, the laws of supply and demand, it would appear that the government expects these loans to fail. This is because solar isn't comparable to traditional energy production in cost effectiveness when you consider the non-peak production, night time with no production, and the need to store the energy to accommodate that.
So what we should expect is a number of things to happen. One would be that the solar is only used during peak daytime production and businesses are pushed towards gearing their needs for that time. Another would be for the loans to fail and the government just paying them out or neglecting their contractual duties and letting smaller banks fail in order to favor the big ones that were too big to fail. Yet another thing we can expect is that energy prices will be artificially inflated in order to force a profit on these companies with the justification in the back ground of them causing the too big to fail banks to be at risk of failing if they can't repay the 2 billion. In the end, I see this having one of two major effects or perhaps a combination of either, Raising taxes or raising energy prices to the consumer which is the same as raising taxes if it's because of the government imposing something. Either way, it's being done in a way that makes useful idiots rejoice while alarm sounding people look crazy.
Maybe that's the change we can believe in, the change from outright doing stupid shit to doing stupid shit while presenting it in a way the public feel's good about. This money would be far better spend on research and development that could be placed within the public domain that would eliminate any of the barriers that is keeping solar at an economic disadvantage. If fact, crap like the Kyoto treaty would have made much more sense if instead of concentrating on redistributing the wealth, it would have concentrated on creating clean energy that anyone could use royalty free in the same way I described above. It just sort of points to the real agenda (control) I guess.
I mean the alternative to the biggest gripes about the war beside the made up appearances of getting into them is the costs in financial resources, our man power, and time. Reverting back to the 60's nomenclature and just wiping them out in a couple blows with nukes gets around all that. It costs less, it saves our soldier's lives, and take way less time.
Imagine if a couple of nukes were dropped on Iraq and the entire area was turned into a glass parking lot. We wouldn't need to be there at all today or over the last half decade. And if you buy into the oil war tripe, all the neighboring countries could simply move in and take equal portions of it. They would then produce the oil and sell it like they do with their own existing oil. It's a no loose proposition outside of some people glowing in the dark. But hey, if they complain, we can just nuke them too.
Last I hear solar was comparable to nuclear on a per watt basis only during peak production times. But that doesn't take into consideration the fact that only a few hours are peak for solar and solar is useless half of the time if not more where nuclear is useful almost 24/7.
And if you want solar to work at night, you have to find a way to store the energy, convert it to usable forms and transmit it. Remember, people turn the lights on when it's dark out, not when it's high noon and the light coming through the windows already light the room.
You seem to think that we should not be spending money, but if not now, then when? We can't build solar capacity to take the burden off of other plants after plants start going offline for emergency repairs. We need that reserve capacity in place now. No, scratch that, we needed it in place a decade ago. And our power needs continue to increase, so we're going to need even more power plants. If we're going to build more generation capacity, why not build clean solar instead of something messier?
"why not build clean solar instead of something messier?" Because you are ignoring the economic issues that don't magically disappear with good intentions. What I'm saying is, would you like to pay $20 for a loaf of bread because someone ignored the economics of power generation and it now costs $18 to provide the energy to bake one loaf of bread? We have the tech to build supercomputers that make today's desktops look like yesterday's watches. Why don't you buy one of these supercomputers the next time you are looking to replace or add another desktop system? You see, the economics make a lot more sense there.
The fact is, our power production infrastructure is in sad shape. We get about one fifth of our nation's power from nuclear plants. Almost all of the nuclear power plants in the U.S. are operating near the end of their design lifetime or beyond it. It won't be more than a couple of decades before we're going to need *major* overhauls to *dozens* of nuclear reactors. If we don't have adequate power generation in place by the time that happens, our country is f***ed with a capital "F".
That may be so, but it's totally irrelevant to the problem with the point at hand. If the power system needs an overhaul, then it should be done with whatever technology is most practical and cost efficient. Jamming something into the system because it makes you feel good makes about as much sense as replacing you P4 desktop system with a Cray super computer because it's time for an upgrade. We need to make smart decisions that will not cause the costs of a loaf of bread or gallon of milk to jump $18.
Further, solar power, unlike vegetarian Mexicans, is a resource that, once constructed, generally requires minimal maintenance to provide power for three decades or more. Compared with nuclear power, it is almost as cheap (and getting cheaper, unlike nuclear), produces no ongoing waste products to speak of, is far safer, and can be installed anywhere, not just far away from populated areas.
Actually, the maintenance is going to be about the same if not less with the Mexicans. You see, you pay the Vegan Mexicans and they take care of themselves. The bearings and crap on the generators and bicycles can be made to last about as long as the solar panels. The similarities are strikingly the same too. It's a large waste of money and will only massively inflate the costs of providing new electricity when cheaper and more reliable methods are already available.
You mentioned Nuclear and some of it's drawbacks. The interesting thing is that it's in existence today with the exact same drawbacks and is still more cost efficient and cheaper to the consumer then solar is. What will change with this is Solar and Wind when breakthroughs are made that make it the viable replacement. This may or may not happen, it is likely it will though. So as of today, the money should be put into research and development that will make solar more efficient so that tomorrow, when we need the power, it can be the best and most cost effective replacement if it ever is going to be without artificially inflating the costs of other energy.
To do otherwise is like telling the poor, you will be perfectly fine with paying $18 a loaf of bread, you will find all sorts of work when your electric bill is $400 a month and you have to pay $200 a week for bus and taxi
The subsidies the oil industry gets are more or less (partial) repayments for them doing things the way the government wants them to and for enacting programs the government wants. In other words, the subsidies that the oil industry gets pretty much all cover wasted money that they wouldn't be spending in the first place.
This means your argument will hold no water.
We need to stop using fallacious arguments to support a failing argument.
It's nothing like creationism. In creationism, you are asserting something to be a certain way, a course of events has happened. Those are affirmative actions. Global warming deniers are simply saying I do no believe you when you make your affirmative statements. They do not need to provide anything, it's your statement, it's your job to provide the convincing evidence.
What is similar to the creation debate is that if you want someone to believe what you say, then you need to provide convincing proof. This doesn't mean that deniers have to prove a negative, it means that if you are pushing something, then you need to provide convincing proof to whoever you expect to believe what you are saying. That hasn't happened obviously if people are denying global warming.
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Your right, it wouldn't matter. In fact, that was part of the point, he had to sue in order to prove it didn't matter. The movie companies on the other hand, had different ideas altogether and thought it would matter and that it would allow them to scalp more of the money- which was the other part of the point with the Hollywood accounting).
Has something changed since Kyllo vs. U.S?
Last I head, it was a Fourth Amendment issue for them to do that. I know that Kyllo mentioned devices not in general use by the public, but the key to it was in the case wasn't the devices but the expectation of privacy. The device usage and availability simply noted that the expectation hadn't diminished. In fact, I would doubt that any device could diminish the expectation of privacy in the home as it's specifically mentioned in the constitution as a protected area.
I think there is a point missing here. The programs and abilities you speak of is entirely true and happened or is still happening. Even the patriot act is still in full swing despite people winning elections by saying it would go away.
Anyways, this is something that private organizations will have to willingly submit to. No law is needed as close federal, state, and local interaction, regulation, and requirements have been placed on the services considered to be critical. Most of this is specialty stuff like the electric grids, long range water supplies, damn gates and so on. Anyways, this stuff isn't random surveillance, it's more like specialized and targeted surveillance no different then background checks on people working for those companies which are required by law.
In fact, it can be looked at in similar ways as the reporting requirements for hiring employees at these companies for people who will work on these so called critical things. They have to notify the government of the hire, after the back ground check, a government agent does another background check, when they transfer the people from one facility to another, they have to report it to the government, and when they fire someone, they report it too. So what they are basically doing is requiring the companies to put boxes or devices in place that monitor communications to the areas that are deemed critical or in communications with something deemed critical, then report it to the government when something odd happens.
And this really isn't anything new, that's how the government knew it was a software bug at an Ohio based utility that caused the last blackout that took most the north east coast and parts of Canada out. The tracking system that pointed to the problem and the logging requirements that lead to the actual problem and fix was mandated by the government in much the same way as this is. The only difference is that we know about it before hand and some people's knees jerked so hard, it hit them in the head and made them senseless.
I'm not sure it's advocated as a panacea as much as the obvious first step. You see, it's belligerently obvious that when you don't want your internal network exposed to the risks of the internet, your first priority is to not put it on the internet and hide it behind a router and firewall. And when the concern is a foreign, criminal, or terrorist organization attacking something with Critical in the official title through the internet, well, we shouldn't have to draw a picture should we?
Here is the problem I have with paying a grand a month to keep firemen occupied and alter. The cable companies have got an exclusive license to steal in most cities where the city allows only one franchise. The city should have free cable to these locations as an obligation to having that franchise. In fact, it appears that it is a stipulation of the agreement that was originally made in the 80's and someone should remind them of that.
I'm not big on governments suing corporations, but in this case, I think a trip to the city attorneys office and asking them to look into it might present the opportunity to remind the cable company of their obligations and how that obligation had not changed when their tech did (in other words, because they changed systems does not mean the city should get any less then the FREE basic cable as the agreement states regardless of any extra equipment that might be needed because of the change). If a confident resolution can't be found, I would encourage the city to revoke the franchise agreement, immediately start taking open bids to replace Comcast, and look into suing them for any perceived benefit they might have acquired by being the only legal cable provider in the area for so long. Or at least present the case where that might happen to make Comcast wake up.
It may well be that the people he has talked with so far are somewhat unaware of the details and obligations of the agreement and when it is brought up, the supervisor they go to is clueless too. Perhaps getting the attention of the legal department is what will fix his problem.
I guess you have a point, however it totally ignores his point. He could read a book instead of enjoying his life the way he is used to enjoying it, but that all misses the fact that he has to change what he is doing because of someone else' greed.
And while I'm not one to generally bash corporations or businesses because they make money, when some corporations have legal monopolies and make changes like this because of their greed with the knowledge that their franchise agreement has given them the power to piss consumers off without retribution, then it becomes a notable problem. Whether they are scrambling it to force him to pay or if they are compressing it to get more out of their existing system which has the same effect is inconsequential at this point. Both boil down to unanswered greed that abuses the position they are in that was a direct result of pretending to benefit the public trust.
I can put it in a useless analogy if you want. I can even work cars into it if you want. The bottom line is that he has to change his way because of greed from a company that receives special treatment because they are supposed to be providing a certain service to the community that this move seems to undermine.
How about at the point of usage. The other points you mention are pretty much insignificant at this point seeing how the purpose was to show that solar energy can be created and used when the sun isn't shining. We still cannot wave a magic wand or trick some omnipotent being into speaking the stuff into existence, so for now, we have to build from what we can in order to move into what we want.
I don't doubt that you think you know about it. It's just that all "official" sources of information tend to gravitate towards the 15 to 30 cent mark without inverters and storage for POV solar.
And by official, I don't mean that your numbers aren't true, I mean that these are the numbers presented by advocates that are selling or handling the stuff in a professional way of some sort. They all seem to gravitate back to the same set of numbers. Of course this could be as you mentioned, " (I think) they're based on a survey of existing installations rather than the cost of a new installation going forward" or it could be that you are considering your own labor as free in your calculations or something. The reports I can find do seem to be a year or more old.
Here is an interesting but somewhat outdated site that expands on the notions a little better. What is interesting is the chart they included on the differences in hours of good sunlight in different areas of the US. Southern California can see 9 hours where Ohio is lucky to get 5 hours optimal sun. And even though prices have changed and all, if you look, you will notice that that he didn't even bother with batteries to store the energy. I guess it doesn't make sense to use batteries when you are selling the power back to the utility company. But then there ar drawbacks there too.
Yes, but not really. Your right in that driving is considered a privilege, but not about being pulled over for any reason. There has to be a lawful reason in which the cop can engage you regardless of driving or not.
Driving does open up the possibilities for more reasons, but it doesn't give the cop carte blanche or anything.
Your right, it's not your anecdote. However, it was the point of the GP that I was countering. He said "The fact is *most* people *don't* have "religious objects or objects to the organ donation system itself"". He has to be speaking from his personal experience seeing how every state allows you to become an organ donor when you renew your ID.
Hmm.. It looks like he said exactly what I said he said. Your transcript is pretty much on the point, it lacks all the Ummm Umm Umm Uhh Uhh pauses while he reaches for the words but it appears accurate. In a response to a question concerning the treatment of a particular woman who wanted to live and got a Pace Maker, Obama said among other things,
And he follows up with some more but pay particular attention to a few key words.
Notice how he says "those good decisions"? Presumably he doesn't care or is actively working against the not good decisions or perhaps even the bad decisions. This means that someone is going to have to determine what decisions are good and what are not good and this means that someone else will be making some of those decisions, perhaps against the patient's will. I'm not making this up, seriously, it's in what you cited.
If I'm wrong on that, then please tell me what was meant by "those good decisions", and where we can find information backing that interpretation up? You see, Good is an descriptive word subject to interpretation. Well, unless he meant it to part of economics in which case Good and be a physical product that can be used to satisfy some desire or need. The problem is that Desire and Need are both subjective terms too so it won't eliminate someone evaluating you decisions and possibly overriding them. And that is after all, the big scare of an opt out system for organ donation, that someone or something will over ride your decision, and instead of taking every last chance possible to save you, they give up prematurely to save the organs for another use.
The logic in that statement just doesn't parse with reality. OK, so there is a cut off point introduced, who decides when that cut off point is? If it is anyone other then the patient, then it's a panel that decides who dies under what circumstances. It's a damn death panel. Or do you have some other explanation to how someone other then the patient and immediate care physician making the decisions on when to stop saving someone's life is anything other then a death panel?
I think you are missing the point. Your personal anecdotal evidence is meaningless when you are talking about the possessions of someone else completely. And yes, it's my liver, it's my eyes, it's my body parts whether I am dead or alive. If I'm dead, custody of my possessions go to my heirs, not the state or some fat bastard I couldn't stand when I was alive. Just like everything else, you need permission when the shit doesn't belong to you.
I would have to ask you the same, why are you so gullible? I mean the full videos and transcripts are available online and Obama did say that they couldn't take the patient's spirit into consideration and there would be something set up to tell patients that this might not work, take the pain pill and die instead of the life saving treatment. Is that not correct? Because every full video and transcripts that are available online in which I can find says that. Then there are the sayings of Obama's aids and relatives of his aids which employ the use of death panels to decide who is or isn't worthy of a treatment. You have people like Robert Reich who basically said the old need to die and the young need to die younger when making a point on the health care reform. Then there is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of Obama's top adviser who was also close to Obama until news of his death pannels started going out, who open advocates "social justice" in treatment for patients- more particularly end of life treatment where he wants to give them a pill and worry about the young people.
Perhaps it is you who should just stop believing what they are told and look it up on your own. Obama was not talking about speeding any process up, he was specifically talking about setting rules in place to tell patients that this procedure might not help, maybe you should just take a pill and die. He is talking about saving money instead of extending the life of some woman another 5 years and counting. Now the video makes that point clear, the transcripts make that point clear. How you thought it was about cutting red tape and getting the pacemaker fast is beyond me. Please point to where that is mentioned or even insinuated in the comment to the lady?
Lol.. That was a funny comment.
I especially like where you use Latin sounding names and words as if they were real to give the appearance that you were smart and exposing your IQ and not just a troll popping around message boards adding absolutely nothing to the conversation nor even mentioning part of the topic in order to elevate your measly existence of a life into something you are personally capable of accepting. I sure am glad that I am here to give you the chance to avoid killing yourself for one more day. Now go ahead and post something else that isn't even close to the topic so you can feel a little better about yourself. I bet it really hurt when your mom pointed out that they weren't laughing with you, they were laughing at you.
Hey, I got an idea, why don't you wait until tomorrow to reply.. That way you will have the opportunity to attempt to put me down again and thereby elevating yourself while not even touching the topic on hand and then you have another reason not to walk into traffic on a busy interstate. Well, best wishes to you, and don't forget to wear your helmet on the short bus.
The vast majority of those Chinese were in California which didn't become a state until 1850 and was disputed territory and part of the Spanish American war a decade or so before that. If I remember right, most of the railroads had been built by then so the Chinese probably weren't screwed over for long by the US, just a state that got into the US.
Why wouldn't you worry about going in for your own procedure, something happening and you take a turn for the worse, and instead of the blood transfusion or expensive drug that will save your life, the doc decides to let you die because he can make money from the transplant he will be doing.
I mean healthy people do have accidents and need surgeries sometimes. Those doctors performing the surgeries perform other surgeries. A buddy of mine wrecked his motorcycle similar to what you described, but it was two or three days before he got the most invasive surgery (had 3 total in the course of a 5 days). That's plenty of time to be out of the ER and possible into the hands of someone with a transplant patient.
Wow, I can't believe you asked that. Most people don't (that is Do Not) have any objections (religious or otherwise) when I ask to barrow their car for a day. If they normally don't care "why the hell should the law assume they do". I mean I shouldn't automatically be in trouble because I didn't ask to use your car, and who knows, you may be just like everyone one else I have asked and said you didn't mind, or you may be a prick and say no, especially seeing how you don't know me.
Now it isn't just about religious objections. What about those people who think that if they are an organ donor that they won't save their life if they can harvest the organs? I mean it's not unheard of and the threat is even more real when you have death panels set up by the government to decide who is worthy of a life saving procedure or not. Especially when the president of the United States of America tells a person that her mom should have taken a pain pill instead of getting a life saving medical treatment that had extended her life by 5 years as of the time the question was asked.
If it's a smoke screen, that's only because there is a fire burning underneath. Seriously, economics is the key problem here and needs to be front and center when a good portion of the population is unemployed or making so little they have difficulties paying their bills. And the answers to Obama's famous quote of "under my plan, your electric bill will neccesarily skyrocket" or whatever he said to the same effect, but the answer of raising taxes and the government giving the money away just doesn't cut it and will make problem entirely worse. We can debate the tax and spend or trickle down economics all you want, one thing they both have in common is that you don't over burden the majority of the population in times of economic stress.
Even if you were pushing non-profits run by the government, they still have to break even on costs, pay their employees, and being a government facility, they will have to pay union employees which means more money, and they will have to hire more people then what is needed. But hey, it's not like we don't have Amtrak or American Airlines as historical examples to look at or anything.
Lol.. NO I don't like wide spread pollution. But I also don't like the idea of shooting myself in the foot in order to get out of it either. Obviously, you are so focused on pushing solar onto the masses that you don't mind. You certainly aren't listening to what people have to say. If you were, you wouldn't have even bothered asking me that question as I already offered an alternative to pushing overly expensive solar onto the people. That alternative by the way involves using solar, it's just that the money at this point would be better spend making it more economical and offering those advances to whoever wants to use them in the US so when solar is cheaper then coal or gas or nuclear, it's the obvious choice to use.
That depends on how long your terms are. We certainly have enough fossil fuels to address out needs for well over half a century. But hey, who knows, there could be a break through next week which makes solar 1/3 the price of Gas or coal without artificially raising the prices. So which would you rather have in ten years? A solar plant that costs ten times as much as what we have today, a gas powered peak plant that costs 20% more then today to operate, or a solar power that is cheaper then the energy we consume today?
Because with an expected life span of 25-30 years, what you build today is what you will be stuck with in a decade. They aren't going to abandon a solar plant or gas plant to install newer tech. Especially when the government is involved.
Thanks for the link. It does appear that what I said is still true. It doesn't take into consideration the fact that only a few hours are peak for solar and solar is useless half of the time if not more where nuclear is useful almost 24/7. Once that is figured in, it's completely out of range for practical comparisons in real life use.
One small detail. In most states, it's the employer not the employee who is paying the unemployment insurance. And yes, while the feds pretend to be involved in unemployment insurance, it is properly administered and controlled by the states as the federal government has absolutely no constitutional or other authority to be involved in it. The feds do little more then offer money to the states if it's spent in a certain way. If you are self employed and lay yourself off, there is a good change you won't even qualify for unemployment.
Can you explain this one a tad but more. It's sort of confusion because the last I heard, the republicans wanted the states to deal with it and were apposed to the feds mucking around and perpetually extending it. Perhaps we both are missing something here?
Hmm.. So if we did this for 3 years, we would be looking at something in the neighborhood of $2,381,000 before adding in the "Taking away time with meetings from 15 other employees because the contractors don't know what they're doing: ~$500,000 in lost time" and infuriating parts. Face it, you will always have idiots and people or things that infuriate you.
So to get this to $100/semester as the parent suggested, we would divide by 2 (2 semesters in a year still right? I know DeVry did some trimester BS in the 80's and 90's) which gives us $9,122,000, we need to divide that by the 3 years, which gives us $1,520,333. This means you would need roughly 91,220 students per year going to school all year and paying the $100 twice a year for a total of 3 years in order to pay for it. You could probably increase that number by 12-20 percent of you account for loans to implement the tech and the interest paid on them in order to make it happen. Does that sound doable to you? While on the surface, it might with the large campuses, but schools like Ohio State and others have regional campuses that would probably need the stuff duplicated at meaning for every person enrolled less then the 90k number at each campus would need to increase offset at another campus. So if there is only 10k people at a branch campus, then the 90k students at the main branch would have to become 170K.
What I'm getting at is that I don't think it can happen for 100/student per semester. And I don't think it can happen at some of the smaller universities. I guess the real question might be if the amount of government money going to the university is greater then or less then the costs of implementing something like this. If it's less, then some universities might just tell the federal government to keep walking. That actually might be a good thing as most federal money has strings attached in some way.
Actually, it's a little more costs then that. Often the money has to be borrowed in the first place which costs money. If the low interest loan is at or less then the original interest, then not only are you losing the time value of the money, you are also losing the actual costs to provide it.
You are absolutely right here. And with the current technology, the laws of supply and demand, it would appear that the government expects these loans to fail. This is because solar isn't comparable to traditional energy production in cost effectiveness when you consider the non-peak production, night time with no production, and the need to store the energy to accommodate that.
So what we should expect is a number of things to happen. One would be that the solar is only used during peak daytime production and businesses are pushed towards gearing their needs for that time. Another would be for the loans to fail and the government just paying them out or neglecting their contractual duties and letting smaller banks fail in order to favor the big ones that were too big to fail. Yet another thing we can expect is that energy prices will be artificially inflated in order to force a profit on these companies with the justification in the back ground of them causing the too big to fail banks to be at risk of failing if they can't repay the 2 billion. In the end, I see this having one of two major effects or perhaps a combination of either, Raising taxes or raising energy prices to the consumer which is the same as raising taxes if it's because of the government imposing something. Either way, it's being done in a way that makes useful idiots rejoice while alarm sounding people look crazy.
Maybe that's the change we can believe in, the change from outright doing stupid shit to doing stupid shit while presenting it in a way the public feel's good about. This money would be far better spend on research and development that could be placed within the public domain that would eliminate any of the barriers that is keeping solar at an economic disadvantage. If fact, crap like the Kyoto treaty would have made much more sense if instead of concentrating on redistributing the wealth, it would have concentrated on creating clean energy that anyone could use royalty free in the same way I described above. It just sort of points to the real agenda (control) I guess.
Why would you think that was Flamebait?
I mean the alternative to the biggest gripes about the war beside the made up appearances of getting into them is the costs in financial resources, our man power, and time. Reverting back to the 60's nomenclature and just wiping them out in a couple blows with nukes gets around all that. It costs less, it saves our soldier's lives, and take way less time.
Imagine if a couple of nukes were dropped on Iraq and the entire area was turned into a glass parking lot. We wouldn't need to be there at all today or over the last half decade. And if you buy into the oil war tripe, all the neighboring countries could simply move in and take equal portions of it. They would then produce the oil and sell it like they do with their own existing oil. It's a no loose proposition outside of some people glowing in the dark. But hey, if they complain, we can just nuke them too.
Could you provide some links to this information?
Last I hear solar was comparable to nuclear on a per watt basis only during peak production times. But that doesn't take into consideration the fact that only a few hours are peak for solar and solar is useless half of the time if not more where nuclear is useful almost 24/7.
And if you want solar to work at night, you have to find a way to store the energy, convert it to usable forms and transmit it. Remember, people turn the lights on when it's dark out, not when it's high noon and the light coming through the windows already light the room.
"why not build clean solar instead of something messier?" Because you are ignoring the economic issues that don't magically disappear with good intentions. What I'm saying is, would you like to pay $20 for a loaf of bread because someone ignored the economics of power generation and it now costs $18 to provide the energy to bake one loaf of bread? We have the tech to build supercomputers that make today's desktops look like yesterday's watches. Why don't you buy one of these supercomputers the next time you are looking to replace or add another desktop system? You see, the economics make a lot more sense there.
That may be so, but it's totally irrelevant to the problem with the point at hand. If the power system needs an overhaul, then it should be done with whatever technology is most practical and cost efficient. Jamming something into the system because it makes you feel good makes about as much sense as replacing you P4 desktop system with a Cray super computer because it's time for an upgrade. We need to make smart decisions that will not cause the costs of a loaf of bread or gallon of milk to jump $18.
Actually, the maintenance is going to be about the same if not less with the Mexicans. You see, you pay the Vegan Mexicans and they take care of themselves. The bearings and crap on the generators and bicycles can be made to last about as long as the solar panels. The similarities are strikingly the same too. It's a large waste of money and will only massively inflate the costs of providing new electricity when cheaper and more reliable methods are already available.
You mentioned Nuclear and some of it's drawbacks. The interesting thing is that it's in existence today with the exact same drawbacks and is still more cost efficient and cheaper to the consumer then solar is. What will change with this is Solar and Wind when breakthroughs are made that make it the viable replacement. This may or may not happen, it is likely it will though. So as of today, the money should be put into research and development that will make solar more efficient so that tomorrow, when we need the power, it can be the best and most cost effective replacement if it ever is going to be without artificially inflating the costs of other energy.
To do otherwise is like telling the poor, you will be perfectly fine with paying $18 a loaf of bread, you will find all sorts of work when your electric bill is $400 a month and you have to pay $200 a week for bus and taxi
The subsidies the oil industry gets are more or less (partial) repayments for them doing things the way the government wants them to and for enacting programs the government wants. In other words, the subsidies that the oil industry gets pretty much all cover wasted money that they wouldn't be spending in the first place.
This means your argument will hold no water.
We need to stop using fallacious arguments to support a failing argument.
It's nothing like creationism. In creationism, you are asserting something to be a certain way, a course of events has happened. Those are affirmative actions. Global warming deniers are simply saying I do no believe you when you make your affirmative statements. They do not need to provide anything, it's your statement, it's your job to provide the convincing evidence.
What is similar to the creation debate is that if you want someone to believe what you say, then you need to provide convincing proof. This doesn't mean that deniers have to prove a negative, it means that if you are pushing something, then you need to provide convincing proof to whoever you expect to believe what you are saying. That hasn't happened obviously if people are denying global warming.