I think you mean $30 a barrel. When oil reaches $30 a gallon we are going to be in deep trouble.
This is the in situ method I referred to. Note this is "belief" based on a small pilot, its not proved in production across a broad range of geology. Whether the break even point is $30 or $40 dollars isn't so much the issue as the fact that not so long ago oil was $20 something a barrel and could easily return there at which point all your investment in oil shale is worthless. People are making large profits on conventional oil at $30 a barrel, Shell will be breaking even at that price.
Those reserves will be a great thing someday when easy oil is gone and we still need plastic and jet fuel. They aren't an instant solution to anything.
Oil shale will work only if conventional oil reserves are really in short supply. Oil reserves are tight now and there is rempant speculation pushing up prices but its not clear there is a real shortage yet. In a few month the speculators could cash out and the price will drop.
If you start massive investment in oil shale and as soon as you've sunk billions in to it prices return to $30 a barrel you are going to look like a chump and go bankrupt which is basically what happened during the last oil "crisis" when oil shale pilot projects were started.
It is dramatically more expensive to tap oil shale than conventional reserves. In situ is the only approach that looks reasonably viable and it still requires vast amounts of energy to run heaters in the bottom of well to cook the oil out of the rock. You net only apercentage of the energy you tap since you have to expend so much getting it out of the rock.
Oil shale is only going to be a viable solution when conventional reserves really start running out and its only going to be profitable when the price of oil is consistently high. Don't recall but I think the break even prices is something like $40 a barrel. That means oil prices need to stay above this break even price or you make no profit and if it fall belows for any length of time you crater.
If it was the answer to all of America's problems companies would already be flocking to develop it, which they aren't.
The other problem you have here is conflict of interest. The people mostly like to develop oil shale are oil companies. Unfortunately the oil companies LIKE oil shortages and sky high prices because they are making more money than ever this year. Oil companies wont start caring about oil shale until they start running of conventional, cheap reserves to sell.
The Chinese have developed some really slick solutions to this problem:
A. Reverse engineer products developed at great expense by Western companies and then undersell them at a fraction of the price because you don't have any R&D expense and your labor is cheaper. Reverse engineering costs something but nothing compared to what original R&D costs.
B. Place conditions on Western business who want access to your markets that they transfer manufacturering and R&D to China and employ Chinese workers. Inevitably all of the companies IP is transfered in the process, plus all the new IP will be developed in China by Chinese workers and engineers, at the expense of the Western companies. Once the Chinese are up to speed they quit and start their own company doing exactly the same thing and put their former benefactors out of business.
The only flaw in this plan is eventually all of their Western benefactors will go out of business and they will eventually have to start paying for their own R&D. This is probably OK because at that point they will own the world.
Re:How can you vouche for the security of this?
on
Flash, Meet Sparkle
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Its an interesting historical note that SGI was using vector graphics on their desktop more than 10 years ago under the moniker Indigo Magic. It was mostly just desktop icons which were nicely scalable for different monitor resolutions or user preference. But it kind of shows you how slow the rest of the world, Microsoft and Linux included, are in catching up to the value of vector graphics on the desktop.
Regretably, for all the cool things SGI pioneered they frequently couldn't market their way out of a paper bag and while focusing on gee whiz demos would often let fundamentals of building good computers and making customers happy fall on the floor. And of course they were caught flat footed when GPU's became a commodity, Windows NT arrived and Intel stole DEC's alpha designs to create Pentium Pro, Pentium II and beyond.
"1) There is about a TRILLION DOLLARS of oil sitting in Alaska in ANWR at today's prices. Ergo, all we have to do is drill that out, and we have enough money to pay for Iraq, Katrina, and put a whole fricking Noah's ark on Mars."
According to Wikipedia and the USGS the absolute highest estimate is 16 billion barrels at hyperinflated $60 dollars a barrel yes that would be a trillion dollars. The mean value of recoverable reserves which is a more reasonable figure is 7.7 billion barrels which at the hyperinflated $60 a barrel is $462 billion. That's like one years worth of U.S. budget deficit, and much of that is going in to developing the fields and the pockets of the oil companies. The revenue will also be spread out over a decade. Bottomline is yes someday it should be tapped with best available technology. Is it urgent it be tapped today and will it solve all our problems, like the Republican's keep claiming, no. Having known reserves is actually good so you can tap them when oil is REALLY short. You would gain more just raising milage requirements on cars a couple MPG and that gain would last as long as we keep driving cars that burn gasoline. ANWR is way overplayed by the Republicans. Its a small stop gap, nothing more.
"3) There is easily 100 times that, according to a previous Slashdot post, sitting in Colorado oil reserves."
Pretty sure the Democrats have zip to do with blocking the extraction of oil from oil shale. It is just extremely hard and expensive to do. Oil companies did start pilot projects during previous oil crises, the oil prices dropped and it became economically impractical and it cratered. The only viable method is in a pilot project, in-situ, which requires inserting heaters in to wells and cooking it out of the rocks. Not sure of the exact number but I think you are going to get maybe 60% of the energy as a net gain. 40% would go in to the energy needed to cook the oil out. Its not going to result in gushers and profits. Tapping this oil is a last resort for an era when easily exploited oil runs out which is looking like now. You wont make buckets of money because it will cost a fortune to get it out of the ground. If it was so great people would already be doing it.
"I'm sure there are plenty of websites listing made in America items and brands and yes you can even find some at Walmart."
That is insane and increasingly impossible.
Didn't really mean to imply this was George W.'s fault. Its more the fault of every Western businessman transferring their capital, factories and IP to China to get cheap labor. The Republicans and Democrats are just guilty of sitting on their hands while the U.S. ecomoy is being devestated. The U.S. increasingly doesn't make anything of any value, outside of gold plated weapons systems which are of no economic value unless you use them to invade countries... oh wait... In the good old days politicians would have slapped tariffs on Chinese goods which would solve the problem by:
- Increasing the cost of goods to levels American workers had a chance to compete - and put money in to government coffers and discourage people from buying them
I'm just pointing out its artificially buoying prosperity by creating synthetic deflation. Simple fact is globalization is going to devastate workers, its unavoidable, so its a good idea to not be a worker in a field that is being globalized (i.e. manufacturing or IT). It will raise workers in the poorest places but destroy all the workers in developed countries. Eventually wages are going to level out across the entire world at a ridiculously low level, while the top 1% exploit it and get really rich while they are it. Chances are that top 1% are going to be the members of China's Communist(really Fascist) party, not Americans because the Chinese are going to completely screw all the dumb
"This is in addition to an already strong economy, which showed little signs of weaking after Katrina"
Define strong economy?
- U.S. national debt is about to cross the $8 trillion mark
- The U.S. annual current-account deficit (trade deficit, budget deficit, etc) for 2005 was heading towards the $800 billion mark, tack on another $100 billion of deficit spending on Katrina maybe it will hit $900 billion. It was %6.4 of GDP in Q1 probably way worse in Q3 now post Katrina. Note from the chart, how the current-account deficit spiked under Reagan and George W.
- Oil companies are making record profits and I'm sure their results alone are bouying economic numbers though they are sucking the life out of the rest of the economy to get it.
A key point is a "strong economy" doesn't operate with staggering trade deficits or borrow massive amounts of money from other countries.
George W. is creating synthetic prosperity:
- Slash taxes for the wealthy - Dramatically increase government spending - Borrow vast amounts of money to make up the difference - Import vast quantities of cheap Chinese goods which means Americans spend less and get more (only problem is all the money they spend is going to China not to American jobs).
All the borrowed money George W. is pumping in to the economy creates the appearance of growth. If the government pours hundreds of billions in to the economy though defense spending, medicare "reform" spending and drug benefits, incentives to energy companies(while oil companies are making money at record levels), $250 billion plus in the new highway bill to build bridges in Alaska to nowhere and massively increase farm subsidies.
The Bush administration has passed one massive federal spending program after another to artificially pump the economy. The rebuild the Gulf bill will just be the next in line. The return to the Moon and Mars is chump change by comparison. Sure the U.S. can afford $10 billion a year for that, it can't afford the hundreds of billions its squandering elsewhere.
You want to create phenomenal 10% growth in GDP, just borrow $1 trillion dollars and pump it in to a $10 trillion economy through government spending. The problem is the wheels fall off as soon as foreign countries stop buying your debt, the debt servicing kills youm and you are mortgaging the future for easy prosperity today.
A. NASA was focused on one thing in the Apollo era. This time around its going to be squandering years and billions of dollars flying or not flying the Shuttle, and finishing or not finishing the ISS. There is an entrenched set of empires and jobs programs in the Shuttle and ISS, which are going to be nearly impossible to redirect to doing anything fast, lean and mean. Their first priority is not to get to the moon, its to insure all the current jobs are preserved whether they are needed or not.
B. NASA has completely lost the ability and will to take risks or do anything hard. It can't even launch the Space Shuttle without spending billions assessing and hand wringing over every risk, and finding every excuse to postpone launches.
C. NASA was young during Apollo, it hadn't developed its current bureaucratic atrophy
D. U.S. prowess in engineering and science is fading fast. What prowess there is, is almost entirely focused on weapons and intelligence where there are VAST sums being spent each year. The amount of money being spent on this is like a years worth of money squandered in Iraq.
On the plus side Mike Griffin seems like a vast improvement over previous NASA administrators. He is about the only positive for the current NASA. The Apollo era NASA had a lot of great people who were there to accomplish something great, not just draw a paycheck and sit on their hands because they are afraid to launch anything.
I guess I should add some of the other prominent fabrictions used to justify wars and power grabs.
In 1898 the U.S.S. Maine exploded and sank in Havana's harbor. The investigation at the time contended it was a naval mine and sabotage by either the Cuban's or Spanish. In 1976 Admiral Hyman Rickover conducted an investigation that concluded it was most probably a self inflicted fire of some kind that ignited the powder magazine. The conspiracy theorists argue it was probably self inflicted by the U.S. to create a justification for declaring war against Spain. The Spanish American war that followed was in large part due to a massive yellow journalism campaign by William Randolph Hearst, who was parodied in Citizen Kane, and his newspaper empire. In fact the Spanish American war was just a pretext for a massive imperial expansion of the U.S. by seizing Spain's Caribbean assets, including Cuba, and the Phillippines. The occupation of the Phillippines lead to a long and bloody insurgency in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by the U.S., and where the U.S. routinely engaged in torture. The Phillipine-American War has largely been purged from the history the U.S. teaches its children because of its raw brutality, but it is a good historical precedent for U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Iraq.
In 1965 we have the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It is a bit different because I don't think anyone was actually killed. It appears it was a complete fabrication on the part of the Johnson administration used to push the Congress and the American people in to escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This was one of the more explosive revelations by Daniel Elsberg's leak of The Pentagon Papers. The Johnson administration claimed the North Vietnamese attacked the U.S.S Maddox out of the blue in international waters. Most information since contradicts this claim. From Wikipedia:
"Daniel Ellsberg, who was on duty in the Pentagon that night receiving messages from the ship, reports that the ships were on a secret mission, codenamed DeSoto Patrols, inside North Vietnamese territorial waters. Their purpose was to provoke the North Vietnamese into turning on their coastal defense radar so they could be plotted."
"Regarding claims that the attacks on the US were unprovoked, veterans of US Navy SEAL teams say that US-trained South Vietnamese commandos were active in the area on the days of the attacks. Deployed from Da Nang in Norwegian-built fast patrol boats, the Lien Doc Nguoi Nhia (LDNN, soldiers that fight under the sea), made attacks in the Gulf area on both of the nights in question."
Dude, if you can't make a coherent argument try not saying anything at all. Ad-hominen attacks, like yours, are normally the tool of last resort of people who can't pen an intelligent argument. If you can't make a coherent argument supporting your assertion that a poster is an "idiot" you end up looking like the idiot, not the person you are attacking.
The grandparent's assertions are something of a long shot, but they are entirely plausible. Power mad politicians and spooks have done things just that over-the-top and far fetched throughout history. The Nazi's most probably set fire to the Reichstag for precisely the same reason, they needed to stage a spectacular attack on the nation to use as justification for tightening their grip on power, and to suspend all of Germany's civil liberties, much like the U.S. and U.K are doing now in the wake of their "terror" attacks.
There has been long running speculation that FDR goaded Japan in to a confrontation by embargoing Japanese oil supplies in concert with the U.K and the Dutch. It put Japan in an untenable position since the wheels would eventually fall off their industry and military adventure in China without those oil supplies. The Japanese only had two options, capitulate or seize their oil supplies, especially in Indonesia, by force and declare war on the U.S. and U.K. Chances are FDR's administration turned a blind eye to the attack on Pearl Harbor because they WANTED a catastrophic "sneak" attack, that wasn't really that sneaky, to use as a tool to motivate a reluctant nation in to diving in to World War II with both feet, and to justify trampling civil liberties, in that case mostly aimed at the Japanese, in Germany it was aimed at Communists and Jews, while todays its mostly aimed at Muslims. To have a solid good versus evil myth to use for national propaganda you need scapegoats to blame and lynch.
"Just another example of the sheer, utter incompetence of the Bush administration."
Maybe you should consider the possibility that its not incompetence but malevolence, and that the Bush administration doesn't want to catch Bin Laden or break up Al Qaeda. When the Soviet Union collapsed the world started heading towards a dramatic reduction in military spending and decline in military threats and fear in the world. The right wingers absolutely HATED it. The couldn't stand the defense spending cuts in the U.S in particular.
9/11 was a godsend to them since not only did it allow them to reverse the defense cuts but they had an excuse to inflate defense and intelligence spending to new record levels today, and this is facing a rag tag terrorist band with few weapons, versus countering the massive armaments of the Soviet Union.
The right wing no doubt vowed that when a new threat came along to replace the Soviet Union, to justify the massive defense spending they love so much, to justify massive erosion in civil liberties they love so much, and to use as a fear mongering tool to get themselves elected, they no doubt took a vow to make sure they would do everything in their power that threat would last forever this time. There is a fair chance the current strategy is to nibble around the edges of Al Qaeda but make sure their leadership stays in tact so they can put out a video tape every six months or so to whip up a new round of fear.
The heart of the neocon philisophy is to create myths of good and evil to unite and heard the American people, American's always being good and everything they oppose being evil, hence the terms "Evil empire" and "Axis of Evil". This whole philosophy falls apart if you don't have something clearly defined, and clearly named to play the evil role, its Bin Laden on the global stage and its Al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Notice how the Bush administration uses the name Al-Zarqawi every time they talk about the war in Iraq, though in fact he probably has little to do with the vast majority of the insurgency which is based on former Baathists and Sunni's who are angry they've been thrown out of power. Al-Zarqawi is just evil role player the neocons love so much.
Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola, was on Charlie Rose last week on PBS. Rather than an interview it mostly turned in to him pitching one cell phone after another. He trotted out the Rokr, and proceeded to play Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, and indicated in fact he had loaded it entirely with nothing but Neil Diamond songs. Fortunately for him I doubt many people under 30 watch Charlie Rose, though he does the most intelligent interview show left on TV. If they had though Rokr would have been instantly consigned to loser status.
He also trotted out the Razor which I guess is a raging success for Motorola on Cingular. I think he said it runs around $400 and I'm thinking spend that much on a cell phone is a borderline crazy, even if it is kind of cool looking.
Call me old fashioned but I find cell phones convenient to make an occasional phone call when not at home, I find people who are buying them as fashion statements silly to the extreme. I could see getting email service if I travelled a lot but most of the time the email can wait. Do I want to watch TV on them no, do I want to play games on the tiny screen, no, certainly not at the rates U.S. cell phone companies will charge for every minute of everything you do on them. Do I want to squander hundreds of dollars on them in a never ending search for the coolest status symbol no, nor will I squander money in a never ending pursuit of a ring tone that is a perfect statement. They are just further evidence of how marketing, peer pressure and rampant consumerism push people in to insanity.
What have cell phones mostly done, created dangerous monsters out of people who use them while driving. Its made monsters out of people who insist on using them in public and loudly and rudely inflict their personal lives on strangers. Its made complete monsters out of teenagers, especially teenage girls, who can now spend their entire lives engaged in never ending communication just for the sake of communication, engaging in never ending gossip and social ridicule of their peers.
And of course the odds are high that people that are spending huge chunks of their lives using them are bombarding themselves with enough radiation there will probably soon be a massive spike in cancers which is kind of a karmic retribution for the non stop rudeness of cell phone abuse.
The mayor of New Orleans has answered this in interviews though its hard to say how much truth there was to his answer and how much was CYA. At a time when most people who could drive were fleeing the city and taking care of themselves and their families, it was really hard to find people both willing and able to drive the bus loads of poor people out of the city, out of the city to destination unknown and with uncertain fuel availability. People with no cars and unable to drive were not good candidates to make in to instant bus drivers. The mayor claims they were having difficulty just finding drivers to driver people across town to the Superdome.
I doubt there was a government money issue at all in this very compressed time frame. This was mostly a massive lesson in personal responsibility. In a chaotic situtation bordering on anarchy the people who had the resources and the will to take care of themselves did and came out fine. The people who were operating under the assumption that it was someone else's responsibility to take care of them are the people that suffered. It is a problem with people who have settled in to life on welfare and food stamps that they no longer take personal responsibility. They expect and have been conditioned to expect some one to take care of them, feed, house and protect them for the rest of their life. For someone elderly or disabled this is a reasonable expectation in a modern society, but for able bodied people to expect this is pretty unreasonable. You can get away with this expectation in normal societal operation, but in times of crisis, when resources are scarce and strained, and anarchy is close, it is an attitude that will result in hardship at least and death at worst and it did.
"Before the eurpoeans came to North America, there was no large government to enforce property ownership, and thus, there was none."
I'd say that is a pretty big over simplification. Native American tribes did for the most part have established territories. As white hunters and settlers attempted to seize that "property" native Americans did vigorously defend their it. Unfortunately they were just outgunned by your Europeans. There wasn't any civilized concept of property in it, the Europeans just had better weapons technology, and their enforcement of property rights came down to "might makes right" which is what it still is today. Your government can sieze your property in a myriad of ways through force:
- The IRS can seize it for failure to pay your fair share of the staggering tax burden placed on Americans since the passage of income and estate taxes in 1918. Estate taxes are in fact a blatant case of government seizing your property.
- Your property can be seized as part of many criminal prosecutions.
- Your property can be seized by the government under the recently dramatically expanded eminent domain. You will get paid for it but they government will decide how much, not you. They can now use eminent domain to take you property and hand it over to another private individual who is held in better favor by the government.
It would seem the government you seem to cherish so much can do pretty much the same thing to you that you want to do to the Libertarian.
"Libertarians are such a joke..."
Libertarians aren't the joke here its your complete misunderstanding of Libertarianism that is the joke.
First off you seem to think that Libertarians are out to abolish government and police forces. That is a complete distortion. From Wikipedia "all individuals should have the liberty to do as they wish with themselves and their property as long as those actions do not infringe on the same liberty of others."
You see when you seek to kick someone out of their house at gunpoint that is "coercion" and Libertarians will call up the local police force and have you arrested just like anyone else. Libertarians are for small government, not NO government. They keep police around to prevent one individual from intruding on another person's liberty and property. A key axiom, is that just as one individual can't coerce another, neither can government engage in coercion against an individual who is not impinging on the liberties of others. This would be a very welcome thing in the above case where governments in the U.S. can now seize your property and give it to someone else. It appears Libertarianism is very much needed in the U.S. these days.
In my personal opinion Libertarianism is right on when it comes to individuals and their freedoms. In economic terms its a little hard to figure. The current system is letting large corporations acquire way to much power at the expense of individuals, though much of that power grab is aided and abetted by government, not in spite of it. I'm not sure if Libertarianism would remedy this or make it worse. You would need sufficient regulation to insure corporations don't continue or expand their current very coercive role over individuals.
"The only political issue that should really matter right now is electoral reform."
How exactly are you going to produce electoral reform when most of the apparatus needed to reform it is completely dominated by two parties who have no motivation to allow a 3rd party to gain viability.
In states where there is a mechanism for citizens to put initiatives on the ballot you might have an outside shot, but I doubt you could muster enough votes to get it to pass, way to many people are lifer Democrats and Republicans and you have to do it one state at a time.
I suppose you could try to get it through the judiciary and law suites but all of the judges are Republicans and Democrats.
Unfortunately the electoral college, and the winner take all nature of Congressional races is enshrined in the Constitution so it is very hard to change. You would need to go to a parliamentary system where house seats are apportioned based on the number of votes each party gains to give third parties a real seat at the table, which isn't likely to happen in the U.S.
The other thing that kills the House races is the fact that the party that controls the state legislature after a census (or in the case of the Republicans in Texas apparently whenever they gain power) get to gerrymander the districts to insure they win the optimal number of seats.
"There was a saying that if the Russians had not participated in the ISS, what?"
If the Russian had not participated in the ISS it probably would have never flown, and if it had flown it would have been abandoned when the Columbia broke up.
The Russians Soyuz and Progress flights are the only thing thats kept it manned and supplied for the last 2 1/2 going on 3+ years, while the Shuttle has been grounded since the U.S. has no backup. Russia has been doing this at their own expense since the Congress prohibited NASA from paying Russia for its services over Russia's support for Iran's nuclear program. NASA has been freeloading off Russia for the duration of the Shuttle grounding. I thought the Russian's had said enough is enough and was going to refuse to fly any more missions with NASA astronauts or supplies though it appears they are throwing NASA a bone with continued missions now that the Shuttle is indefinitely grounded again.
The Russians built the two key modules in the ISS, Zarya and Zvezda, using designs that were basically planned to be Mir-2. For a litany of reasons the U.S. squandered billions of dollars and more than a decade, creating nothing but artists conceptions. Its open to debate if NASA could have built a long duration space station that would have worked since the only experience they had was the relatively short duration Skylab missions 30 years ago. The Russians by comparison had decades of practical experience and proved working designs from Mir and Salyuts.
"Finally, I would hardly consider the 4th Circuit ruling conservative."
I studiously avoided using the term conservative for precisely this reason. I used the term right wing, though a more appropriate term would be Fascist. Unfortunately the term Fascist has been conveniently cleansed from our vocabulary in general, and on the net by Godwin's law, so there is no usable term to accurately describe the ideology of the new Republican party and the Bush administration. It is certainly not conservatism, though some of it is neo-conservatism though that is a poorly understood, overly polite term and accurately describes only some people in the Bush administration.
Conservatism, theocracy and Fascism all reside in the same right wing of the simplistic linear left/right political model. The new Republican party is obviously right wing but only in the Fascist and theocratic sense. They're massively authoritarian bent puts them completely at odds with political conservatism, as does their propensity for foreign interventionism and imperialism.
Bush attempted to nominate Claude Allen to the 4th circuit to push it even further right. Allen is an Uncle Tom, far right winger, and protege of Jesse Helms, the Fascist icon of the Republican party. I'm not sure where his nomination ended up at this point though I think he was working in the White House campaigning against abortion, birth control and for abstinence as the only allowable form of sex education. The Democrats were blocking his nomination because he was barely qualified and an obvious idealog who would have made his decisions based on his ideology and not the Constitution.
The Republican's are trying to pack all the courts but to achieve their goal of seizing power they really only need to pack one circuit court and the Supreme court. The 4th is clearly the one they are going to run with for circuit courts and is where they will file every case they where they are seeking to eviscerate civil liberties, undermine democracy and expand the powers of the executive towards dictatorship.
Its hard to say how the Supreme court will swing with the two new appointments but all indications are Roberts is very Fascist leaning, based on the tone of the documents he wrote in the Reagan and first Bush administration. He is also completely in the pocket of big business. As much as the left despises Scalia, often deservedly so, his true conservatism runs counter to and obstructs the Fascist agenda of the Bush administration.
"Furthermore the 4th circuit stated that they were going to apply the Hamdi standard here and state that anyone accused of being an enemy combattant might have the burden or proof in proving that he is not, perhaps against a military tribunal. This is very scary indeed."
If you ever wondered how Padilla ended up in a Navy brig in South Carolina its precisely so he would be in the jurisdiction of the 4th circuit. It is the most right wing circuit in the U.S. which is why the Bush administration does everything it can to get all its cases heard there. They are using it and will continue to use it in their attempt to eviscerate civil liberties in this country and to continue to expand the powers of the executive to near dictatorial status.
For whetever reason the Supreme Court has consistently avoided making a definitive decision in Padilla's case and let Padilla rot in jail, each day setting precedent for abandoning an American citizens most basic right to due process. Padilla may be a complete low life, and a terrorist, but if he is the way this country works is you file charges, you make sure he has access to a lawyer, you give him his day in court with a presumption of innocence, and you let a jury of his peers decide, not a stacked military tribunal.
Unfortunately when this outlandish 4th circuit decision reaches the Supreme Court on appeal, this time, it will be a court with two new Bush appointments both of which will probably be right wing. This time they may well uphold the 4th circuit opinion and effectively turn the U.S. in to a police state and give the executive dictatorial powers. One can only hope that the 2 people Bush appoints will end up being true conservatives, and not far right Fascists, when they are actually sitting on the court. A true conservative would never never allow this savaging of basic due process civil liberties. A far right Fascist will think giving these new sweeping powers to the executive will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
If only in 1861 the South had freed the slaves AND still seceded from the Union we might not have ended up with the bloated, out of control, power and money mad, government we have today. Abolition was just an inflammatory issue that nearly destroyed the nation. States rights was the important issue and the one where the South was on the right side in a federation, an issue Iraq is grappling with today in exactly the same way. When you have a big diverse nation federation helps different people in different regions tailor their government to their needs. If you have a single all powerful government in a big, diverse nation chances are it will make nearly everyone unhappy.
The other two red letter dates when the Federal government far overreached its limited role defined in the constitution the New Deal in the 1930's, with Medicare and Social Security, and construction of the Pentagon in World War II which created the permanent and vastly to large military industrial complex in this country. Both of these were only possible because of the 16th amendment in 1913 and the 1918 revenue act.
It should be pointed out that each of these four events was made possible by national crisis, and the ability of politicians to exploit them using fear to dramatically expand their power:
- Civil War - World War I - Depression - World War II
Two more events to add to the list:
- 9/11 - Katrina
Katrina will almost certainly be used to overturn Posse Comitatus and allow the military to easily institute martial law and seize control of cities and states in times of "emergency" real or imagined, and as declared by the executive.
There is also a fair chance Katrina will be used to exploit the newly expanded power of eminent domain manufactured by the Supreme court this year to allow the government to seize private property and turn it over to well connected land developers. I wager all the low income neighborhoods of New Orleans will be cleared by troops breaking down doors and hauling people who are guilty of nothing off their private property. Their property will then be seized, bulldozed and given to Republican developers to build yuppie friendly condos and planned communities. In the process New Orleans will magically transform from a Democratic leaning city to a staunchly Republican one and push Louisiana firmly in to the Republican column. I wager as the refugees were being relocated Karl Rove was watching to insure they were relocated to areas where they could be absorbed without costing the Republicans any congressional seats, Texas being ideal because its big and the Republican's have so gerrymandered it that they have a complete lock on all its congressional seats.
"...Keeping the wealthy from becoming so wealthy that they are above laws and social norms is, I think, more important. It's also been a part of America's system since the beginning, most notably in things like the Estate Tax, which was specifically designed to keep an aristrocracy of worthless blueblood heirs from arising."
Well actually the estate tax wasn't instituted on a permanent basis until World War I and the Revenue Act of 1918 which also instituted the progressive income tax. 1861 and 1918 are the two red letter dates when the U.S. spawned a federal government with a voracious appetite for power, taxation and spending.
The Revenue Act of 1918 came out of both the need to pay for war costs and from the progressive movement, which sought to rein in the massive wealth concentration in the hands of the few, in particular the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. During this era the U.S. was much like it is today, a few people getting very wealthy, very fast, and while most people descended towards poverty.
The first income tax I can find reference to came from Lincoln in 1862 also to pay war costs during the Civil War, though he apparently had no constitutional power to levy it. It was very unpopular and was repelled in 1867. From 1867 until 1913 when income tax rear its ugly head again, 90% of Federal revenue came from taxes on liquor and tobacco. Of course the government was much smaller and spent a lot less then.
The Federal government wasn't empowered to tax income or presumably estates until 1913 when the 16th amendment passed.
The founding fathers sought to frustrate the formation of aristocracy through legal and political structure not through taxation. The founding fathers weren't really that fond of taxes, as you recall taxation by King George was a key reason they revolted.
As an aside most American's don't realize that Connecticut is still considered to be the Tory heartland, the place where wealthy blue bloods still yearn for aristocracy. The Bush family was largely Connecticut based, until the move to Texas, and are thought to be included in that number, closet Tories yearning for rule by the elite, in particular by themselves though a family dynasty.
"Do you honestly believe a major city and even more major port would NOT be rebuilt?"
Repairing the port has nothing to do with the city, they have little to do with each other. Even then I've heard numerous people suggest Baton Rouge would be a lot better place for the major port at the bottom of the Mississippi, it has better transportation access and is much less vulnerable to hurricanes.
I'm sure downtown, the French quarter and the Garden district will be rebuilt. I wager all of the poor neighborhoods are going to be bulldozed with people's possesions in them.
You aren't going to easily repair homes that have sat in toxic waste for more than a month by just replacing the sheetrock. Foundations, floors and walls will all be shot. Sure it will be done for all the expensive or historic homes, but nobody is going to spend the money to rebuild already substandard housing in the poor neighborhoods.
I'm sure New Orleans will be rebuilt, its going to cost the country staggering sums of money, money it doesn't have and will have to borrow. Its also going to require massive investment in new levees in perpetuity, or the same thing is going to happen again. Chances are it will go like it did this cycle, we spend a lot to build new levees and in the future all the funding gets cut, they deteriorate and then a hurricane will breech them again.
Fact is that place is sinking, ocean levels are rising and hurricanes have been rising in frequency and intensity for the last ten years. I'm sure it will be rebuilt much to the regret of American tax payers but the city that comes out the other end will have been cleansed of the poor, and will be another expensive accident waiting to happen.
"And the Democratic party is more dominated by progressive socialists than ever before,"
The Democratic party is less progressive and less socialist than its been in a hundred years. Clinton pulled the party way to the center to win, evidenced by the fact that Welfare reform occurred on his watch. That would have never happened when the Democratic party was progressive socialist. The Democrats have adopted this losing strategy that they have to be in the center and act and talk like Republicans to win. Unfortunately the right doesn't buy it and vote for them and the left is increasingly indifferent to them. The only people who vote for Democrats anymore are people who are voting against Republicans.
"the incorrectness of the GP's assertions that Hubble was always the bane of conservatives."
I think the GGP maybe overstated the significance of Hubble to "conservatives", I doubt they really care about it much one way or another. The GGP was correct in stating that conservatives have generally despised NASA because it is a exactly what they hate in government, a politburo full of civil servants that are hard to fire and that squanders money and produces little. Of course Republican does not equal conservative which is maybe why there is confusion here. Republican's seem to have turned in to social conservatives and economic socialists because they are creating big government and squandering money faster than the Democrats ever have.
The GGP is also correct that Bush administration and the new Republican party does in fact seem to have a huge prejudice against science which was so true in previous Republican administrations, though Nixon is the one that killed Apollo and put NASA on to its current road to nowhere. The new Republican party owes it power to the religious right. Religious fundamentalism and science have never coexisted well.
"Debatable. There's a high cost to relocating, be it the cost of purchasing/renting property, transit to the new location, or even more often neglected, the time spent without any income and trying to find it."
Dude you are totally not getting it. All the poor don't own anything in New Orleans, they have already been relocated, and they will be supported where they are with billions of our tax dollars. I doubt they will even be allowed to get back in to the city to recover their belongings. Chances are high their rented apartments and homes will be bulldozed with their possesions inside and hauled away in dump trucks, and the slum lords will get some chump change for their land. All the cleared land will be seized under eminent domain and turned over to rich friends of the Bush administration to develop, because the Supreme Court said that is A-OK earlier this year.
It will be months to years before the housing will be rebuilt and when it is, unless its government subsidized, they poor wont be able to afford it. They will be forced to get jobs elsewhere and restart their lives elsewhere and THEN the high cost of relocating will prevent them from going back to New Orleans.
I can assure you all the affluent white residents and all the affluent white politicians are cherishing the prospect of rebuilding New Orleans and hanging out a sign that says to the poor and criminal element Keep Out. This turned out to be the only way to fix a completely disfunctional city. I wager in a few years it will be more affluent and drawing more tourism that it did before, because the corruption, crime and poverty which have been a perpetual drag on the city in every respect.
Unfortunately I wager the redevelopment is going to end up in the hands of the rich friends of the Bush administration, be corrupt in its own right, they will make a killing on it at tax payer expense and they will no doubt build a replacement that has all the ambiance of Las Vegas.
"Hubble was concieved, designed, and mostly built during Republican presidencies."...which means absolutely nothing. It was funded by Democratic congresses, don't think it ever rose to the point any of the Presidents during those periods cared one way or another about it. Lyman Spitzer is the one who deserves the lion's share of the credit for it. Handing out credit for it to politicians for just doling out our tax dollars is silly.
I think the grandparent was pointing out the current President is more science hostile than any President in memory. George W. does emulate Reagan in a lot of ways, especially in squandering money, but the new Republican party has very little in common with the drand ole part of old, it is certainly dominated by anti science Christian fundamentalists more than it ever has been.
Why yes they are, the Republicans look more and more like thugs every day. Thats why they get along with the Chinese so well.
"Oh, and fuck you too for the ad-hominem."
Dude you better get a thicker skin if you are going to post around here, "thick, dwelling in the past, skull" is pretty mild for ad hominem attacks around here.
Failing that maybe you should just stop regurgitated 30 year old anticommunist rhetoric when it no longer fits.
Slashdot Mirror
"... when oil is at $30 a gallon"
I think you mean $30 a barrel. When oil reaches $30 a gallon we are going to be in deep trouble.
This is the in situ method I referred to. Note this is "belief" based on a small pilot, its not proved in production across a broad range of geology. Whether the break even point is $30 or $40 dollars isn't so much the issue as the fact that not so long ago oil was $20 something a barrel and could easily return there at which point all your investment in oil shale is worthless. People are making large profits on conventional oil at $30 a barrel, Shell will be breaking even at that price.
Those reserves will be a great thing someday when easy oil is gone and we still need plastic and jet fuel. They aren't an instant solution to anything.
Oil shale will work only if conventional oil reserves are really in short supply. Oil reserves are tight now and there is rempant speculation pushing up prices but its not clear there is a real shortage yet. In a few month the speculators could cash out and the price will drop.
If you start massive investment in oil shale and as soon as you've sunk billions in to it prices return to $30 a barrel you are going to look like a chump and go bankrupt which is basically what happened during the last oil "crisis" when oil shale pilot projects were started.
It is dramatically more expensive to tap oil shale than conventional reserves. In situ is the only approach that looks reasonably viable and it still requires vast amounts of energy to run heaters in the bottom of well to cook the oil out of the rock. You net only apercentage of the energy you tap since you have to expend so much getting it out of the rock.
Oil shale is only going to be a viable solution when conventional reserves really start running out and its only going to be profitable when the price of oil is consistently high. Don't recall but I think the break even prices is something like $40 a barrel. That means oil prices need to stay above this break even price or you make no profit and if it fall belows for any length of time you crater.
If it was the answer to all of America's problems companies would already be flocking to develop it, which they aren't.
The other problem you have here is conflict of interest. The people mostly like to develop oil shale are oil companies. Unfortunately the oil companies LIKE oil shortages and sky high prices because they are making more money than ever this year. Oil companies wont start caring about oil shale until they start running of conventional, cheap reserves to sell.
The Chinese have developed some really slick solutions to this problem:
A. Reverse engineer products developed at great expense by Western companies and then undersell them at a fraction of the price because you don't have any R&D expense and your labor is cheaper. Reverse engineering costs something but nothing compared to what original R&D costs.
B. Place conditions on Western business who want access to your markets that they transfer manufacturering and R&D to China and employ Chinese workers. Inevitably all of the companies IP is transfered in the process, plus all the new IP will be developed in China by Chinese workers and engineers, at the expense of the Western companies. Once the Chinese are up to speed they quit and start their own company doing exactly the same thing and put their former benefactors out of business.
The only flaw in this plan is eventually all of their Western benefactors will go out of business and they will eventually have to start paying for their own R&D. This is probably OK because at that point they will own the world.
Its an interesting historical note that SGI was using vector graphics on their desktop more than 10 years ago under the moniker Indigo Magic. It was mostly just desktop icons which were nicely scalable for different monitor resolutions or user preference. But it kind of shows you how slow the rest of the world, Microsoft and Linux included, are in catching up to the value of vector graphics on the desktop.
Regretably, for all the cool things SGI pioneered they frequently couldn't market their way out of a paper bag and while focusing on gee whiz demos would often let fundamentals of building good computers and making customers happy fall on the floor. And of course they were caught flat footed when GPU's became a commodity, Windows NT arrived and Intel stole DEC's alpha designs to create Pentium Pro, Pentium II and beyond.
"1) There is about a TRILLION DOLLARS of oil sitting in Alaska in ANWR at today's prices. Ergo, all we have to do is drill that out, and we have enough money to pay for Iraq, Katrina, and put a whole fricking Noah's ark on Mars."
... oh wait... In the good old days politicians would have slapped tariffs on Chinese goods which would solve the problem by:
According to Wikipedia and the USGS the absolute highest estimate is 16 billion barrels at hyperinflated $60 dollars a barrel yes that would be a trillion dollars. The mean value of recoverable reserves which is a more reasonable figure is 7.7 billion barrels which at the hyperinflated $60 a barrel is $462 billion. That's like one years worth of U.S. budget deficit, and much of that is going in to developing the fields and the pockets of the oil companies. The revenue will also be spread out over a decade. Bottomline is yes someday it should be tapped with best available technology. Is it urgent it be tapped today and will it solve all our problems, like the Republican's keep claiming, no. Having known reserves is actually good so you can tap them when oil is REALLY short. You would gain more just raising milage requirements on cars a couple MPG and that gain would last as long as we keep driving cars that burn gasoline. ANWR is way overplayed by the Republicans. Its a small stop gap, nothing more.
"3) There is easily 100 times that, according to a previous Slashdot post, sitting in Colorado oil reserves."
Pretty sure the Democrats have zip to do with blocking the extraction of oil from oil shale. It is just extremely hard and expensive to do. Oil companies did start pilot projects during previous oil crises, the oil prices dropped and it became economically impractical and it cratered. The only viable method is in a pilot project, in-situ, which requires inserting heaters in to wells and cooking it out of the rocks. Not sure of the exact number but I think you are going to get maybe 60% of the energy as a net gain. 40% would go in to the energy needed to cook the oil out. Its not going to result in gushers and profits. Tapping this oil is a last resort for an era when easily exploited oil runs out which is looking like now. You wont make buckets of money because it will cost a fortune to get it out of the ground. If it was so great people would already be doing it.
"I'm sure there are plenty of websites listing made in America items and brands and yes you can even find some at Walmart."
That is insane and increasingly impossible.
Didn't really mean to imply this was George W.'s fault. Its more the fault of every Western businessman transferring their capital, factories and IP to China to get cheap labor. The Republicans and Democrats are just guilty of sitting on their hands while the U.S. ecomoy is being devestated. The U.S. increasingly doesn't make anything of any value, outside of gold plated weapons systems which are of no economic value unless you use them to invade countries
- Increasing the cost of goods to levels American workers had a chance to compete
- and put money in to government coffers and discourage people from buying them
I'm just pointing out its artificially buoying prosperity by creating synthetic deflation. Simple fact is globalization is going to devastate workers, its unavoidable, so its a good idea to not be a worker in a field that is being globalized (i.e. manufacturing or IT). It will raise workers in the poorest places but destroy all the workers in developed countries. Eventually wages are going to level out across the entire world at a ridiculously low level, while the top 1% exploit it and get really rich while they are it. Chances are that top 1% are going to be the members of China's Communist(really Fascist) party, not Americans because the Chinese are going to completely screw all the dumb
"This is in addition to an already strong economy, which showed little signs of weaking after Katrina"
Define strong economy?
- U.S. national debt is about to cross the $8 trillion mark
- The U.S. annual current-account deficit (trade deficit, budget deficit, etc) for 2005 was heading towards the $800 billion mark, tack on another $100 billion of deficit spending on Katrina maybe it will hit $900 billion. It was %6.4 of GDP in Q1 probably way worse in Q3 now post Katrina. Note from the chart, how the current-account deficit spiked under Reagan and George W.
- Oil companies are making record profits and I'm sure their results alone are bouying economic numbers though they are sucking the life out of the rest of the economy to get it.
A key point is a "strong economy" doesn't operate with staggering trade deficits or borrow massive amounts of money from other countries.
George W. is creating synthetic prosperity:
- Slash taxes for the wealthy
- Dramatically increase government spending
- Borrow vast amounts of money to make up the difference
- Import vast quantities of cheap Chinese goods which means Americans spend less and get more (only problem is all the money they spend is going to China not to American jobs).
All the borrowed money George W. is pumping in to the economy creates the appearance of growth. If the government pours hundreds of billions in to the economy though defense spending, medicare "reform" spending and drug benefits, incentives to energy companies(while oil companies are making money at record levels), $250 billion plus in the new highway bill to build bridges in Alaska to nowhere and massively increase farm subsidies.
The Bush administration has passed one massive federal spending program after another to artificially pump the economy. The rebuild the Gulf bill will just be the next in line. The return to the Moon and Mars is chump change by comparison. Sure the U.S. can afford $10 billion a year for that, it can't afford the hundreds of billions its squandering elsewhere.
You want to create phenomenal 10% growth in GDP, just borrow $1 trillion dollars and pump it in to a $10 trillion economy through government spending. The problem is the wheels fall off as soon as foreign countries stop buying your debt, the debt servicing kills youm and you are mortgaging the future for easy prosperity today.
A. NASA was focused on one thing in the Apollo era. This time around its going to be squandering years and billions of dollars flying or not flying the Shuttle, and finishing or not finishing the ISS. There is an entrenched set of empires and jobs programs in the Shuttle and ISS, which are going to be nearly impossible to redirect to doing anything fast, lean and mean. Their first priority is not to get to the moon, its to insure all the current jobs are preserved whether they are needed or not.
B. NASA has completely lost the ability and will to take risks or do anything hard. It can't even launch the Space Shuttle without spending billions assessing and hand wringing over every risk, and finding every excuse to postpone launches.
C. NASA was young during Apollo, it hadn't developed its current bureaucratic atrophy
D. U.S. prowess in engineering and science is fading fast. What prowess there is, is almost entirely focused on weapons and intelligence where there are VAST sums being spent each year. The amount of money being spent on this is like a years worth of money squandered in Iraq.
On the plus side Mike Griffin seems like a vast improvement over previous NASA administrators. He is about the only positive for the current NASA. The Apollo era NASA had a lot of great people who were there to accomplish something great, not just draw a paycheck and sit on their hands because they are afraid to launch anything.
I guess I should add some of the other prominent fabrictions used to justify wars and power grabs.
In 1898 the U.S.S. Maine exploded and sank in Havana's harbor. The investigation at the time contended it was a naval mine and sabotage by either the Cuban's or Spanish. In 1976 Admiral Hyman Rickover conducted an investigation that concluded it was most probably a self inflicted fire of some kind that ignited the powder magazine. The conspiracy theorists argue it was probably self inflicted by the U.S. to create a justification for declaring war against Spain. The Spanish American war that followed was in large part due to a massive yellow journalism campaign by William Randolph Hearst, who was parodied in Citizen Kane, and his newspaper empire. In fact the Spanish American war was just a pretext for a massive imperial expansion of the U.S. by seizing Spain's Caribbean assets, including Cuba, and the Phillippines. The occupation of the Phillippines lead to a long and bloody insurgency in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by the U.S., and where the U.S. routinely engaged in torture. The Phillipine-American War has largely been purged from the history the U.S. teaches its children because of its raw brutality, but it is a good historical precedent for U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Iraq.
In 1965 we have the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It is a bit different because I don't think anyone was actually killed. It appears it was a complete fabrication on the part of the Johnson administration used to push the Congress and the American people in to escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This was one of the more explosive revelations by Daniel Elsberg's leak of The Pentagon Papers. The Johnson administration claimed the North Vietnamese attacked the U.S.S Maddox out of the blue in international waters. Most information since contradicts this claim. From Wikipedia:
"Daniel Ellsberg, who was on duty in the Pentagon that night receiving messages from the ship, reports that the ships were on a secret mission, codenamed DeSoto Patrols, inside North Vietnamese territorial waters. Their purpose was to provoke the North Vietnamese into turning on their coastal defense radar so they could be plotted."
"Regarding claims that the attacks on the US were unprovoked, veterans of US Navy SEAL teams say that US-trained South Vietnamese commandos were active in the area on the days of the attacks. Deployed from Da Nang in Norwegian-built fast patrol boats, the Lien Doc Nguoi Nhia (LDNN, soldiers that fight under the sea), made attacks in the Gulf area on both of the nights in question."
Dude, if you can't make a coherent argument try not saying anything at all. Ad-hominen attacks, like yours, are normally the tool of last resort of people who can't pen an intelligent argument. If you can't make a coherent argument supporting your assertion that a poster is an "idiot" you end up looking like the idiot, not the person you are attacking.
The grandparent's assertions are something of a long shot, but they are entirely plausible. Power mad politicians and spooks have done things just that over-the-top and far fetched throughout history. The Nazi's most probably set fire to the Reichstag for precisely the same reason, they needed to stage a spectacular attack on the nation to use as justification for tightening their grip on power, and to suspend all of Germany's civil liberties, much like the U.S. and U.K are doing now in the wake of their "terror" attacks.
There has been long running speculation that FDR goaded Japan in to a confrontation by embargoing Japanese oil supplies in concert with the U.K and the Dutch. It put Japan in an untenable position since the wheels would eventually fall off their industry and military adventure in China without those oil supplies. The Japanese only had two options, capitulate or seize their oil supplies, especially in Indonesia, by force and declare war on the U.S. and U.K. Chances are FDR's administration turned a blind eye to the attack on Pearl Harbor because they WANTED a catastrophic "sneak" attack, that wasn't really that sneaky, to use as a tool to motivate a reluctant nation in to diving in to World War II with both feet, and to justify trampling civil liberties, in that case mostly aimed at the Japanese, in Germany it was aimed at Communists and Jews, while todays its mostly aimed at Muslims. To have a solid good versus evil myth to use for national propaganda you need scapegoats to blame and lynch.
"Just another example of the sheer, utter incompetence of the Bush administration."
Maybe you should consider the possibility that its not incompetence but malevolence, and that the Bush administration doesn't want to catch Bin Laden or break up Al Qaeda. When the Soviet Union collapsed the world started heading towards a dramatic reduction in military spending and decline in military threats and fear in the world. The right wingers absolutely HATED it. The couldn't stand the defense spending cuts in the U.S in particular.
9/11 was a godsend to them since not only did it allow them to reverse the defense cuts but they had an excuse to inflate defense and intelligence spending to new record levels today, and this is facing a rag tag terrorist band with few weapons, versus countering the massive armaments of the Soviet Union.
The right wing no doubt vowed that when a new threat came along to replace the Soviet Union, to justify the massive defense spending they love so much, to justify massive erosion in civil liberties they love so much, and to use as a fear mongering tool to get themselves elected, they no doubt took a vow to make sure they would do everything in their power that threat would last forever this time. There is a fair chance the current strategy is to nibble around the edges of Al Qaeda but make sure their leadership stays in tact so they can put out a video tape every six months or so to whip up a new round of fear.
The heart of the neocon philisophy is to create myths of good and evil to unite and heard the American people, American's always being good and everything they oppose being evil, hence the terms "Evil empire" and "Axis of Evil". This whole philosophy falls apart if you don't have something clearly defined, and clearly named to play the evil role, its Bin Laden on the global stage and its Al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Notice how the Bush administration uses the name Al-Zarqawi every time they talk about the war in Iraq, though in fact he probably has little to do with the vast majority of the insurgency which is based on former Baathists and Sunni's who are angry they've been thrown out of power. Al-Zarqawi is just evil role player the neocons love so much.
Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola, was on Charlie Rose last week on PBS. Rather than an interview it mostly turned in to him pitching one cell phone after another. He trotted out the Rokr, and proceeded to play Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, and indicated in fact he had loaded it entirely with nothing but Neil Diamond songs. Fortunately for him I doubt many people under 30 watch Charlie Rose, though he does the most intelligent interview show left on TV. If they had though Rokr would have been instantly consigned to loser status.
He also trotted out the Razor which I guess is a raging success for Motorola on Cingular. I think he said it runs around $400 and I'm thinking spend that much on a cell phone is a borderline crazy, even if it is kind of cool looking.
Call me old fashioned but I find cell phones convenient to make an occasional phone call when not at home, I find people who are buying them as fashion statements silly to the extreme. I could see getting email service if I travelled a lot but most of the time the email can wait. Do I want to watch TV on them no, do I want to play games on the tiny screen, no, certainly not at the rates U.S. cell phone companies will charge for every minute of everything you do on them. Do I want to squander hundreds of dollars on them in a never ending search for the coolest status symbol no, nor will I squander money in a never ending pursuit of a ring tone that is a perfect statement. They are just further evidence of how marketing, peer pressure and rampant consumerism push people in to insanity.
What have cell phones mostly done, created dangerous monsters out of people who use them while driving. Its made monsters out of people who insist on using them in public and loudly and rudely inflict their personal lives on strangers. Its made complete monsters out of teenagers, especially teenage girls, who can now spend their entire lives engaged in never ending communication just for the sake of communication, engaging in never ending gossip and social ridicule of their peers.
And of course the odds are high that people that are spending huge chunks of their lives using them are bombarding themselves with enough radiation there will probably soon be a massive spike in cancers which is kind of a karmic retribution for the non stop rudeness of cell phone abuse.
"But, where were the buses before the hurricane?"
The mayor of New Orleans has answered this in interviews though its hard to say how much truth there was to his answer and how much was CYA. At a time when most people who could drive were fleeing the city and taking care of themselves and their families, it was really hard to find people both willing and able to drive the bus loads of poor people out of the city, out of the city to destination unknown and with uncertain fuel availability. People with no cars and unable to drive were not good candidates to make in to instant bus drivers. The mayor claims they were having difficulty just finding drivers to driver people across town to the Superdome.
I doubt there was a government money issue at all in this very compressed time frame. This was mostly a massive lesson in personal responsibility. In a chaotic situtation bordering on anarchy the people who had the resources and the will to take care of themselves did and came out fine. The people who were operating under the assumption that it was someone else's responsibility to take care of them are the people that suffered. It is a problem with people who have settled in to life on welfare and food stamps that they no longer take personal responsibility. They expect and have been conditioned to expect some one to take care of them, feed, house and protect them for the rest of their life. For someone elderly or disabled this is a reasonable expectation in a modern society, but for able bodied people to expect this is pretty unreasonable. You can get away with this expectation in normal societal operation, but in times of crisis, when resources are scarce and strained, and anarchy is close, it is an attitude that will result in hardship at least and death at worst and it did.
Could you post your address please? A bunch of us would like to come and communicate with you :)
"Before the eurpoeans came to North America, there was no large government to enforce property ownership, and thus, there was none."
I'd say that is a pretty big over simplification. Native American tribes did for the most part have established territories. As white hunters and settlers attempted to seize that "property" native Americans did vigorously defend their it. Unfortunately they were just outgunned by your Europeans. There wasn't any civilized concept of property in it, the Europeans just had better weapons technology, and their enforcement of property rights came down to "might makes right" which is what it still is today. Your government can sieze your property in a myriad of ways through force:
- The IRS can seize it for failure to pay your fair share of the staggering tax burden placed on Americans since the passage of income and estate taxes in 1918. Estate taxes are in fact a blatant case of government seizing your property.
- Your property can be seized as part of many criminal prosecutions.
- Your property can be seized by the government under the recently dramatically expanded eminent domain. You will get paid for it but they government will decide how much, not you. They can now use eminent domain to take you property and hand it over to another private individual who is held in better favor by the government.
It would seem the government you seem to cherish so much can do pretty much the same thing to you that you want to do to the Libertarian.
"Libertarians are such a joke..."
Libertarians aren't the joke here its your complete misunderstanding of Libertarianism that is the joke.
First off you seem to think that Libertarians are out to abolish government and police forces. That is a complete distortion. From Wikipedia "all individuals should have the liberty to do as they wish with themselves and their property as long as those actions do not infringe on the same liberty of others."
You see when you seek to kick someone out of their house at gunpoint that is "coercion" and Libertarians will call up the local police force and have you arrested just like anyone else. Libertarians are for small government, not NO government. They keep police around to prevent one individual from intruding on another person's liberty and property. A key axiom, is that just as one individual can't coerce another, neither can government engage in coercion against an individual who is not impinging on the liberties of others. This would be a very welcome thing in the above case where governments in the U.S. can now seize your property and give it to someone else. It appears Libertarianism is very much needed in the U.S. these days.
In my personal opinion Libertarianism is right on when it comes to individuals and their freedoms. In economic terms its a little hard to figure. The current system is letting large corporations acquire way to much power at the expense of individuals, though much of that power grab is aided and abetted by government, not in spite of it. I'm not sure if Libertarianism would remedy this or make it worse. You would need sufficient regulation to insure corporations don't continue or expand their current very coercive role over individuals.
"The only political issue that should really matter right now is electoral reform."
How exactly are you going to produce electoral reform when most of the apparatus needed to reform it is completely dominated by two parties who have no motivation to allow a 3rd party to gain viability.
In states where there is a mechanism for citizens to put initiatives on the ballot you might have an outside shot, but I doubt you could muster enough votes to get it to pass, way to many people are lifer Democrats and Republicans and you have to do it one state at a time.
I suppose you could try to get it through the judiciary and law suites but all of the judges are Republicans and Democrats.
Unfortunately the electoral college, and the winner take all nature of Congressional races is enshrined in the Constitution so it is very hard to change. You would need to go to a parliamentary system where house seats are apportioned based on the number of votes each party gains to give third parties a real seat at the table, which isn't likely to happen in the U.S.
The other thing that kills the House races is the fact that the party that controls the state legislature after a census (or in the case of the Republicans in Texas apparently whenever they gain power) get to gerrymander the districts to insure they win the optimal number of seats.
"There was a saying that if the Russians had not participated in the ISS, what?"
If the Russian had not participated in the ISS it probably would have never flown, and if it had flown it would have been abandoned when the Columbia broke up.
The Russians Soyuz and Progress flights are the only thing thats kept it manned and supplied for the last 2 1/2 going on 3+ years, while the Shuttle has been grounded since the U.S. has no backup. Russia has been doing this at their own expense since the Congress prohibited NASA from paying Russia for its services over Russia's support for Iran's nuclear program. NASA has been freeloading off Russia for the duration of the Shuttle grounding. I thought the Russian's had said enough is enough and was going to refuse to fly any more missions with NASA astronauts or supplies though it appears they are throwing NASA a bone with continued missions now that the Shuttle is indefinitely grounded again.
The Russians built the two key modules in the ISS, Zarya and Zvezda, using designs that were basically planned to be Mir-2. For a litany of reasons the U.S. squandered billions of dollars and more than a decade, creating nothing but artists conceptions. Its open to debate if NASA could have built a long duration space station that would have worked since the only experience they had was the relatively short duration Skylab missions 30 years ago. The Russians by comparison had decades of practical experience and proved working designs from Mir and Salyuts.
"Finally, I would hardly consider the 4th Circuit ruling conservative."
I studiously avoided using the term conservative for precisely this reason. I used the term right wing, though a more appropriate term would be Fascist. Unfortunately the term Fascist has been conveniently cleansed from our vocabulary in general, and on the net by Godwin's law, so there is no usable term to accurately describe the ideology of the new Republican party and the Bush administration. It is certainly not conservatism, though some of it is neo-conservatism though that is a poorly understood, overly polite term and accurately describes only some people in the Bush administration.
Conservatism, theocracy and Fascism all reside in the same right wing of the simplistic linear left/right political model. The new Republican party is obviously right wing but only in the Fascist and theocratic sense. They're massively authoritarian bent puts them completely at odds with political conservatism, as does their propensity for foreign interventionism and imperialism.
Bush attempted to nominate Claude Allen to the 4th circuit to push it even further right. Allen is an Uncle Tom, far right winger, and protege of Jesse Helms, the Fascist icon of the Republican party. I'm not sure where his nomination ended up at this point though I think he was working in the White House campaigning against abortion, birth control and for abstinence as the only allowable form of sex education. The Democrats were blocking his nomination because he was barely qualified and an obvious idealog who would have made his decisions based on his ideology and not the Constitution.
The Republican's are trying to pack all the courts but to achieve their goal of seizing power they really only need to pack one circuit court and the Supreme court. The 4th is clearly the one they are going to run with for circuit courts and is where they will file every case they where they are seeking to eviscerate civil liberties, undermine democracy and expand the powers of the executive towards dictatorship.
Its hard to say how the Supreme court will swing with the two new appointments but all indications are Roberts is very Fascist leaning, based on the tone of the documents he wrote in the Reagan and first Bush administration. He is also completely in the pocket of big business. As much as the left despises Scalia, often deservedly so, his true conservatism runs counter to and obstructs the Fascist agenda of the Bush administration.
"Furthermore the 4th circuit stated that they were going to apply the Hamdi standard here and state that anyone accused of being an enemy combattant might have the burden or proof in proving that he is not, perhaps against a military tribunal. This is very scary indeed."
If you ever wondered how Padilla ended up in a Navy brig in South Carolina its precisely so he would be in the jurisdiction of the 4th circuit. It is the most right wing circuit in the U.S. which is why the Bush administration does everything it can to get all its cases heard there. They are using it and will continue to use it in their attempt to eviscerate civil liberties in this country and to continue to expand the powers of the executive to near dictatorial status.
For whetever reason the Supreme Court has consistently avoided making a definitive decision in Padilla's case and let Padilla rot in jail, each day setting precedent for abandoning an American citizens most basic right to due process. Padilla may be a complete low life, and a terrorist, but if he is the way this country works is you file charges, you make sure he has access to a lawyer, you give him his day in court with a presumption of innocence, and you let a jury of his peers decide, not a stacked military tribunal.
Unfortunately when this outlandish 4th circuit decision reaches the Supreme Court on appeal, this time, it will be a court with two new Bush appointments both of which will probably be right wing. This time they may well uphold the 4th circuit opinion and effectively turn the U.S. in to a police state and give the executive dictatorial powers. One can only hope that the 2 people Bush appoints will end up being true conservatives, and not far right Fascists, when they are actually sitting on the court. A true conservative would never never allow this savaging of basic due process civil liberties. A far right Fascist will think giving these new sweeping powers to the executive will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
"Everybody may of joined the South."
If only in 1861 the South had freed the slaves AND still seceded from the Union we might not have ended up with the bloated, out of control, power and money mad, government we have today. Abolition was just an inflammatory issue that nearly destroyed the nation. States rights was the important issue and the one where the South was on the right side in a federation, an issue Iraq is grappling with today in exactly the same way. When you have a big diverse nation federation helps different people in different regions tailor their government to their needs. If you have a single all powerful government in a big, diverse nation chances are it will make nearly everyone unhappy.
The other two red letter dates when the Federal government far overreached its limited role defined in the constitution the New Deal in the 1930's, with Medicare and Social Security, and construction of the Pentagon in World War II which created the permanent and vastly to large military industrial complex in this country. Both of these were only possible because of the 16th amendment in 1913 and the 1918 revenue act.
It should be pointed out that each of these four events was made possible by national crisis, and the ability of politicians to exploit them using fear to dramatically expand their power:
- Civil War
- World War I
- Depression
- World War II
Two more events to add to the list:
- 9/11
- Katrina
Katrina will almost certainly be used to overturn Posse Comitatus and allow the military to easily institute martial law and seize control of cities and states in times of "emergency" real or imagined, and as declared by the executive.
There is also a fair chance Katrina will be used to exploit the newly expanded power of eminent domain manufactured by the Supreme court this year to allow the government to seize private property and turn it over to well connected land developers. I wager all the low income neighborhoods of New Orleans will be cleared by troops breaking down doors and hauling people who are guilty of nothing off their private property. Their property will then be seized, bulldozed and given to Republican developers to build yuppie friendly condos and planned communities. In the process New Orleans will magically transform from a Democratic leaning city to a staunchly Republican one and push Louisiana firmly in to the Republican column. I wager as the refugees were being relocated Karl Rove was watching to insure they were relocated to areas where they could be absorbed without costing the Republicans any congressional seats, Texas being ideal because its big and the Republican's have so gerrymandered it that they have a complete lock on all its congressional seats.
"...Keeping the wealthy from becoming so wealthy that they are above laws and social norms is, I think, more important. It's also been a part of America's system since the beginning, most notably in things like the Estate Tax, which was specifically designed to keep an aristrocracy of worthless blueblood heirs from arising."
Well actually the estate tax wasn't instituted on a permanent basis until World War I and the Revenue Act of 1918 which also instituted the progressive income tax. 1861 and 1918 are the two red letter dates when the U.S. spawned a federal government with a voracious appetite for power, taxation and spending.
The Revenue Act of 1918 came out of both the need to pay for war costs and from the progressive movement, which sought to rein in the massive wealth concentration in the hands of the few, in particular the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. During this era the U.S. was much like it is today, a few people getting very wealthy, very fast, and while most people descended towards poverty.
The first income tax I can find reference to came from Lincoln in 1862 also to pay war costs during the Civil War, though he apparently had no constitutional power to levy it. It was very unpopular and was repelled in 1867. From 1867 until 1913 when income tax rear its ugly head again, 90% of Federal revenue came from taxes on liquor and tobacco. Of course the government was much smaller and spent a lot less then.
The Federal government wasn't empowered to tax income or presumably estates until 1913 when the 16th amendment passed.
The founding fathers sought to frustrate the formation of aristocracy through legal and political structure not through taxation. The founding fathers weren't really that fond of taxes, as you recall taxation by King George was a key reason they revolted.
As an aside most American's don't realize that Connecticut is still considered to be the Tory heartland, the place where wealthy blue bloods still yearn for aristocracy. The Bush family was largely Connecticut based, until the move to Texas, and are thought to be included in that number, closet Tories yearning for rule by the elite, in particular by themselves though a family dynasty.
"Do you honestly believe a major city and even more major port would NOT be rebuilt?"
Repairing the port has nothing to do with the city, they have little to do with each other. Even then I've heard numerous people suggest Baton Rouge would be a lot better place for the major port at the bottom of the Mississippi, it has better transportation access and is much less vulnerable to hurricanes.
I'm sure downtown, the French quarter and the Garden district will be rebuilt. I wager all of the poor neighborhoods are going to be bulldozed with people's possesions in them.
You aren't going to easily repair homes that have sat in toxic waste for more than a month by just replacing the sheetrock. Foundations, floors and walls will all be shot. Sure it will be done for all the expensive or historic homes, but nobody is going to spend the money to rebuild already substandard housing in the poor neighborhoods.
I'm sure New Orleans will be rebuilt, its going to cost the country staggering sums of money, money it doesn't have and will have to borrow. Its also going to require massive investment in new levees in perpetuity, or the same thing is going to happen again. Chances are it will go like it did this cycle, we spend a lot to build new levees and in the future all the funding gets cut, they deteriorate and then a hurricane will breech them again.
Fact is that place is sinking, ocean levels are rising and hurricanes have been rising in frequency and intensity for the last ten years. I'm sure it will be rebuilt much to the regret of American tax payers but the city that comes out the other end will have been cleansed of the poor, and will be another expensive accident waiting to happen.
"And the Democratic party is more dominated by progressive socialists than ever before,"
The Democratic party is less progressive and less socialist than its been in a hundred years. Clinton pulled the party way to the center to win, evidenced by the fact that Welfare reform occurred on his watch. That would have never happened when the Democratic party was progressive socialist. The Democrats have adopted this losing strategy that they have to be in the center and act and talk like Republicans to win. Unfortunately the right doesn't buy it and vote for them and the left is increasingly indifferent to them. The only people who vote for Democrats anymore are people who are voting against Republicans.
"the incorrectness of the GP's assertions that Hubble was always the bane of conservatives."
I think the GGP maybe overstated the significance of Hubble to "conservatives", I doubt they really care about it much one way or another. The GGP was correct in stating that conservatives have generally despised NASA because it is a exactly what they hate in government, a politburo full of civil servants that are hard to fire and that squanders money and produces little. Of course Republican does not equal conservative which is maybe why there is confusion here. Republican's seem to have turned in to social conservatives and economic socialists because they are creating big government and squandering money faster than the Democrats ever have.
The GGP is also correct that Bush administration and the new Republican party does in fact seem to have a huge prejudice against science which was so true in previous Republican administrations, though Nixon is the one that killed Apollo and put NASA on to its current road to nowhere. The new Republican party owes it power to the religious right. Religious fundamentalism and science have never coexisted well.
"Debatable. There's a high cost to relocating, be it the cost of purchasing/renting property, transit to the new location, or even more often neglected, the time spent without any income and trying to find it."
Dude you are totally not getting it. All the poor don't own anything in New Orleans, they have already been relocated, and they will be supported where they are with billions of our tax dollars. I doubt they will even be allowed to get back in to the city to recover their belongings. Chances are high their rented apartments and homes will be bulldozed with their possesions inside and hauled away in dump trucks, and the slum lords will get some chump change for their land. All the cleared land will be seized under eminent domain and turned over to rich friends of the Bush administration to develop, because the Supreme Court said that is A-OK earlier this year.
It will be months to years before the housing will be rebuilt and when it is, unless its government subsidized, they poor wont be able to afford it. They will be forced to get jobs elsewhere and restart their lives elsewhere and THEN the high cost of relocating will prevent them from going back to New Orleans.
I can assure you all the affluent white residents and all the affluent white politicians are cherishing the prospect of rebuilding New Orleans and hanging out a sign that says to the poor and criminal element Keep Out. This turned out to be the only way to fix a completely disfunctional city. I wager in a few years it will be more affluent and drawing more tourism that it did before, because the corruption, crime and poverty which have been a perpetual drag on the city in every respect.
Unfortunately I wager the redevelopment is going to end up in the hands of the rich friends of the Bush administration, be corrupt in its own right, they will make a killing on it at tax payer expense and they will no doubt build a replacement that has all the ambiance of Las Vegas.
"Hubble was concieved, designed, and mostly built during Republican presidencies." ...which means absolutely nothing. It was funded by Democratic congresses, don't think it ever rose to the point any of the Presidents during those periods cared one way or another about it. Lyman Spitzer is the one who deserves the lion's share of the credit for it. Handing out credit for it to politicians for just doling out our tax dollars is silly.
I think the grandparent was pointing out the current President is more science hostile than any President in memory. George W. does emulate Reagan in a lot of ways, especially in squandering money, but the new Republican party has very little in common with the drand ole part of old, it is certainly dominated by anti science Christian fundamentalists more than it ever has been.
"A thug is a thug."
Why yes they are, the Republicans look more and more like thugs every day. Thats why they get along with the Chinese so well.
"Oh, and fuck you too for the ad-hominem."
Dude you better get a thicker skin if you are going to post around here, "thick, dwelling in the past, skull" is pretty mild for ad hominem attacks around here.
Failing that maybe you should just stop regurgitated 30 year old anticommunist rhetoric when it no longer fits.