I hate to break it to you but that's pretty much how war works, by definition. You don't get judicial review on the battlefield. You get shot at. If you don't like it then don't take up arms.
The war has a clearly defined enemy, which you would know if you had actually bothered to read the legislation that we're discussing. It defines the enemy as Al Quada, the Taliban, and those persons or groups that support them.
The Executive neither has nor has claimed a blank check. You may disagree with the drone campaign, I'm not entirely certain that I support it, but let us at least agree to confine our discussion to the facts rather than making shit up.
As noted before and reflected in your original posted link, life expectancy and general health appears to have declined significantly as hunter-gatherers transitioned to agriculture.
Correlation does not indicate causation. Compare the population density of hunter-gatherer societies against agricultural ones. I wonder in which society you'd be more likely to contract smallpox?
indicates that you are grasping at straws to support your belief when confronted with contrary evidence, in my opinion.
Do tell, what is that you think I believe? I've never claimed that sugar doesn't contribute to dental (or other health) problems. I simply stated that it's not the problem. I'm sorry that you failed to parse the word "the" in my post. I suppose I should have been clearer and said "It's not the problem I would be most concerned with."
I regard the obsession over sugar as nonsensical, given that 2/3'rds of the population fails to meet recommended guidelines for physical activity. More than one quarter (28%) of the population is completely inactive. Yep, clearly it's soda that's the problem....
"how do we feed 7 billion people without carb-heavy diets?"
I only raised that point to point out the unsustainable nature of fad diets like Atkins or Paleo. There are people (not you) in this discussion that seem to think modern agriculture is a bad thing. Unless they propose to kill off the bulk of humanity I fail to see what the alternative is.
Firearms can be used to defend innocents or to kill them. Automobiles can be used to transport sick people to hospital or by drunks to make a beer run. Tor is used by activists to elude hostile regimes and by child porn traffickers. Nuclear fission can be used peacefully, to produce carbon free energy and medical isotopes, or to destroy cities and kill on a mass scale.
Most technology is capable of being abused in the wrong hands. We don't halt R&D because of these concerns.
What makes you think I'm a member of the GOP, or any other political party for that matter? The GOP holds views that are antithetical to some of my most closely held beliefs. So do the Democrats. I evaluate the candidates on my ballot on a case by case and issue by issue basis. I have no party affiliation at the current time. From 2000 to 2009 I was a registered Democrat, for what that's worth.
Depending on the issue, I'm sympathetic to both parties. On the issue at hand I can't really get behind either one of them. At the end of the day I'd like to see a Conservationist Republican (they do exist) make this a mainstream issue, because I think you'll need a little bit of "Nixon goes to China" if you're going to break the political logger-jam on this issue.
Let's say for the sake of the argument that BHO had blown all his political capital on a carbon tax instead of the ACA; do you think that would be the best way to implement such a sweeping change? No, it would have been doomed to failure, or eventual repeal, as happened in Australia. You need buy-in from across the political spectrum when you're dealing with problems of this scale, otherwise it's an uphill fight to just pass the legislation, then an endless rear-guard action to defend it.
One thing I hope we can agree on: Treating the other side with contempt, as was shown to me earlier in the thread (not by you) is not likely to be terribly productive. I was called "willfully ignorant" by someone even though I agreed with 90% of what he had to say. If that's the way you treat the people who largely agree with you how do you treat the people that you're trying to win over? Or is the plan to just steamroll them into submission?
The law that he linked does not say what he thinks it says. The notion that people captured on the battlefield can be held without trial until the end of hostilities is not a new one. Nor is the notion that unlawful combatants can be held accountable for their actions.
I see nothing in that legislation that authorizes military custody for people on American soil. Such an action is arguably permissible in limited instances, but I'm not seeing it within the legislation that random blog you linked is griping about.
And it's just a couple of guys in a room, none of whom are particularly impartial.
That's not new either. FDR personally ordered the death of Yamamoto. He didn't get a trial, nor was he killed by happenstance on the battlefield, he was deliberately targeted for assassination. I don't see the practical difference between that and our current drone campaign. Dead is dead, it doesn't matter if you're shot down by a manually piloted P-38 or bite it when an Air Force tech halfway around the world sends a hellfire missile your way.
Well, I guess a quick Google search makes you a subject matter expert.
Speaking of ignoring significant evidence, I see you opted not to respond to or even acknowledge my point about flossing statistics. You'll forgive me if I reject the notion that sugar intake is the public health issue we need to be most worried about.
Even if I accept the premise, here's a little devil's advocate for you: Find a way to meet the caloric requirements of 7,000,000,000 human beings without carb-centric diets. There's a reason why a pound of pasta costs $0.99 while chicken goes for $1.99 a pound. It's worse if you examine it on a calorie for calorie basis, the chicken is nearly six times as expensive in that instance. The disparity is worse with other forms of meat, chicken is probably the cheapest meat you can commonly get, at least in the United States.
More like the "we can kill an American anywhere on Earth except within the US, if we think he is a bad person"
That's not the power that the Executive has actually claimed for itself. They've claimed the power to kill Americans engaged in hostilities against the United States on foreign battlefields. Devil's Advocate: Benedict Arnold led enemy troops on the battlefield. If a solider in the Continental Army had the opportunity to take a shot at him would you regard it as murder?
Or "the president or someone he delegates to, can decide you are a bad person, and can have you secretly detained and removed from US soil, without any judicial oversight or notification to anyone, and then keep you secretly detained for as long as they want"
I'm not skeptical about climate change, I've offered ideas to reduce our carbon emissions within this discussion. My skepticism is twofold:
1) I have a hard time believing the doomsday rhetoric that's loudly repeated by some. The climate has never been static, not even for the geologically insignificant amount of time that humans have been around. We've survived climate change before, without the benefit of modern technology and understanding, we'll survive it again.
2) I can't take seriously ideas that are technically or politically unrealistic. I've read ideas as outlandish as "Cover the entire State of Arizona in solar panels" or "Adopt a one child policy." The first idea is obviously unfeasible, both technically and politically. The second is antithetical to Western notions of free choice and self-determination.
Just to be clear, I think that anthropological climate change is real and the changes resulting therefrom are going to be a real bitch for civilization to adapt to. We need to do what we can to reduce carbon emissions, but I also think that we should have realistic expectations, which means that we need to start taking steps to adapt to the changes that are coming regardless of what we do. Wave a magic wand and cut emissions to zero, change is still coming.
That's another area where I disagree with you. I do agree that the developing countries are going to have a hard time of it but I do not believe that humanity is fucked "through and through," even if the worst case scenarios are to be believed. We've survived worse, and the projections are hard to take seriously given our success rate to date. To call the climate complicated is a vast understatement, I frankly think it's the height of human arrogance to think that we can accurately predict what's going to happen decades or centuries from now. We can come up with a general and worrisome trend, but to say that we need to do X right now or Y is going to happen?
Carbon emissions are a problem, one that we need to address. The difference between me and most of the green crowd is that I'm a pragmatic realist. I do not expect people in the mainstream to trade civilization today for potential benefits tomorrow. Hell, most of the green crowd isn't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reduce their carbon footprint to match that of the third world. Do you own an automobile, eat meat, use air conditioning, take heated showers, travel by air, or use a clothes drier? If the answer to any one of those questions is yes.....
I will give you points for supporting nuclear power, that's probably my single biggest pet peeve with the green movement. If the worst case scenarios about climate change do come to fruition I hope each and every anti-nuclear activist looks in the mirror, bemoans the lost opportunity, and take a truly meaningful step to reduce their own carbon footprint.
but the fact of the matter is that most animals simply don't get cavities. Seriously! I mean, their teeth are very capable of getting cavities, but haven't you wondered why humans have teeth that "go bad" without regular maintenance? Have you ever known a dog to floss?
Have you ever actually owned a dog or a cat? Every one I've ever had eventually developed problems with their teeth as they aged, usually ending with the tooth in question needing to be pulled. You don't even need my personal anecdote, it's right here at the top of a Google search: While dental caries is not common in the domestic pet, it does occur and should be watched for.
The idea that all calories are equal is a tempting one
I didn't claim that all calories are equal, I said that exercise and flossing are more effective ways to improve health than obsessing about sugar intake.
And for the record, I eat like a pig, am overweight, etc (though I'm working on it now that I have time).
Now that you have time?! Thank you for proving my point that most people just can't be bothered. It's your bloody life we're talking about and your excuse for being a fat ass is "I didn't have the time?" You couldn't find three hours a week to go for a fucking walk? That's only 25 minutes a day. I really hate that weak ass excuse. Blame your proclivity for eating, I'm a foodie, I'd understand that, eating is one of the best pleasures of the flesh.
The time excuse is bogus. I have friends that manage to work full time, raise kids, and train for marathons, a commitment that requires running 15 to 40 miles a week. We've had several athleticpresidents, including complete fitness nuts, all of whom found the time to maintain their health despite the office. I highly doubt that your obligations are more time consuming than those of the President of the United States.
You would think they would at least have to run it by a judge
That's not how the American judicial system works. Courts can only rule on cases and controversies, you can't go to a Federal Judge to get his opinion on the legality of a desired course of action. That's what lawyers are for, both in private and government practice. Lawyer-shopping as you describe does happen, both in the private sector and in Government, but it's generally considered ill advised to ignore the mainstream legal consensus in favor of fringe opinions. If the matter does ultimately end up in court you're not going to have much of a leg to stand on.
You realize you missed the perfect opportunity for a Dr. Strangelove reference, right? The industrial flood complex has teamed up with the American Dental Association to contaminate his precious bodily fluids. Bastards.....
I think you've over-thought my post, I was mostly making a snarky response to the nonsensical argument that sugar is the problem.:)
It's hard for me to get worked up about sugar. Want to talk about heart disease and attribute it to our sugar intake? I have a single word response: exercise. Regarding dental caries, studies suggest that only 10% to 40% of the population flosses on a regular basis. The variation depends on how you define 'regular', but the 'never flosses' group is invariably >50% of the population. Flossing comes with health benefits that extend outside of the mouth and makes you more attractive to potential mates (as does exercise) but most people can't be bothered.
Society has an obsession with sugar that has gotten out of hand, in my not so humble opinion. I've read articles written by MDs condemning the intake of fruit juices, in Runner's World of all publications! That's a magazine aimed at distance runners, do you really think that a few glasses of orange juice are a problem for that population? "Reduce your intake of fruit juice to lose weight!" Umm, fuck you, I'm running 20+ miles a week, I'll drink as much orange juice as I want. I may even have a soda.:) (I actually hate soda, but you get the idea....)
Since you brought it up, I don't dispute the "diseases of civilization" hypothesis, it's certainly true on the macroscopic scale of western civilization. On the individual level though? I don't buy it. There are things one can do to manage the "risks" of civilization, starting with exercise and sensible dietary choices. The people that don't do these things, well, that's their loss. They're still better off than they would be in a hunter-gatherer society.
*sigh*, I don't think I'm getting through to you. BHO wasn't elected on the platform of a carbon tax, far from it. We can debate the reasons why he won two elections, but that's not really the topic here, is it?
Exactly one democratic country has managed to institute a carbon tax and they repealed it within two years. There are other examples of taxes on fossil fuels in democratic countries but an explicit carbon tax? I'm only aware of the example of Australia and as already stated they repealed it. Australia may not be Scandinavia, but they're a lot more open to collectivist ideas than the United States. If you can't sustain it there what makes you think it's politically realistic here?
If people can be made to understand that all the cheap transportation and other goodies they get from hydrocarbons today are only cheap because
If people can be "made to understand?" That's the exact same argument BHO makes regarding the ACA, it's only unpopular because the masses don't understand it. I find that argument insulting, but I don't need to debate it with you; the onus is on you to explain how you're going to "make" people understand, within the confines of our democratic society, where differing opinions compete in the marketplace of ideas.
For better or worse anthropological climate change is not a pressing issue for the lion's share of the electorate. It consistently ranks at the bottom of polling. This holds true across the political spectrum, left, right, and the middle. It's hard for people to get worked up about a distant problem when they're worried about putting food on the table. This isn't unique to climate change, see deficit spending for another example, one that's easier for people to wrap their heads around.
If the choice is between their development and ruining the entire ecosystem worldwide, then yes, absolutely.
Are you going to enlist in and serve with the army of occupation? Because I'm sure as hell not. It would be an amusing public debate, I'll grant you that, "Uncle Sam WANTS YOU! To keep the brown people poor and downtrodden. Enlist today!"
and it could be counterbalanced by e.g. funding nuclear and fusion (and solar and wind where it makes sense) in those developing countries on our dime
Not realistic. You're never going to sell the first world electorate on this sort of massive wealth transfer. Certainly not the American electorate and frankly I doubt that even the EU electorate would go for it. They're about to throw Greece under the bus, despite the immediate negative consequences (not distant ones, as with climate change) it will have. The bill to save Greece (population 11 million) from their own stupidity is significantly less than the bill would be to develop the third world (population in the billions) to levels that the first world has yet to achieve.
Again, I'm a realist, and I just don't see that happening. We live in a democracy, and "I'm going to raise your taxes!" is not a recipe for electoral success.
It could happen if there was to be some sort of grand compromise between right and left, where the new carbon taxes offset existing taxes. Do you see our political system producing that sort of compromise? Frankly I don't see either side going for it, the left is too invested in expanding Government (which costs money) and the right is too invested in beating the left. There's a severe deficit of trust on both sides, no remaining elder statesmen, and precious little incentive (see gerrymandering and primaries) to work with each other.
Another depressing point to consider, let's say you wave a magic wand and get the peoples of the first world to go for a carbon tax high enough to influence consumption. What happens in the third world? Are you going to deny them development at gunpoint? Because that's what it would take. They don't even have to aspire to an American standard of living, the EU carbon footprint is damaging enough, particularly when one considers the higher population of the third world.
I did not say they had to cost the same, I said they had to be affordable, which is not the same thing. You're dangerously close to conveying the false assumption that cost is the sole determining factor in the marketplace and I know you're smarter than that.
The only electric car on the market that provides the range I need for my daily commute costs $70,000. That is so far out of my price range that it's not funny; I could buy a fucking house for less than that where I live. I drive a Honda Civic LX, MSRP ~$18,000, which is about all I'm able to spend on an automobile and still keep a roof over my head.
To add insult to injury, even if I could afford a Telsa it's hardly a carbon neutral means of transport. Setting aside the carbon invested in production, where does the electricity to operate it come from? The green movement largely rejects nuclear power, which is the only scalable carbon free energy source available with today's technology. Even if you're willing to spend $70,000 on an automobile it still leaves you with a carbon footprint that dwarfs that of any third world resident.
The last three words of the preceding paragraph are the ones you need to worry about, because the third world is going to develop regardless of what the first world does. They're not going to meekly accept living in poverty, nor is it not fair to ask them to do so.
What's the solution? In my humble opinion it's threefold; we continue to invest in future technologies that will render this discussion moot, we expand the technologies we currently have (nuclear) that offer carbon free energy, and we start trying to adapt civilization to the climatological changes that are going to happen whether we like it or not. Humanity could reduce emissions to zero tomorrow and change is still coming. We'd best prepare for it.
Think of how difficult it is right now to make an agreement with Iran--it might well happen but there's A LOT of pushback because of domestic narratives.
The consequences of a failure to come to terms with Iran do not rise to the level of mutually assured destruction. Nor is the regime in Beijing a revolutionary one that's trying to export their ideology to their neighbors while identifying the United States as evil embodied. We were able find enough common ground with the Soviet Union to make agreements that both sides could live with, I'm optimistic enough to believe that the same will happen with China if push comes to shove.
Iran? Well, the jury is still out on that one. I tend to agree with David Brooks where Iran is concerned, I'm hoping for the best there but am prepared for and fully expect the worst. Thankfully the worst case scenario where Iran is concerned will not pose an existential threat to civilization as we know it.
Touchscreens will never be able to compete with physical keyboards for speed regardless of how you lay out the alphabet. Fine motor skills work best with tactile feedback, which is denied to you when using a flat touchscreen.
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I hate to break it to you but that's pretty much how war works, by definition. You don't get judicial review on the battlefield. You get shot at. If you don't like it then don't take up arms.
The war has a clearly defined enemy, which you would know if you had actually bothered to read the legislation that we're discussing. It defines the enemy as Al Quada, the Taliban, and those persons or groups that support them.
The Executive neither has nor has claimed a blank check. You may disagree with the drone campaign, I'm not entirely certain that I support it, but let us at least agree to confine our discussion to the facts rather than making shit up.
As noted before and reflected in your original posted link, life expectancy and general health appears to have declined significantly as hunter-gatherers transitioned to agriculture.
Correlation does not indicate causation. Compare the population density of hunter-gatherer societies against agricultural ones. I wonder in which society you'd be more likely to contract smallpox?
indicates that you are grasping at straws to support your belief when confronted with contrary evidence, in my opinion.
Do tell, what is that you think I believe? I've never claimed that sugar doesn't contribute to dental (or other health) problems. I simply stated that it's not the problem. I'm sorry that you failed to parse the word "the" in my post. I suppose I should have been clearer and said "It's not the problem I would be most concerned with."
I regard the obsession over sugar as nonsensical, given that 2/3'rds of the population fails to meet recommended guidelines for physical activity. More than one quarter (28%) of the population is completely inactive. Yep, clearly it's soda that's the problem....
"how do we feed 7 billion people without carb-heavy diets?"
I only raised that point to point out the unsustainable nature of fad diets like Atkins or Paleo. There are people (not you) in this discussion that seem to think modern agriculture is a bad thing. Unless they propose to kill off the bulk of humanity I fail to see what the alternative is.
What's your point?
Firearms can be used to defend innocents or to kill them. Automobiles can be used to transport sick people to hospital or by drunks to make a beer run. Tor is used by activists to elude hostile regimes and by child porn traffickers. Nuclear fission can be used peacefully, to produce carbon free energy and medical isotopes, or to destroy cities and kill on a mass scale.
Most technology is capable of being abused in the wrong hands. We don't halt R&D because of these concerns.
What makes you think I'm a member of the GOP, or any other political party for that matter? The GOP holds views that are antithetical to some of my most closely held beliefs. So do the Democrats. I evaluate the candidates on my ballot on a case by case and issue by issue basis. I have no party affiliation at the current time. From 2000 to 2009 I was a registered Democrat, for what that's worth.
Depending on the issue, I'm sympathetic to both parties. On the issue at hand I can't really get behind either one of them. At the end of the day I'd like to see a Conservationist Republican (they do exist) make this a mainstream issue, because I think you'll need a little bit of "Nixon goes to China" if you're going to break the political logger-jam on this issue.
Let's say for the sake of the argument that BHO had blown all his political capital on a carbon tax instead of the ACA; do you think that would be the best way to implement such a sweeping change? No, it would have been doomed to failure, or eventual repeal, as happened in Australia. You need buy-in from across the political spectrum when you're dealing with problems of this scale, otherwise it's an uphill fight to just pass the legislation, then an endless rear-guard action to defend it.
One thing I hope we can agree on: Treating the other side with contempt, as was shown to me earlier in the thread (not by you) is not likely to be terribly productive. I was called "willfully ignorant" by someone even though I agreed with 90% of what he had to say. If that's the way you treat the people who largely agree with you how do you treat the people that you're trying to win over? Or is the plan to just steamroll them into submission?
The law that he linked does not say what he thinks it says. The notion that people captured on the battlefield can be held without trial until the end of hostilities is not a new one. Nor is the notion that unlawful combatants can be held accountable for their actions.
I see nothing in that legislation that authorizes military custody for people on American soil. Such an action is arguably permissible in limited instances, but I'm not seeing it within the legislation that random blog you linked is griping about.
And it's just a couple of guys in a room, none of whom are particularly impartial.
That's not new either. FDR personally ordered the death of Yamamoto. He didn't get a trial, nor was he killed by happenstance on the battlefield, he was deliberately targeted for assassination. I don't see the practical difference between that and our current drone campaign. Dead is dead, it doesn't matter if you're shot down by a manually piloted P-38 or bite it when an Air Force tech halfway around the world sends a hellfire missile your way.
Well, I guess a quick Google search makes you a subject matter expert.
Speaking of ignoring significant evidence, I see you opted not to respond to or even acknowledge my point about flossing statistics. You'll forgive me if I reject the notion that sugar intake is the public health issue we need to be most worried about.
Even if I accept the premise, here's a little devil's advocate for you: Find a way to meet the caloric requirements of 7,000,000,000 human beings without carb-centric diets. There's a reason why a pound of pasta costs $0.99 while chicken goes for $1.99 a pound. It's worse if you examine it on a calorie for calorie basis, the chicken is nearly six times as expensive in that instance. The disparity is worse with other forms of meat, chicken is probably the cheapest meat you can commonly get, at least in the United States.
More like the "we can kill an American anywhere on Earth except within the US, if we think he is a bad person"
That's not the power that the Executive has actually claimed for itself. They've claimed the power to kill Americans engaged in hostilities against the United States on foreign battlefields. Devil's Advocate: Benedict Arnold led enemy troops on the battlefield. If a solider in the Continental Army had the opportunity to take a shot at him would you regard it as murder?
Or "the president or someone he delegates to, can decide you are a bad person, and can have you secretly detained and removed from US soil, without any judicial oversight or notification to anyone, and then keep you secretly detained for as long as they want"
Citation needed.
I'm not skeptical about climate change, I've offered ideas to reduce our carbon emissions within this discussion. My skepticism is twofold:
1) I have a hard time believing the doomsday rhetoric that's loudly repeated by some. The climate has never been static, not even for the geologically insignificant amount of time that humans have been around. We've survived climate change before, without the benefit of modern technology and understanding, we'll survive it again.
2) I can't take seriously ideas that are technically or politically unrealistic. I've read ideas as outlandish as "Cover the entire State of Arizona in solar panels" or "Adopt a one child policy." The first idea is obviously unfeasible, both technically and politically. The second is antithetical to Western notions of free choice and self-determination.
Just to be clear, I think that anthropological climate change is real and the changes resulting therefrom are going to be a real bitch for civilization to adapt to. We need to do what we can to reduce carbon emissions, but I also think that we should have realistic expectations, which means that we need to start taking steps to adapt to the changes that are coming regardless of what we do. Wave a magic wand and cut emissions to zero, change is still coming.
Then we are fucked through and through.
That's another area where I disagree with you. I do agree that the developing countries are going to have a hard time of it but I do not believe that humanity is fucked "through and through," even if the worst case scenarios are to be believed. We've survived worse, and the projections are hard to take seriously given our success rate to date. To call the climate complicated is a vast understatement, I frankly think it's the height of human arrogance to think that we can accurately predict what's going to happen decades or centuries from now. We can come up with a general and worrisome trend, but to say that we need to do X right now or Y is going to happen?
Carbon emissions are a problem, one that we need to address. The difference between me and most of the green crowd is that I'm a pragmatic realist. I do not expect people in the mainstream to trade civilization today for potential benefits tomorrow. Hell, most of the green crowd isn't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reduce their carbon footprint to match that of the third world. Do you own an automobile, eat meat, use air conditioning, take heated showers, travel by air, or use a clothes drier? If the answer to any one of those questions is yes.....
I will give you points for supporting nuclear power, that's probably my single biggest pet peeve with the green movement. If the worst case scenarios about climate change do come to fruition I hope each and every anti-nuclear activist looks in the mirror, bemoans the lost opportunity, and take a truly meaningful step to reduce their own carbon footprint.
but the fact of the matter is that most animals simply don't get cavities. Seriously! I mean, their teeth are very capable of getting cavities, but haven't you wondered why humans have teeth that "go bad" without regular maintenance? Have you ever known a dog to floss?
Have you ever actually owned a dog or a cat? Every one I've ever had eventually developed problems with their teeth as they aged, usually ending with the tooth in question needing to be pulled. You don't even need my personal anecdote, it's right here at the top of a Google search: While dental caries is not common in the domestic pet, it does occur and should be watched for.
The idea that all calories are equal is a tempting one
I didn't claim that all calories are equal, I said that exercise and flossing are more effective ways to improve health than obsessing about sugar intake.
And for the record, I eat like a pig, am overweight, etc (though I'm working on it now that I have time).
Now that you have time?! Thank you for proving my point that most people just can't be bothered. It's your bloody life we're talking about and your excuse for being a fat ass is "I didn't have the time?" You couldn't find three hours a week to go for a fucking walk? That's only 25 minutes a day. I really hate that weak ass excuse. Blame your proclivity for eating, I'm a foodie, I'd understand that, eating is one of the best pleasures of the flesh.
The time excuse is bogus. I have friends that manage to work full time, raise kids, and train for marathons, a commitment that requires running 15 to 40 miles a week. We've had several athletic presidents, including complete fitness nuts, all of whom found the time to maintain their health despite the office. I highly doubt that your obligations are more time consuming than those of the President of the United States.
"Russians don't take a dump son without a plan."
You would think they would at least have to run it by a judge
That's not how the American judicial system works. Courts can only rule on cases and controversies, you can't go to a Federal Judge to get his opinion on the legality of a desired course of action. That's what lawyers are for, both in private and government practice. Lawyer-shopping as you describe does happen, both in the private sector and in Government, but it's generally considered ill advised to ignore the mainstream legal consensus in favor of fringe opinions. If the matter does ultimately end up in court you're not going to have much of a leg to stand on.
You realize you missed the perfect opportunity for a Dr. Strangelove reference, right? The industrial flood complex has teamed up with the American Dental Association to contaminate his precious bodily fluids. Bastards.....
I think you've over-thought my post, I was mostly making a snarky response to the nonsensical argument that sugar is the problem. :)
It's hard for me to get worked up about sugar. Want to talk about heart disease and attribute it to our sugar intake? I have a single word response: exercise. Regarding dental caries, studies suggest that only 10% to 40% of the population flosses on a regular basis. The variation depends on how you define 'regular', but the 'never flosses' group is invariably >50% of the population. Flossing comes with health benefits that extend outside of the mouth and makes you more attractive to potential mates (as does exercise) but most people can't be bothered.
Society has an obsession with sugar that has gotten out of hand, in my not so humble opinion. I've read articles written by MDs condemning the intake of fruit juices, in Runner's World of all publications! That's a magazine aimed at distance runners, do you really think that a few glasses of orange juice are a problem for that population? "Reduce your intake of fruit juice to lose weight!" Umm, fuck you, I'm running 20+ miles a week, I'll drink as much orange juice as I want. I may even have a soda. :) (I actually hate soda, but you get the idea....)
Since you brought it up, I don't dispute the "diseases of civilization" hypothesis, it's certainly true on the macroscopic scale of western civilization. On the individual level though? I don't buy it. There are things one can do to manage the "risks" of civilization, starting with exercise and sensible dietary choices. The people that don't do these things, well, that's their loss. They're still better off than they would be in a hunter-gatherer society.
*sigh*, I don't think I'm getting through to you. BHO wasn't elected on the platform of a carbon tax, far from it. We can debate the reasons why he won two elections, but that's not really the topic here, is it?
Exactly one democratic country has managed to institute a carbon tax and they repealed it within two years. There are other examples of taxes on fossil fuels in democratic countries but an explicit carbon tax? I'm only aware of the example of Australia and as already stated they repealed it. Australia may not be Scandinavia, but they're a lot more open to collectivist ideas than the United States. If you can't sustain it there what makes you think it's politically realistic here?
If people can be made to understand that all the cheap transportation and other goodies they get from hydrocarbons today are only cheap because
If people can be "made to understand?" That's the exact same argument BHO makes regarding the ACA, it's only unpopular because the masses don't understand it. I find that argument insulting, but I don't need to debate it with you; the onus is on you to explain how you're going to "make" people understand, within the confines of our democratic society, where differing opinions compete in the marketplace of ideas.
For better or worse anthropological climate change is not a pressing issue for the lion's share of the electorate. It consistently ranks at the bottom of polling. This holds true across the political spectrum, left, right, and the middle. It's hard for people to get worked up about a distant problem when they're worried about putting food on the table. This isn't unique to climate change, see deficit spending for another example, one that's easier for people to wrap their heads around.
If the choice is between their development and ruining the entire ecosystem worldwide, then yes, absolutely.
Are you going to enlist in and serve with the army of occupation? Because I'm sure as hell not. It would be an amusing public debate, I'll grant you that, "Uncle Sam WANTS YOU! To keep the brown people poor and downtrodden. Enlist today!"
and it could be counterbalanced by e.g. funding nuclear and fusion (and solar and wind where it makes sense) in those developing countries on our dime
Not realistic. You're never going to sell the first world electorate on this sort of massive wealth transfer. Certainly not the American electorate and frankly I doubt that even the EU electorate would go for it. They're about to throw Greece under the bus, despite the immediate negative consequences (not distant ones, as with climate change) it will have. The bill to save Greece (population 11 million) from their own stupidity is significantly less than the bill would be to develop the third world (population in the billions) to levels that the first world has yet to achieve.
Again, I'm a realist, and I just don't see that happening. We live in a democracy, and "I'm going to raise your taxes!" is not a recipe for electoral success.
It could happen if there was to be some sort of grand compromise between right and left, where the new carbon taxes offset existing taxes. Do you see our political system producing that sort of compromise? Frankly I don't see either side going for it, the left is too invested in expanding Government (which costs money) and the right is too invested in beating the left. There's a severe deficit of trust on both sides, no remaining elder statesmen, and precious little incentive (see gerrymandering and primaries) to work with each other.
Another depressing point to consider, let's say you wave a magic wand and get the peoples of the first world to go for a carbon tax high enough to influence consumption. What happens in the third world? Are you going to deny them development at gunpoint? Because that's what it would take. They don't even have to aspire to an American standard of living, the EU carbon footprint is damaging enough, particularly when one considers the higher population of the third world.
Welcome to freedom in the future. Hands up citizen.
I did not say they had to cost the same, I said they had to be affordable, which is not the same thing. You're dangerously close to conveying the false assumption that cost is the sole determining factor in the marketplace and I know you're smarter than that.
The only electric car on the market that provides the range I need for my daily commute costs $70,000. That is so far out of my price range that it's not funny; I could buy a fucking house for less than that where I live. I drive a Honda Civic LX, MSRP ~$18,000, which is about all I'm able to spend on an automobile and still keep a roof over my head.
To add insult to injury, even if I could afford a Telsa it's hardly a carbon neutral means of transport. Setting aside the carbon invested in production, where does the electricity to operate it come from? The green movement largely rejects nuclear power, which is the only scalable carbon free energy source available with today's technology. Even if you're willing to spend $70,000 on an automobile it still leaves you with a carbon footprint that dwarfs that of any third world resident.
The last three words of the preceding paragraph are the ones you need to worry about, because the third world is going to develop regardless of what the first world does. They're not going to meekly accept living in poverty, nor is it not fair to ask them to do so.
What's the solution? In my humble opinion it's threefold; we continue to invest in future technologies that will render this discussion moot, we expand the technologies we currently have (nuclear) that offer carbon free energy, and we start trying to adapt civilization to the climatological changes that are going to happen whether we like it or not. Humanity could reduce emissions to zero tomorrow and change is still coming. We'd best prepare for it.
I am not a "denier", just a realist.
Native Americans didn't live long enough for tooth decay to be a serious problem, so your point is kind of moot.
.... resistance, is futile. Dental caries, as you know them, are over. From this time forward, your teeth will service us......
Think of how difficult it is right now to make an agreement with Iran--it might well happen but there's A LOT of pushback because of domestic narratives.
The consequences of a failure to come to terms with Iran do not rise to the level of mutually assured destruction. Nor is the regime in Beijing a revolutionary one that's trying to export their ideology to their neighbors while identifying the United States as evil embodied. We were able find enough common ground with the Soviet Union to make agreements that both sides could live with, I'm optimistic enough to believe that the same will happen with China if push comes to shove.
Iran? Well, the jury is still out on that one. I tend to agree with David Brooks where Iran is concerned, I'm hoping for the best there but am prepared for and fully expect the worst. Thankfully the worst case scenario where Iran is concerned will not pose an existential threat to civilization as we know it.
It's easier to write a program that can pull this off than to write one that can identify this guy as an enemy and launch a hellfire at him?
Facebook has already figured out how to do #2, sans the actual launching of weapons part.
Touchscreens will never be able to compete with physical keyboards for speed regardless of how you lay out the alphabet. Fine motor skills work best with tactile feedback, which is denied to you when using a flat touchscreen.
the QWERTY layout was designed to SLOW down typists of the day,
Just so you know, that's a myth.