I've lived in Canada and I am well acquainted with English-speaking Canadians. No, you don't speak American English, but you most certainly don't speak British English. To many Americans you just sound like not-from-here, and to others (especially in Northeast US) you sound local.
Absolutely! Then again, SETI isn't that big of a waste. And who knows, maybe the horse will learn to sing.
But in the meantime, you're right, I'd love to see a lunar colony in my lifetime. In 1969, as I watched the first human touch booted foot on the moon, I was imagining in my mind that in 20 years it would be possible for me to buy a ticket to visit that place! But that jerk Nixon, even as he was congratulating Neil Armstrong for his historic achievement, was already plotting to gut the space program.
I want to mine Jupiter for hydrogen to fuel our industries! I want to end smelting of iron ore here on earth in favor of doing it in the asteroid belt! But the short-sighting IDIOTS in politics can only see as far as the next election (if that). It makes me sick to think about it.
In a couple of hundred years, assuming civilization survives, a set of these would probably have considerable collector value. Especially if you also owned a first edition of the FIRST EB.
Whaddaya mean, way too much energy? A flux capacitor needs a LOT of energy for time travel.
Besides, how efficient is Mr. Fusion anyway? Clearly nowhere near 100%, and probably only a few milligrams of the banana peel are going to be converted to energy. The rest goes to carbon dioxide, steam, and so on. Didn't you see the vapor when Doc opened the reaction vessel to put in the banana peel (and the beer and beer can)?
My most favorite interview was when the guy who had the power to hire me sat down and just chatted about my general background for about ten minutes, including what I did for enjoyment, hobbies, and so forth, then took me to his whiteboard and asked me to code a database call in the DBMS they used (it was an IBM mainframe IMS/DB system). Once I was done he just sat back, nodded, and said "You're In."
95% of climate scientists could be right and at the same time be missing an important fact that makes their understanding only a small part of the story.
There was an interesting article in Scientific American in March 2005 that definitely attributed the heat rise over the last 8,000 years to human activity -- but the article was pretty clear that 10,000 years ago global climate was supposed to have begun plunging towards an ice age, but the plunge got shortcircuited by us. According to the article, temperatures right now would have been much colder, in fact with perennial icecaps beginning to form in parts of Canada normally free of year-round ice and similar elevations throughout the world, except for this human activity.
But if the article I mentioned is correct, and the piddling human activity 8,000 years ago was already messing with the climate, then there is no way whatsoever, even if we were to strictly implement Kyoto across the board, that we're going to stop the warming process. All Kyoto could do is blow the world's economy to hell and still not avoid global warming. No thanks.
Not if your credit is so bad it stinks. Just pile one more inquiry on my report! It can't possibly make my credit any worse than it is. In fact, causing a lot of inquiries in at one time is possibly one way to screw up your credit rathing bad enough that they will stop sending you the credit card offers!
But I need more junk mail, though, not less. I use it for tinder when lighting my woodstove. That's where all the junk mail I get goes and I really appreciate these companies sending me the free paper!
There was an interesting article in Scientific American in March 2005 that definitely attributed the heat rise over the last 8,000 years to human activity -- but the article was pretty clear that 10,000 years ago global climate was supposed to have begun plunging towards an ice age (as gp indicated), but the plunge got shortcircuited by us. According to the article, which should have been in Slashdot (and might have been, I don't know), temperatures right now should have been much colder, in fact with perennial icecaps beginning to form in parts of Canada and similar elevations throughout the world, except for this human activity.
So if implemented, Kyoto could kill us, apparently. Take your pick: reverse global warming and freeze to death; or let it go and get even bigger hurricanes. Don't even think you can tweak it to make it "just right." I vote for the heat. Just stay away from the coast.
Well, I do believe you and I can agree in principle, then.
As to the first Gulf War, I completely agree with you as well, and believe Bush Sr betrayed those he encouraged to rise up. It was at that point, however, that the US membership in a coalition prevented effective and complete action, because the Islamic members insisted upon a settlement of the war that kept SH in power. After that, the US could no longer actively support an insurrection. I think Bush should have said "No, you wimps, we're taking him all the way out."
But such thinking doesn't come to those with your attitude I guess.
My attitude? What is my attitude, then, since you seem to know so much about it? I actually agree with you that we shouldn't support monsters. Every time we do, I agree with you that we are definitely going to regret it at some point. But it is an unfortunate fact that the US has supported them. That's the reality of past time and events that no-one can change. And having done so, what do we do now? Just live with the consequences without acting to ameliorate them? As a form of penance, perhaps? Screw that.
What I really object to is the "we helped make them, so we can't unmake them" argument that your earlier post suggested. If we lie down with dogs and get up with fleas, well, maybe we shouldn't have lain down with dogs in the first place, but having done so, then we need to get some damned flea-powder, instead of just scratch and piss and moan about it.
And as you correctly point out, when Hitler re-introduced military conscription in 1935, and re-occupied the Rhineland in 1936 in violation of the Versailles treaty, to which the US was also signatory, the victors of WW1 should have rose up immediately and threw him out of the Rhineland -- and Germany was still weak enough militarily for that to have succeeded. Instead, Chamberlain and whatever passed for a government in France just grumbled about it and let him be. The US was too far away to put any effective pressure on the situation, even if it had been inclined to do so, which kind of excuses us a little from stopping Hitler alone, unless one is a hopeless theoretician.
And, speaking of "learning from history," this has a close resemblance to the Iraq matter, except to people who will not recognize it. SH had, as a result of the outcome of the first Gulf War, a number of things he had to conform to. He failed to live up to them, despite several strong notices from the UN, and so, despite the fact that the UN wanted to continue cutting him slack until time stood still, the US acted and invaded in order to force compliance to the treaty, something that you agreed should have been done with Hitler. Now, one can wax partisanly political all we want (just because we be good little boys and girls and hate Bush, yessiree), or we can recognize that the jerk was evading full compliance with the bloody treaty specs until someone with a pair of balls put a screeching halt to it, like should have been done with dear Adolf.
I will say that I was not in favor of invading Iraq. I even wrote Bush (for whom I didn't vote, BTW, at least the first time) and told him that I didn't want the US to do it. Even though I thought Hussein needed his head handed to him on a plate, I believed then, and still believe now that the best course of action was to allow him to go as far as bearable before acting, because otherwise all those little whiners would be out in force saying "But we didn't give him a chance! We needed to keep politely but firmly insisting that the inspectors be allowed to go where they want to go! And after all, didn't we support him at one time, and didn't Don Rumsfeld once stand by him buddy buddy and all but planted him a big juicy one on the lips?"
Just like that big weeney Neville Chamberlain, who came back from his big friendly pow-wow with Adolf Hitler proclaiming he had won "Peace in our time!"
Also, as you correctly pointed out: "Bush Sr stood in congress and said sanctions against Iraq congress was debating in 1988/89 would harm trade", we should have canned him THEN instead of waiting. Better freaking late than never, when it has to be done.
To your comment about the US having created bin Laden and the Taliban I say respectfully: so freaking what?! If you give money to a street bum and later that week the street bum burgles your house, does that somehow give you no right to complain or seek justice against him? You supported him! What are you doing calling the cops on him! Just because he took a little more from you than you wanted to give him?! Sheesh!
I don't know if you realize it, but at the time, supporting the Afghan resistance, including bin Laden, against the Soviets was judged to be in the best interests of the US. You and I and the sitting President of the US may differ as to what constitutes the interests of the US at any given time, but without a crystal ball or perfect foresight one is forced into necessary decisions and policies that may end up biting one in the butt. And is the ultimate outcome actually worse than the outcome if one does nothing? Judge from history:
During WW2 the US sent millions of dollars worth of goods, primarily food and war-fighting materiel (Studebaker trucks and truck parts, for instance) to the Soviet Union. It has rightly been observed that without the trucks and the food the Soviet Army may have starved before their superior numbers could drive back the Nazis -- because the Soviet system doesn't produce very well, and besides that the Nazis had captured much of the food growing region of the USSR. In a sense then, we preserved the Soviet Union, only to have to fight a cold war against them (including the not-so-cold wars in Korea and Vietnam) for the next 40 years or so. In other words, the US bought and paid for the trouble they got after the war. But what was the alternative?
If we, through inaction, had allowed the Nazis to overthrow the Communists, we would thereby have given the vast oil wealth and other natural resources of the Soviet Union to Hitler. Germany in that event would not have needed to keep the bulk of its army in the East, and the invasion of the continent would have become nearly impossible. Germany may not have been defeated in WW2, and there might be today a Nazi dictatorship holding sway over most of Europe.
So what would have happened if we had let the Afghans keep their Soviet-imposed dictatorship? Would we have been better or worse off? At the time, of course, they believed we would be worse off. It is a complicated question to answer, even knowing what we know now, namely that the USSR was going to fall, making the Afghan question perhaps moot. But it may have been that the loss of the Afghan war was the straw that broke the back of the Communist regime, making the support of the Afghan resistance a key policy decision, and well worth the rise of bin Laden.
I tend to agree with practically everything I've seen you posting, but now finally there's something that I don't think you have quite right:
Freedom from entangling ourselves into the business of other countries secures us from the threat of terrorism.
Our pal, Bin Laden, apparently has some rather (to my mind) irrational reasons for declaring war against the US -- and this mindset might have been sparked by the US maintaining forces in Saudi Arabia, or it may have been simply sharpened thereby. See here for an analysis of bin Laden's manifesto, and a link to the manifesto itself. One of bin Laden's bones of contention was the occupation 80 years ago of Constantinopel by "European infidel Christians", something the United States did not participate in.
In short, much of the motivation for these people's campaign of terrorism is things having little to do with our entangling ourselves into other countries's business. Keep in mind, too, that when Islam conquered the northern tier of Africa and invaded Europe via Iberia and the Balkans that they didn't do so for political reasons, they were simply conquering in order to spread their faith. Bin Laden apparently sees himself in that light.
Oh, come on, this is Slashdot. RTFA is highly optional around here, and as a result we get this wonderful enchanting debate, completely free from any grounding in what actually spawned it; it is non-sequitors written upon the Universe's Whitewashed Graffiti Wall. Besides, look what you got here: a freaking DEBATE, which is what the aforementioned FA was calling for. If they had RTFA then the thread wouldn't have been anywhere near as interesting.
That's certainly true in many cases. It is apparently the case that the New Orleans school districts have tons of school busses that could have been used to bus people to safety before the blow. I have heard that those school busses are currently parked under water, because the idiots that pass for emergency planners in N.O. were off for a short beer when they should have been planning for likely disasters.
This is something that gets into the news only slowly, and after the main event dies down. Hams are certainly out there doing what they can. See the ARRL press release on the situation.
I work for state government, and certification makes no difference whatever for pay. It might make a difference between me and some other slob who are competing for the same job in a state government agency where the manager knows neither of us. Might.
I find the certification, for example the MS cert for C# WinForms development, to be of interest primarily as a way to tell what I should know about the technology. When I take the practice test for my example test I find there are LOTS of things I don't know that I probably should, even though I have built some pretty nifty and useful winforms in my career already.
An actual set of letters to put after my name is not a bad thing, either. Can't hurt! Just because there are people who can put letters issued by a university after their names doesn't mean that everyone with a BA or MS knows anything worth knowing or can do anything worth doing. But the not unjustified assumption is that there's a good chance they do know or can do something. Without those little letters it is all a complete mystery. Same with IT certs.
Doesn't it state that your equipment "must accept any interference received including interference that may cause undesired operations?" So, you are arguing that you are unwilling to follow FCC Part 15, but wanting others to adhere to it. Not that I'm taking a stance either way, but it is that hypocritical crap that makes hams look like raving loons when talking about these things.
When it comes to the ham bands, properly operating ham equipment does NOT have to accept interference from other equipment. Look at the FCC actions published from time to time. If a television set, for example, is faulty and broadcasting interference in, say the 2m band, the FCC will require the owner to either fix the set, toss it out, or stop using it. The ham equipment that is interfered with in a ham band does not have to just lump it.
Although I would have denied it a couple of years ago -- at least I would have said there's not enough evidence -- global warming does appear real. However, it may not be as bad as it is put out to be. In the March 2005 Scientific American there was an article suggesting that except for global warming we would be clearly headed into the next ice age. Go to your library if you don't have the March issue, otherwise you're forced to buy it online from SciAm, but here's part of the article's summary:
New evidence suggests that concentrations of CO2 started rising about 8,000 years ago, even though natural trends indicate they should have been dropping. Some 3,000 years later the same thing happened to methane, another heat-trapping gas. The consequences of these surprising rises have been profound. Without them, current temperatures in northern parts of North America and Europe would be cooler by three to four degrees Celsius--enough to make agriculture difficult. In addition, an incipient ice age--marked by the appearance of small ice caps--would probably have begun several thousand years ago in parts of northeastern Canada. Instead the earth's climate has remained relatively warm and stable in recent millennia.
So, all that CO2 in the atmosphere may be saving our butts from getting frozen off.
Personally I doubt that you had a lot of snakes falling out of trees and going splat. This seems nearly as naive an interpretation of evolution as Lamark's.
Well, in the first place this was a probably misplaced attempt at humor. In the second place, a snake falling out of a tree in the forest probably does not have a high enough velocity of impact to kill it -- so splat is an auditory rather than a evolutionary effect.
With respect to Evolution (all hail Evolution!), how many these snakes had to fall to the ground *splat* before they evolved the ability to flatten themselves out into a pseudo-airfoil and actually glide? Or did they evolve the airfoil capability first (at some indeterminate biological cost and no corresponding benefit), then one day one of them mistakenly fell out of a tree and found, to its amazement, that it could glide?
Or was it one of those "hopeful monsters" postulated by Richard Goldschmidt -- just bang and there it was, instant Rocky the Flying Snake?
Actually, I like Gould's and Eldredge's punctuated equilibrium better. See this for a Gould article on the subject of p/e.
Now, as nice and scientific as that is, and I really like science and crap like that, at heart I believe that God created it all. But that is not, as they say, falsifiable, even with Intelligent Design. And some of you are going to hold me in derision for the idea of having God (or the supreme being of choice) involved at all, and make rude comments and insults to and about me, but you know what? Blow it out your ear.:-)
I have a number of issues about which I am very much an idealist. And I would agree with JFK about the idealism of not having space filled with weapons of mass destruction -- so you see we would agree with each other on this.
However, the idealist in me also sees reality. And the reality is that they who have the power make the rules. And like it or hate it, there is no power on earth that can make the use of space completely outside any kind of nationalism, unless that power itself is outside nationalism, i.e. a neutral, non-national power that would enforce equal access and be able to forbid domination by any one or group of nations.
BUT, in order to be able to do such a thing, that neutral, non-national power would have to have the ability to project force in very uncomfortable quantities -- and it would have to be able to project that force from space. Which defeats both your idealism, and mine.
The sad fact of the matter is simply this, we live in an imperfect world, where He Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules, and unless and until something happens here on earth to diminish man's desire or lust for power over his fellow man, somebody will have weapons, or weapons-related artifacts, in space. Just pray it is someone who has some scruples, or willingness to allow others to lead their lives largely unmolested.
Despite the shrill cries of outrage, the United States is currently the only power on earth which is both able to dominate space, and has no real interest in using that domination to run everyone else's lives. Note I do not say, is unwilling to use its advantage in its national interest. But typically the national interest of the USA does not translate out to invading peaceful nations, or forbidding the use of space to anyone else with peaceful intent.
I wouldn't have modded it Troll, myself, but your comments are, with all due respect, not that insightful.
"...US misuse of space..." This is a wildly sanctimonious sentiment. Just what is this misuse of space, anyway? The only proper use is what you think it should be used for? Or only for scientific experimentation? Not for national defense --- that's illegitimate? Oh, please.
If the use of space does not result in harm to others, then it is not a misuse. Keep in mind that if what bothers you is that US spy satellites can see what's in your backyard, that isn't a genuine harm. Just cover it with a tarp and they won't be able to see a thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I've lived in Canada and I am well acquainted with English-speaking Canadians. No, you don't speak American English, but you most certainly don't speak British English. To many Americans you just sound like not-from-here, and to others (especially in Northeast US) you sound local.
Amen to that! Their fries are far better than anyone elses, though.
Absolutely! Then again, SETI isn't that big of a waste. And who knows, maybe the horse will learn to sing. But in the meantime, you're right, I'd love to see a lunar colony in my lifetime. In 1969, as I watched the first human touch booted foot on the moon, I was imagining in my mind that in 20 years it would be possible for me to buy a ticket to visit that place! But that jerk Nixon, even as he was congratulating Neil Armstrong for his historic achievement, was already plotting to gut the space program. I want to mine Jupiter for hydrogen to fuel our industries! I want to end smelting of iron ore here on earth in favor of doing it in the asteroid belt! But the short-sighting IDIOTS in politics can only see as far as the next election (if that). It makes me sick to think about it.
In a couple of hundred years, assuming civilization survives, a set of these would probably have considerable collector value. Especially if you also owned a first edition of the FIRST EB.
Besides, how efficient is Mr. Fusion anyway? Clearly nowhere near 100%, and probably only a few milligrams of the banana peel are going to be converted to energy. The rest goes to carbon dioxide, steam, and so on. Didn't you see the vapor when Doc opened the reaction vessel to put in the banana peel (and the beer and beer can)?
My most favorite interview was when the guy who had the power to hire me sat down and just chatted about my general background for about ten minutes, including what I did for enjoyment, hobbies, and so forth, then took me to his whiteboard and asked me to code a database call in the DBMS they used (it was an IBM mainframe IMS/DB system). Once I was done he just sat back, nodded, and said "You're In."
95% of climate scientists could be right and at the same time be missing an important fact that makes their understanding only a small part of the story.
There was an interesting article in Scientific American in March 2005 that definitely attributed the heat rise over the last 8,000 years to human activity -- but the article was pretty clear that 10,000 years ago global climate was supposed to have begun plunging towards an ice age, but the plunge got shortcircuited by us. According to the article, temperatures right now would have been much colder, in fact with perennial icecaps beginning to form in parts of Canada normally free of year-round ice and similar elevations throughout the world, except for this human activity.
But if the article I mentioned is correct, and the piddling human activity 8,000 years ago was already messing with the climate, then there is no way whatsoever, even if we were to strictly implement Kyoto across the board, that we're going to stop the warming process. All Kyoto could do is blow the world's economy to hell and still not avoid global warming. No thanks.
I was trying to figure out what you were talking about until I actually zoomed in all the way. Golly! The Moon really is made of cheese!
But I need more junk mail, though, not less. I use it for tinder when lighting my woodstove. That's where all the junk mail I get goes and I really appreciate these companies sending me the free paper!
So if implemented, Kyoto could kill us, apparently. Take your pick: reverse global warming and freeze to death; or let it go and get even bigger hurricanes. Don't even think you can tweak it to make it "just right." I vote for the heat. Just stay away from the coast.
As to the first Gulf War, I completely agree with you as well, and believe Bush Sr betrayed those he encouraged to rise up. It was at that point, however, that the US membership in a coalition prevented effective and complete action, because the Islamic members insisted upon a settlement of the war that kept SH in power. After that, the US could no longer actively support an insurrection. I think Bush should have said "No, you wimps, we're taking him all the way out."
Been nice talkin' to ya.
My attitude? What is my attitude, then, since you seem to know so much about it? I actually agree with you that we shouldn't support monsters. Every time we do, I agree with you that we are definitely going to regret it at some point. But it is an unfortunate fact that the US has supported them. That's the reality of past time and events that no-one can change. And having done so, what do we do now? Just live with the consequences without acting to ameliorate them? As a form of penance, perhaps? Screw that.
What I really object to is the "we helped make them, so we can't unmake them" argument that your earlier post suggested. If we lie down with dogs and get up with fleas, well, maybe we shouldn't have lain down with dogs in the first place, but having done so, then we need to get some damned flea-powder, instead of just scratch and piss and moan about it.
And as you correctly point out, when Hitler re-introduced military conscription in 1935, and re-occupied the Rhineland in 1936 in violation of the Versailles treaty, to which the US was also signatory, the victors of WW1 should have rose up immediately and threw him out of the Rhineland -- and Germany was still weak enough militarily for that to have succeeded. Instead, Chamberlain and whatever passed for a government in France just grumbled about it and let him be. The US was too far away to put any effective pressure on the situation, even if it had been inclined to do so, which kind of excuses us a little from stopping Hitler alone, unless one is a hopeless theoretician.
And, speaking of "learning from history," this has a close resemblance to the Iraq matter, except to people who will not recognize it. SH had, as a result of the outcome of the first Gulf War, a number of things he had to conform to. He failed to live up to them, despite several strong notices from the UN, and so, despite the fact that the UN wanted to continue cutting him slack until time stood still, the US acted and invaded in order to force compliance to the treaty, something that you agreed should have been done with Hitler. Now, one can wax partisanly political all we want (just because we be good little boys and girls and hate Bush, yessiree), or we can recognize that the jerk was evading full compliance with the bloody treaty specs until someone with a pair of balls put a screeching halt to it, like should have been done with dear Adolf.
I will say that I was not in favor of invading Iraq. I even wrote Bush (for whom I didn't vote, BTW, at least the first time) and told him that I didn't want the US to do it. Even though I thought Hussein needed his head handed to him on a plate, I believed then, and still believe now that the best course of action was to allow him to go as far as bearable before acting, because otherwise all those little whiners would be out in force saying "But we didn't give him a chance! We needed to keep politely but firmly insisting that the inspectors be allowed to go where they want to go! And after all, didn't we support him at one time, and didn't Don Rumsfeld once stand by him buddy buddy and all but planted him a big juicy one on the lips?"
Just like that big weeney Neville Chamberlain, who came back from his big friendly pow-wow with Adolf Hitler proclaiming he had won "Peace in our time!"
Also, as you correctly pointed out: "Bush Sr stood in congress and said sanctions against Iraq congress was debating in 1988/89 would harm trade", we should have canned him THEN instead of waiting. Better freaking late than never, when it has to be done.
To your comment about the US having created bin Laden and the Taliban I say respectfully: so freaking what?! If you give money to a street bum and later that week the street bum burgles your house, does that somehow give you no right to complain or seek justice against him? You supported him! What are you doing calling the cops on him! Just because he took a little more from you than you wanted to give him?! Sheesh!
I don't know if you realize it, but at the time, supporting the Afghan resistance, including bin Laden, against the Soviets was judged to be in the best interests of the US. You and I and the sitting President of the US may differ as to what constitutes the interests of the US at any given time, but without a crystal ball or perfect foresight one is forced into necessary decisions and policies that may end up biting one in the butt. And is the ultimate outcome actually worse than the outcome if one does nothing? Judge from history:
During WW2 the US sent millions of dollars worth of goods, primarily food and war-fighting materiel (Studebaker trucks and truck parts, for instance) to the Soviet Union. It has rightly been observed that without the trucks and the food the Soviet Army may have starved before their superior numbers could drive back the Nazis -- because the Soviet system doesn't produce very well, and besides that the Nazis had captured much of the food growing region of the USSR. In a sense then, we preserved the Soviet Union, only to have to fight a cold war against them (including the not-so-cold wars in Korea and Vietnam) for the next 40 years or so. In other words, the US bought and paid for the trouble they got after the war. But what was the alternative?
If we, through inaction, had allowed the Nazis to overthrow the Communists, we would thereby have given the vast oil wealth and other natural resources of the Soviet Union to Hitler. Germany in that event would not have needed to keep the bulk of its army in the East, and the invasion of the continent would have become nearly impossible. Germany may not have been defeated in WW2, and there might be today a Nazi dictatorship holding sway over most of Europe.
So what would have happened if we had let the Afghans keep their Soviet-imposed dictatorship? Would we have been better or worse off? At the time, of course, they believed we would be worse off. It is a complicated question to answer, even knowing what we know now, namely that the USSR was going to fall, making the Afghan question perhaps moot. But it may have been that the loss of the Afghan war was the straw that broke the back of the Communist regime, making the support of the Afghan resistance a key policy decision, and well worth the rise of bin Laden.
Our pal, Bin Laden, apparently has some rather (to my mind) irrational reasons for declaring war against the US -- and this mindset might have been sparked by the US maintaining forces in Saudi Arabia, or it may have been simply sharpened thereby. See here for an analysis of bin Laden's manifesto, and a link to the manifesto itself. One of bin Laden's bones of contention was the occupation 80 years ago of Constantinopel by "European infidel Christians", something the United States did not participate in.
In short, much of the motivation for these people's campaign of terrorism is things having little to do with our entangling ourselves into other countries's business. Keep in mind, too, that when Islam conquered the northern tier of Africa and invaded Europe via Iberia and the Balkans that they didn't do so for political reasons, they were simply conquering in order to spread their faith. Bin Laden apparently sees himself in that light.
Oh, come on, this is Slashdot. RTFA is highly optional around here, and as a result we get this wonderful enchanting debate, completely free from any grounding in what actually spawned it; it is non-sequitors written upon the Universe's Whitewashed Graffiti Wall. Besides, look what you got here: a freaking DEBATE, which is what the aforementioned FA was calling for. If they had RTFA then the thread wouldn't have been anywhere near as interesting.
That's certainly true in many cases. It is apparently the case that the New Orleans school districts have tons of school busses that could have been used to bus people to safety before the blow. I have heard that those school busses are currently parked under water, because the idiots that pass for emergency planners in N.O. were off for a short beer when they should have been planning for likely disasters.
This is something that gets into the news only slowly, and after the main event dies down. Hams are certainly out there doing what they can. See the ARRL press release on the situation.
I find the certification, for example the MS cert for C# WinForms development, to be of interest primarily as a way to tell what I should know about the technology. When I take the practice test for my example test I find there are LOTS of things I don't know that I probably should, even though I have built some pretty nifty and useful winforms in my career already.
An actual set of letters to put after my name is not a bad thing, either. Can't hurt! Just because there are people who can put letters issued by a university after their names doesn't mean that everyone with a BA or MS knows anything worth knowing or can do anything worth doing. But the not unjustified assumption is that there's a good chance they do know or can do something. Without those little letters it is all a complete mystery. Same with IT certs.
When it comes to the ham bands, properly operating ham equipment does NOT have to accept interference from other equipment. Look at the FCC actions published from time to time. If a television set, for example, is faulty and broadcasting interference in, say the 2m band, the FCC will require the owner to either fix the set, toss it out, or stop using it. The ham equipment that is interfered with in a ham band does not have to just lump it.
So, all that CO2 in the atmosphere may be saving our butts from getting frozen off.
Well, in the first place this was a probably misplaced attempt at humor. In the second place, a snake falling out of a tree in the forest probably does not have a high enough velocity of impact to kill it -- so splat is an auditory rather than a evolutionary effect.
With respect to Evolution (all hail Evolution!), how many these snakes had to fall to the ground *splat* before they evolved the ability to flatten themselves out into a pseudo-airfoil and actually glide? Or did they evolve the airfoil capability first (at some indeterminate biological cost and no corresponding benefit), then one day one of them mistakenly fell out of a tree and found, to its amazement, that it could glide?
Or was it one of those "hopeful monsters" postulated by Richard Goldschmidt -- just bang and there it was, instant Rocky the Flying Snake?
Actually, I like Gould's and Eldredge's punctuated equilibrium better. See this for a Gould article on the subject of p/e.
Now, as nice and scientific as that is, and I really like science and crap like that, at heart I believe that God created it all. But that is not, as they say, falsifiable, even with Intelligent Design. And some of you are going to hold me in derision for the idea of having God (or the supreme being of choice) involved at all, and make rude comments and insults to and about me, but you know what? Blow it out your ear. :-)
I'm sure it was in the spirit of "all your base are belong to us."
However, the idealist in me also sees reality. And the reality is that they who have the power make the rules. And like it or hate it, there is no power on earth that can make the use of space completely outside any kind of nationalism, unless that power itself is outside nationalism, i.e. a neutral, non-national power that would enforce equal access and be able to forbid domination by any one or group of nations.
BUT, in order to be able to do such a thing, that neutral, non-national power would have to have the ability to project force in very uncomfortable quantities -- and it would have to be able to project that force from space. Which defeats both your idealism, and mine.
The sad fact of the matter is simply this, we live in an imperfect world, where He Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules, and unless and until something happens here on earth to diminish man's desire or lust for power over his fellow man, somebody will have weapons, or weapons-related artifacts, in space. Just pray it is someone who has some scruples, or willingness to allow others to lead their lives largely unmolested.
Despite the shrill cries of outrage, the United States is currently the only power on earth which is both able to dominate space, and has no real interest in using that domination to run everyone else's lives. Note I do not say, is unwilling to use its advantage in its national interest. But typically the national interest of the USA does not translate out to invading peaceful nations, or forbidding the use of space to anyone else with peaceful intent.
"...US misuse of space..." This is a wildly sanctimonious sentiment. Just what is this misuse of space, anyway? The only proper use is what you think it should be used for? Or only for scientific experimentation? Not for national defense --- that's illegitimate? Oh, please.
If the use of space does not result in harm to others, then it is not a misuse. Keep in mind that if what bothers you is that US spy satellites can see what's in your backyard, that isn't a genuine harm. Just cover it with a tarp and they won't be able to see a thing.