I find it creepy that law enforcement has a means to disable just about every system society needs in order to communicate, defend itself, or gtfo.
It beats having them shoot at you.
The problem being that much of the time disabling those systems would be a prelude to, and used such as to make it easier/safer for, them to shoot you. And your little dog, too.
There are far too many adrenaline junkies, steroid freaks, power-tripping assholes, and corrupt/criminal cops in LE these days. Combined with the "blue wall of silence" by so-called "good" cops, there really aren't many "good" cops at all these days.
If a cop tells me he's a "good cop" I'll tell him that unless he's had a history of turning in/arresting bad cops, he's full of shit and just as bad as the worst of them.
Personally, I want to see cops forced to go back to having only.38-special revolvers, a baton, and pepper-spray. An unloaded shotgun locked in the trunk. No body armor or bullet-proof vests allowed, and certainly no armored vehicles, grenade launchers, or full-auto weapons. Call the NG if they need that kind of firepower. Don't want to be a cop under those conditions? Great. GTFO. We don't want you.
Spoken like a true non-business owner. I said it's not a burden, and you call that "fact-free".
Yes, it's fact-free. It's simply a statement with no support.
I *am* a business owner.
You say that a child's lemonade stand has similar regulatory burdens as McDonald's. Fuck you. You're an idiot.
And there you go again with the ad hominem attacks.
I guess it also sucks when you don't have the intellect to carry on an adversarial conversation without giving up on reason & logic and having to resort to name-calling out of pure desperation.
I pity those such as you, as there is no cure for your kind of affliction.
Oh, quit with the "regulatory burden" bullshit. It's a TINY burden in exchange for being able to sell to every person in the country. You wouldn't know "regulatory burden" if it hit you in the head. If you're too stupid or too lazy to figure out how to pay the taxes you're supposed to pay, then you're too stupid or lazy to be in business.
Ah, a fact-free ad hominem attack. I see you've thought this issue out logically & thoroughly. Thanks for your in-depth practical analysis. You've added tremendous value to the discussion.
When little kids can't even run a lemonade stand in their home's driveway on a summer afternoon any more without dealing with the same regulatory burdens and costs that a McDonald's does, there's something wrong.
You're right. That would suck. What does that have to do with this discussion?
Umm, "that" is one facet of "regulatory burden" that you call "bullshit" that has real consequences for regular people.
And yes it does suck, and you, judging by your reply, seem to want more of that suck-age in everyone's life.
The rest of us, and most new startups, will crumble under the burden.
No, you just pay a service to handle the sales tax for you. If you can't afford to do that, then you don't have a viable business.
Yeah, who (besides serfs) needs all those small, privately-owned, independent, hard to monitor and control businesses that have existed for ages, around anyways? Better and easier for government that all merchandise and services are provided by the megacorps. It certainly would cut down on Mom & Pop competition for Walmart, Amazon, and other big-box stores and megacorps.
Whenever cost & complexity is added to doing business by government, it hits the smallest players first and hardest.
When little kids can't even run a lemonade stand in their home's driveway on a summer afternoon any more without dealing with the same regulatory burdens and costs that a McDonald's does, there's something wrong.
At least, if I were in charge at Amazon.com or Overstock.com, I'd be looking to move the business out of the USA. As a bonus (outside of avoiding overly-burdensome US tax/regulation bureaucracy and costs), they could offer any US copyrighted work for sale from Antigua without any consideration for US copyright holders.
Ah, you must have missed the rest of my post. Apologies : ) If anyone is seen by someone even capable of diagnosing schizophrenia and it didn't take three referrals and several months of persistence on the patient's part then everyone would call bullshit. Which appears to be the exact response to Brandon's "diagnosis".
While technically true, it wasn't like there were tons of civil rights groups willing to show interest in Raub's case [cough]ACLU[cough] until the libertarian-leaning Rutherford Institute jumped in to provide Raub assistance in legal defense and protection from the government.
I just wonder where all these other unusually-silent civil rights groups were, because it was crickets until RI stepped up.
To my mind, a "civil rights group" that advocates for the civil rights of only those in certain political/ideological/racial groups it likes/agrees with and/or for only select civil rights they agree with are in a very real way very much "hate groups".
They are intentionally seeking to elevate only select racial/political/ideological groups and only certain civil liberties and rights, thereby helping to disenfranchise the civil rights of those competing political/ideological/racial groups it dislikes and civil liberties and rights it disagrees with. This places those groups at a disadvantage and weakens the strength of all civil liberties and rights for everyone.
The US wouldn't have that problem and i'll tell you why. They probably had socialized medicine and it was normal to have doctors just see someone on the government's dime. That would never happen here, lol.
Umm, "never happen here" you say, and with a laugh?
It sounds familiar because your hero Michelle Bachman was recently calling for an investigation of people in congress who are not "American enough" So yeah... Deja Vu.
WTF does Bachmann have to do with something that's been a growing problem for decades regardless of (R) or (D) being in control, and where the hell did I ever say anything about Bachmann being my (or anyone else's) hero, never mind mentioning her at all?
Grow up. This isn't about the (R) vs (D) and/or Progressive vs Conservative dog and pony show. Both US political parties and the "establishment" Progressives and Conservatives are corrupt to their core. They are both selling everybody's rights, freedom, and privacy down the river for their own benefit, although for many it may be a case of NSA-database-fueled political blackmail.
As long as the NSA maintains and grows that treasure-trove of blanket domestic surveillance data, they can control who is elected and what they do and say once in office. Even if someone (and their family and everyone they care about) is "clean", now that the NSA has been turned into a partisan-political weapon, digital evidence can be faked and planted with the capabilities of the NSA, and so nearly anyone be framed/blackmailed.
Less freedom to steal, less freedom to pollute, less freedom to screw over your customers and business partners, less freedom to endanger others... you're right, more government = less freedom. That's a GOOD thing.
You forgot a few. Less freedom to feed the homeless, less freedom from warrant-less surveillance, less freedom from being on a Presidential "kill list", less freedom from Rendition, less freedom from "parallel construction", less freedom from secret treaties & agreements that take away your privacy & freedom on the internet to protect failed business models, etc etc etc. For every positive you can name stemming from expanding government power, I can name ten things that negatively impact people's freedom.
Government is there to protect me from you. I can affect government; I have a vote and a voice. I have no club whatever to bash over the head of AT&T, the MAFIAA, Monsanto, Wal Mart, Shell, BP, Microsoft, Sony... Except government.
The problem is that once government gets as large & powerful as the US government is, "AT&T, the MAFIAA, Monsanto, Wal Mart, Shell, BP, Microsoft, Sony" use government as a club to bash *you* over the head, and you no longer have a vote or a voice, because that large, corrupt government now takes bribes/lobbying/campaign money & marching orders from those corporations, not people like you or I.
Government can *only* grow in power by taking that power, in the form of rights & freedoms, from the people it governs.
How much less-free do you want to be today?
By your reply, I'd say you find your chains comforting.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
Sorry, but fuck you, I will not surrender my natural rights and freedoms peacefully for your comfort & convenience.
"Like most large employers, the federal government contributes a portion to the premiums of its employees. In fact, like many employers, the federal government pays most of the premiums for its workers; an average of 72 percent on Capitol Hill.
The new provision didnâ(TM)t account for the continued employer contribution for these federal workers who would now be buying their insurance on the exchanges. The exchanges were designed to help people without health insurance and people with overly expensive health insurance. It became clear that without their employer contribution, members and their staffers would essentially be getting a cut in pay and benefits equal to thousands of dollars. Even Grassley, the provisionâ(TM)s author, had tried to amend to law in order to allow the government to continue to contribute to lawmakersâ(TM) and staffersâ(TM) premiums.
What the Obama administration has done is rule that the lawmakers and their staffs will continue to receive the employer contribution to help them buy their insurance on the exchange.
Originally we declared Vitterâ(TM)s assertion to be wrong since any company can decide to help pay for policies that its workers purchase on the exchange so allowing representatives and staff to do so would not be an âoeexemption.â That notion has been challenged by conservative critics of Obamacare who argue that under existing federal statutes Congress had to specifically pass legislation authorizing the premium subsidies for any insurance program other than FEHBP. Since congress did not do this, the administration, at the behest of Congressional Democrats, and, according to Politico, Speaker John Boehner, unilaterally extended premium contributions. By doing this, the critics argue, the administration âoeexemptedâ Congress from the law. "
Congress isn't immune from insider trading laws and regulations.
Again, technically correct, but Congress made it so that it's extremely difficult to enforce.
Make no mistake: The STOCK Act is still in effect and congressional insider trading still is banned. But it has now become extraordinarily difficult to ensure compliance with the law.
The above the law mindset isn't a function of large government.
I would strongly disagree here, as it is the tendency of any large bureaucracy, especially governments, because of the relative power-with-anonymity that individuals enjoy in such a large group, for natural human failings to become an increasing part of the culture.
Just look at Rome, or the EU, AU, & UK, or China and the former USSR. No matter the particular form of government, once it grows so large & powerful, the people making up that government become increasingly aloof and immune from the laws that punish regular citizens for things those in positions of power within that government get a pass on.
It's simply basic human behavior regarding power relationships that has been studied and confirmed in many experiments over decades.
The above the law mindset isn't a function of large government. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 signed into law by John Adams was certainly done by a federal government that thought it above th
It's legally safer for them to say that they're incompetent.
Why should they bother saying anything? They can simply stonewall everything/everyone. You think anyone in the DoJ will prosecute them or act to carry out or enforce any rulings, subpoenas, or warrants from Congress or even the SCOTUS (John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." - Andrew Jackson)?
Laws don't apply to those who rule and not govern. That's why Congress gave itself a pass on participating in the ACA and from insider-trading laws & regulations They view themselves as rulers, and so they feel they can violate laws with impunity.
And, why shouldn't they? They can and do because fuck you, what are *you* gonna do about it? Hell, half the country is so caught up in the class-warfare, racial-victimhood, (R) vs (D), Progressive/Conservative, "terrists", think-of-the-children, anti-gun/pro-helpless-victim, divide-and-conquer propaganda, that they're busy actually cheering them on and trying to give them even more power.
This NSA surveillance and "above the law" mindset & behavior is part of the natural progression that occurs when governments get too big and powerful, and is to be expected.
So, now laws that simply require presenting basic personal ID (which everybody would need to have to do almost anything in society) in order to prevent election fraud are now "anti-voting laws"?
LMAO!!
Sheesh, you people just get funnier (and more desperate) every single day!
Under that definition voting would qualify as terrorism.
Jesus, don't give the retards in the South any more excuses.
What do you have against people in the southern UK?
I know you can't mean the American South. This kind of nanny-state crap is the kind of thing you'd expect from the Northeast from people like Herr Bloomberg and/or from the "land of fruits & nuts" aka California and some of the northwestern States from people like Feinstein & Pelosi.
Well, I was 7. I was on my way home from a half-day of school and stopped at a classmate's home and, standing in their living room, watched and listened to the reports. Maybe they didn't show the shooting live, but it seems like footage was presented within a very short period of time. Or maybe my ~50-yr-old memory of that day got mixed with news reports later that day showing the footage of the shooting.
However, the libertarians think that somehow paying taxes is against liberty, making regulations against fouling my air and water is against liberty,...
Paying taxes for things like the common defense, police, firefighters, etc etc are no problem. Taxes intended to fund things that are not included in the Constitution, and for purposes of social engineering like income redistribution, not so much.
...laws mandating that you don't pay starvation wages are against liberty...
That you got one right. Minimum wage laws simply limit entry-level employment opportunities and disenfranchise new workers. They also prevent low or no-skilled workers from voluntarily participating in low/no-pay apprenticeships and internships that gain them new skills and work experience which greatly increases their earning ability.
...that regulations against unsafe workplaces is against liberty.
Wrong again. Wanting less regulation does not mean no regulation. If your business blows up or catches fire, it could damage my property and/or endanger my life. Same with the stupid meme that libertarians don't want to pay for police or firemen and want something resembling Somalia. Bullshit propaganda from authoritarians.
Libertarians want the government to be restricted to what the Constitution allows it to do, and that's all. If you want a change, simply amend the Constitution. That's why there is a process for amending it. If your ideas have the support of most people, it will be voted in to be added to the Constitution. The government doesn't get to do things the Constitution does not allow, no matter how many secret courts they create or how many secret rulings they make.
You think those people working at WalMart should have to have a food drive to be fed?
Better ask the administration, because the ACA is forcing employers to drop full-time employees who were working up to 40 hours a week to now work less than 30 hours or face steep cost increases. Besides, "Walmart stock clerk" is not a career position that can support a family or even an individual alone at anything like a comfortable lifestyle, it's an entry-level position for new workers. To expect such jobs to pay enough to support a family or a comfortable individual lifestyle is fantasy.
An employer can only afford to pay an employee what the employee generates for the employer. A shelf-stocker or checkout register clerk is not making an employer enough to be able to pay him/her $10-$15 an hour plus benefits.
Employers will reduce the number of employees, relocate to somewhere where they can afford to stay in business, or they'll simply close shop, retire to Fiji, and leave you guys to figure out where those people will work now that they're unemployed completely.
I remember being 7 years old and watching TV when Kennedy was shot, and seeing it all unfold, the Secret Service agents running after the limo and the shocked news announcer. I was stunned. That was a lot to take in for a 7-yo, and it was just myself and a friend at his house with no adults present at that moment (his mother ran across the street to borrow something).
The actual shots were only about 80 to 100 yards. I can put rounds into a 6-inch wide circle at 100 yards quite reliably with a decent bolt-action rifle like a 6.5mm 91/38 Carcano using a 4x scope, and I have no military training and don't go to the range every chance I have.
I'm confident that I would stand an excellent chance of hitting that circle if it was moving like the limo did in relation to Oswald's viewpoint, with target-travel mostly directly away, and only a very slow lateral target-picture movement. Especially if I had the chance to put a hundred rounds or more through the rifle at a range prior, so that I knew the weapon.
I'm no marksman, just an occasional hunter. IMHO there's nothing that amazing about Oswald's shots. If he was aiming at Kennedy alone, which I must assume he was, then he missed more than he hit.
(Note: Tea Partiers and Libertarians want other people to spend less. They, themselves, are by far the worst of the pork barrel spenders.)
What!? You're joking, right? Maybe my sarcasm detector needs calibration.
Now, the "establishment" Republicans, people like John Boehner, McCain, Graham, the "moderate" and RINO Republicans, they're nearly as Progressive as the Progressive Democrats and have been the ones in control of the Republican party and together with Progressive Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress and consistently expanded the size, scope, budget, and power of the Federal government for decades. That's why nothing that really matters changes very often.
Both the establishment/Progressive (R)s and the (D)s have been excoriating the TEA party-associated members and those who speak of libertarianism (not the R. Paul brand of crazy, the concept of "libertarian") and sabotaging them at every turn because they keep proposing things that cut spending, government growth, and expansion of government power/loss of freedom (having more of one means having less of the other).
The TEA Party-supporting and libertarian-leaning are the only ones proposing any meaningful reductions in spending (including pork). Of course, one can call anything they want "pork" if they already have their politically-biased conclusions beforehand, and are simply hunting for something to back up their narrow beliefs.
The US basically has a one-Party system, with TEA Party and others who believe in less government, less spending, and more freedom, trying to gain a foothold.
There's one simple principle that people should never forget.
Seriously, if I had a secret compartment in my car, I would keep a copy of the King James Bible, a copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and a registered handgun in there.
[sarc] Terrorist!
Those are far, far worse than illegal drugs!
Carrying a copy of the US Constitution, according to the US government, is an indicator of someone possibly being a domestic terrorist, as is anyone who is a military vet, or a Christian, or a member of the TEA Party, or who talks about making the world a better place.
Yes, we're talking about huge players and huge deals.
No, we're talking about an Obama campaign contribution bundler getting a sweet payback at taxpayer expense to create something that's not designed to work in the first place. Not that that kind of thing is out of character for this administration [cough]rape-A-scan[cough].
But I'll take your bet that this is all a conspiracy to bring about single-payer healthcare. You've made a prediction, now we'll sit back and observe you being wrong.
What conspiracy? It's no secret. Here's one of the architects of Obamacare openly stating it, in a manner and tone suggesting that anyone would be stupid to NOT believe Obamacare is a path to single-payer government health care.
Jacob Hacker, The Architect of ObamaCare and the Public Option in making his case, admits that this idea is a covert route to a Single Payer System.
---- "WASHINGTON â" A tech firm linked to a campaign-donor crony of President Obama not only got the job to help build the federal health-insurance Web site â" but also is getting paid to fix it.
Anthony Welters, a top campaign bundler for Obama and frequent White House guest, is the executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, which owns the software company now at the center of the ObamaCare Web-site fiasco.
UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Quality Software Services Inc. (QSSI), which built the data hub for the ObamaCare system, has been named the new general contractor in charge of repairing the glitch-plagued HealthCare.gov.
Welters and his wife, Beatrice, have shoveled piles of cash into Obamaâ(TM)s campaign coffers and Âapparently reaped the rewards.
Beatrice Welters bundled donations totaling between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obamaâ(TM)s campaign during the 2008 election Âcycle, according to campaign- Âfinance data compiled by Center for Responsive Politics.
SICK CALL: Obama bundler Anthony Weltersâ(TM) firm owns the company picked to repair the health Web site.
The couple then became top donors for Obamaâ(TM)s inauguration festivities, kicking in $100,000 out of their own pockets and bundling another $300,000 from friends and business associates, according to the center.
The investments quickly paid off for Beatrice Welters. The Obama administration tapped her in 2009 for the plum job of US ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, which she held through last November.
The couple have been frequent guests at the White House.
Visitors logs show at least a dozen visits between the two by the end of 2012, the most recent information available.
The entire Welters family has gotten into the donation game.
The Welters, along with their sons, Andrew and Bryant, have contributed more than $258,000 to mostly Democratic candidates and committees since 2007.
Whatâ(TM)s more, UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest health-insurance companies in the country and spent millions lobbying for ObamaCare.
The insurance giantâ(TM)s purchase of QSSI in 2012 raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, but the tech firm nevertheless kept the job of building the data hub for the ObamaCare Web site where consumers buy the new mandatory health- Âinsurance plans.
QSSI has been paid an estimated $150 million so far, but officials couldnâ(TM)t say how much more the company might collect on the Ârepair contract.
By all accounts, the data hub has run smoothly while many other components of the Web site have failed.
Meanwhile, tempers flared among Obamaâ(TM)s Democratic allies over the disastrous rollout of the presidentâ(TM)s signature initiative.
âoeIâ(TM)m extraordinarily frustrated,â said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) Âafter top Obama-administration officials gave Senate Democrats a private briefing on the state of the Web-site repairs.
He said they were losing confidence the site could be quickly fixed.
âoeI donâ(TM)t think thereâ(TM)s confidence by anyone in the room. This is more of a show-me moment,â said Merkley." ----
This thing was never meant to function in any event. They didn't pay attention to the details because they didn't matter.
It was designed to fail so that the "Holy Grail" of single-payer government-run healthcare could be rolled out as a "fix". As a bonus, they get to hand a big bag of taxpayer's money to their "bag-man".
Just watch. Single-payer will be the "fix" insisted upon.
At least we won't have so many foreigners coming to the US for our excellent health care any more.
So, why is shrinking the federal government and taking away some of the powers it has given itself a bad idea, again?
In theory it is a great idea. In practice there is the question of who will fill the power vacuum, there are a lot of nut cases with power in the United States of America and given a sudden power vacuum who knows who might step forward to fill it.
No need for any "power vacuum".
The powers we find essential can still be there, just distributed to individuals, cities, counties, and States instead of centralized at the Federal level There are also entire federal departments that could be eliminated entirely.
There is only one way a government gains power. That's by taking that power from the people it governs. The more power the government has, the less free the people are. When you give government more power in whatever form, you surrender freedom.
Given Snowden's background, it doesn't seem he has issues with divulging information. As part of fleeing to Russia, I'm certain he understood that he would have many conversations with many interesting people. I hardly think any sort of "working over" will be necessary in this case.
You are probably right.
Except that the shear bulk of the information might make it so he is not entirely familiar with everything released. If he only glanced at the documents before collecting them or collected them because they were with other documents he found interesting, it could be a situation where he literally doesn't know much outside of a reporter he gave the information to divulging it to the world.
But that is just a guess on my part. Perhaps he has already mentioned that he knows more which is why the meeting is taking place at all. If this is the case, I guess you would be right.
More than likely the case. He's probably more familiar with things he was actually involved with, but it's doubtful he's had time to educate himself on the details of every program and initiative for which he released data.
However.
Even if Snowden has no intimate details for Indonesian officials, they would likely, even knowing it was pointless intelligence-wise, make a big production as they've done out of "interviewing" Snowden simply for international and domestic-Indonesian propaganda and political PR purposes.
This whole dog-and-pony show gives Australia, and by extension the US government, a serious, and *deserved*, black eye internationally.
The US government has grown so powerful that it has become a threat to both the domestic and international population. They've got their "guns" pointed at everyone...citizens, foreigners, allies, enemies, journalists, and whistle-blowers all over the world.
So, why is shrinking the federal government and taking away some of the powers it has given itself a bad idea, again?
This isn't about political Party or ideology, simply basic human nature and the way groups of humans interact and behave. If you've got a large enough government apparatus to operate an entitlement society the size of the US, it's going to become corrupt and abuse that power, and it's not like corrupt power-abusers would care about abusing foreigners any more than citizens.
Once the apparatus of government grows large enough, no amount of oversight or checks-and-balances will be able to contain it's growth in scope, power, and level of corruption. There are now secret courts FFS! There's simply too much wealth being spent and too many people in too many agencies, bureaus, departments, offices, etc etc etc, to watch. At this point, any instrument of oversight will be "captured" and become a further enabler and provide "cover". Witness the "Deep Horizon" BP oil spill incident.
We are a 2 truck household, both myself and my wife work.
I'd be very interested in an EV to replace 1 of them, perhaps both if they were "volt" type technology with range extending engines.
But there are no full-size SUV EVs. So we drive gas trucks. The little cars are of no interest to us.
BTW, just to be clear, I'd be a buyer of a full-size SUV EV if the price is about the same as the gas version, or $5K more if it is the "volt" technology. Much more than that and I'm not really interested.
The reason the electric vehicles generally tend towards being smaller & as light as possible is the reason a truck/SUV isn't anywhere near practical. Energy storage density/weight/size efficiency & practicality. The same reason there won't be electric intercontinental passenger aircraft any time soon.
Now, in an ideal world without Darwin-award contenders and nut-jobs, I was thinking about a small heavily-shielded and sealed thorium-based reactor that simply heated water for steam to drive a turbine. Plenty of power and torque for a truck. No moving parts. Heat exchanger built around it and encases it. Design the reactor to produce one constant temperature calculated to cause no damage if the heat exchanger is not in a vehicle and doesn't have water.
Heck, you could standardize the things and use them for cars/trucks, and for heating/cooling houses and buildings as well as produce electricity.
I'm afraid that in the real world, with the aforementioned Darwin-award contenders and nut-jobs strongly represented, the thing would have to use such a large quantity of such an extremely low-grade thorium bed material, and be so heavily armored against tampering/opening, that the thing would end up being nearly the size (and weight!) of a bank vault and end up incapable of producing enough energy to move it's own weight/mass.
I can carry enough gasoline in one hand to fuel a car for 125-plus miles easily (5 gallons x 25mpg), and it only takes as long as it takes to pour the stuff into the tank to be on the way.
5 Gallons of gas weighs about 15kg, you might be able to carry it in one hand, but unless you're a buff cunt, it's not easy, for any significant amount of walking, that is.
How much does the battery assembly in a Model S weigh? How far do you think you could carry it compared to a 5 gallon can filled with gasoline? Can you say "forklift"? Can you pop a freshly charged battery into a Model S with a dead battery on the side of the road in a minute or two and be on your way like one can with 5 gallons of gasoline?
Energy density and portability that can compete favorably with gasoline are hurdles that will have to be overcome if EV technology is to be widely adopted. We're not there yet.
Until those problems are addressed such that they can compare favorably with gasoline, electric cars will be a niche market restricted to mostly higher-income people living and working in urban metropolitan areas, and then mainly as an additional "commute-only" vehicle.
That fortunate, because urban metro areas are one of the places that would benefit most from EV adoption, since there's a large number of vehicles in a small space, replacing them with zero emission vehicles would have far more profound positive health outcomes (lower pollution), than replacing a bunch of rural vehicles, even if replacing those rural vehicles resulted in greater total emissions reductions (actually urban commuter vehicles consume more fuel per mile travelled than rural vehicles, due to traffic and low speeds).
First, most people won't replace their gasoline vehicle, just supplement it with an EV. So then you've nearly doubled the amount of resources used and pollution created in the making of vehicles, not to mention the money that will be sunk into a second EV car that will no longer go to support other parts of the economy.
Second, the poor and working-poor cannot afford EVs, and the working-poor are the largest part of the commuting workforce by far. You're not going to see Walmart, 7-11, and McD employees driving Teslas or Volts. Even many lower-middle and middle-income families that once were two-car families are having to downsize to a single vehicle, and since most people want the ability to travel more than 200 miles without stopping if they need to travel, an EV won't be the one vehicle they choose. I don't think you'll see anywhere like the magnitude of reductions you imagine.
Finally, you're adding the externalities of EV production to the existing externalities of gasoline vehicle production. Then you have to add in the externalities of the additional electrical generation capacity required and the additional externalities involved with building & deploying the huge amount of new infrastructure and refitting of old infrastructure necessary to support EVs. Even if the vehicles and infrastructure components are mostly manufactured outside the US, that's just exporting the pollution and other negative externalities.
The reason more EVs aren't being sold is that the technology isn't ready for prime-time quite yet and simply can't compete.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem being that much of the time disabling those systems would be a prelude to, and used such as to make it easier/safer for, them to shoot you. And your little dog, too.
There are far too many adrenaline junkies, steroid freaks, power-tripping assholes, and corrupt/criminal cops in LE these days. Combined with the "blue wall of silence" by so-called "good" cops, there really aren't many "good" cops at all these days.
If a cop tells me he's a "good cop" I'll tell him that unless he's had a history of turning in/arresting bad cops, he's full of shit and just as bad as the worst of them.
Personally, I want to see cops forced to go back to having only .38-special revolvers, a baton, and pepper-spray. An unloaded shotgun locked in the trunk. No body armor or bullet-proof vests allowed, and certainly no armored vehicles, grenade launchers, or full-auto weapons. Call the NG if they need that kind of firepower. Don't want to be a cop under those conditions? Great. GTFO. We don't want you.
Strat
Spoken like a true non-business owner. I said it's not a burden, and you call that "fact-free".
Yes, it's fact-free. It's simply a statement with no support.
I *am* a business owner.
You say that a child's lemonade stand has similar regulatory burdens as McDonald's. Fuck you. You're an idiot.
And there you go again with the ad hominem attacks.
I guess it also sucks when you don't have the intellect to carry on an adversarial conversation without giving up on reason & logic and having to resort to name-calling out of pure desperation.
I pity those such as you, as there is no cure for your kind of affliction.
Strat
Oh, quit with the "regulatory burden" bullshit. It's a TINY burden in exchange for being able to sell to every person in the country. You wouldn't know "regulatory burden" if it hit you in the head. If you're too stupid or too lazy to figure out how to pay the taxes you're supposed to pay, then you're too stupid or lazy to be in business.
Ah, a fact-free ad hominem attack. I see you've thought this issue out logically & thoroughly. Thanks for your in-depth practical analysis. You've added tremendous value to the discussion.
Umm, "that" is one facet of "regulatory burden" that you call "bullshit" that has real consequences for regular people.
And yes it does suck, and you, judging by your reply, seem to want more of that suck-age in everyone's life.
Strat
Yeah, who (besides serfs) needs all those small, privately-owned, independent, hard to monitor and control businesses that have existed for ages, around anyways? Better and easier for government that all merchandise and services are provided by the megacorps. It certainly would cut down on Mom & Pop competition for Walmart, Amazon, and other big-box stores and megacorps.
Whenever cost & complexity is added to doing business by government, it hits the smallest players first and hardest.
When little kids can't even run a lemonade stand in their home's driveway on a summer afternoon any more without dealing with the same regulatory burdens and costs that a McDonald's does, there's something wrong.
Strat
Get ready for amazon.ag and overstock.ag.
At least, if I were in charge at Amazon.com or Overstock.com, I'd be looking to move the business out of the USA. As a bonus (outside of avoiding overly-burdensome US tax/regulation bureaucracy and costs), they could offer any US copyrighted work for sale from Antigua without any consideration for US copyright holders.
Strat
Ah, you must have missed the rest of my post. Apologies : )
If anyone is seen by someone even capable of diagnosing schizophrenia and it didn't take three referrals and several months of persistence on the patient's part then everyone would call bullshit.
Which appears to be the exact response to Brandon's "diagnosis".
While technically true, it wasn't like there were tons of civil rights groups willing to show interest in Raub's case [cough]ACLU[cough] until the libertarian-leaning Rutherford Institute jumped in to provide Raub assistance in legal defense and protection from the government.
I just wonder where all these other unusually-silent civil rights groups were, because it was crickets until RI stepped up.
To my mind, a "civil rights group" that advocates for the civil rights of only those in certain political/ideological/racial groups it likes/agrees with and/or for only select civil rights they agree with are in a very real way very much "hate groups".
They are intentionally seeking to elevate only select racial/political/ideological groups and only certain civil liberties and rights, thereby helping to disenfranchise the civil rights of those competing political/ideological/racial groups it dislikes and civil liberties and rights it disagrees with. This places those groups at a disadvantage and weakens the strength of all civil liberties and rights for everyone.
The ends do not justify the means.
Strat
The US wouldn't have that problem and i'll tell you why. They probably had socialized medicine and it was normal to have doctors just see someone on the government's dime. That would never happen here, lol.
Umm, "never happen here" you say, and with a laugh?
Let me cure that memory hole for you.
https://www.rutherford.org/key_cases/key_cases_brandon_raub/
You owe me an internets. :)
Strat
It sounds familiar because your hero Michelle Bachman was recently calling for an investigation of people in congress who are not "American enough" So yeah... Deja Vu.
WTF does Bachmann have to do with something that's been a growing problem for decades regardless of (R) or (D) being in control, and where the hell did I ever say anything about Bachmann being my (or anyone else's) hero, never mind mentioning her at all?
Grow up. This isn't about the (R) vs (D) and/or Progressive vs Conservative dog and pony show. Both US political parties and the "establishment" Progressives and Conservatives are corrupt to their core. They are both selling everybody's rights, freedom, and privacy down the river for their own benefit, although for many it may be a case of NSA-database-fueled political blackmail.
As long as the NSA maintains and grows that treasure-trove of blanket domestic surveillance data, they can control who is elected and what they do and say once in office. Even if someone (and their family and everyone they care about) is "clean", now that the NSA has been turned into a partisan-political weapon, digital evidence can be faked and planted with the capabilities of the NSA, and so nearly anyone be framed/blackmailed.
Strat
You forgot a few. Less freedom to feed the homeless, less freedom from warrant-less surveillance, less freedom from being on a Presidential "kill list", less freedom from Rendition, less freedom from "parallel construction", less freedom from secret treaties & agreements that take away your privacy & freedom on the internet to protect failed business models, etc etc etc. For every positive you can name stemming from expanding government power, I can name ten things that negatively impact people's freedom.
Government is there to protect me from you. I can affect government; I have a vote and a voice. I have no club whatever to bash over the head of AT&T, the MAFIAA, Monsanto, Wal Mart, Shell, BP, Microsoft, Sony... Except government.
The problem is that once government gets as large & powerful as the US government is, "AT&T, the MAFIAA, Monsanto, Wal Mart, Shell, BP, Microsoft, Sony" use government as a club to bash *you* over the head, and you no longer have a vote or a voice, because that large, corrupt government now takes bribes/lobbying/campaign money & marching orders from those corporations, not people like you or I.
Government can *only* grow in power by taking that power, in the form of rights & freedoms, from the people it governs.
How much less-free do you want to be today?
By your reply, I'd say you find your chains comforting.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
Sorry, but fuck you, I will not surrender my natural rights and freedoms peacefully for your comfort & convenience.
Strat
Congress didn't give themselves a pass on ACA. A few Senators spoke of it but it wasn't in the final bill.
Well, there is dispute over this.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/09/fact-check-did-president-obama-exempt-members-of-congress-from-obamacare/
"Like most large employers, the federal government contributes a portion to the premiums of its employees. In fact, like many employers, the federal government pays most of the premiums for its workers; an average of 72 percent on Capitol Hill.
The new provision didnâ(TM)t account for the continued employer contribution for these federal workers who would now be buying their insurance on the exchanges. The exchanges were designed to help people without health insurance and people with overly expensive health insurance. It became clear that without their employer contribution, members and their staffers would essentially be getting a cut in pay and benefits equal to thousands of dollars. Even Grassley, the provisionâ(TM)s author, had tried to amend to law in order to allow the government to continue to contribute to lawmakersâ(TM) and staffersâ(TM) premiums.
What the Obama administration has done is rule that the lawmakers and their staffs will continue to receive the employer contribution to help them buy their insurance on the exchange.
Originally we declared Vitterâ(TM)s assertion to be wrong since any company can decide to help pay for policies that its workers purchase on the exchange so allowing representatives and staff to do so would not be an âoeexemption.â That notion has been challenged by conservative critics of Obamacare who argue that under existing federal statutes Congress had to specifically pass legislation authorizing the premium subsidies for any insurance program other than FEHBP. Since congress did not do this, the administration, at the behest of Congressional Democrats, and, according to Politico, Speaker John Boehner, unilaterally extended premium contributions. By doing this, the critics argue, the administration âoeexemptedâ Congress from the law. "
Congress isn't immune from insider trading laws and regulations.
Again, technically correct, but Congress made it so that it's extremely difficult to enforce.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/congressional_insider_trading_revisited_but_dont_tell_anyone_commentary-224674-1.html?pg=2
Make no mistake: The STOCK Act is still in effect and congressional insider trading still is banned. But it has now become extraordinarily difficult to ensure compliance with the law.
The above the law mindset isn't a function of large government.
I would strongly disagree here, as it is the tendency of any large bureaucracy, especially governments, because of the relative power-with-anonymity that individuals enjoy in such a large group, for natural human failings to become an increasing part of the culture.
Just look at Rome, or the EU, AU, & UK, or China and the former USSR. No matter the particular form of government, once it grows so large & powerful, the people making up that government become increasingly aloof and immune from the laws that punish regular citizens for things those in positions of power within that government get a pass on.
It's simply basic human behavior regarding power relationships that has been studied and confirmed in many experiments over decades.
The above the law mindset isn't a function of large government. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 signed into law by John Adams was certainly done by a federal government that thought it above th
What made McCarthyism bad not the hunt for subversives per se, it was tossing out the constitution in the hunt for subversives.
Gee, now why does that sound so familiar?
It's deja vu all over again.
Those who fail to learn from history...
Strat
It's legally safer for them to say that they're incompetent.
Why should they bother saying anything? They can simply stonewall everything/everyone. You think anyone in the DoJ will prosecute them or act to carry out or enforce any rulings, subpoenas, or warrants from Congress or even the SCOTUS (John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." - Andrew Jackson)?
Laws don't apply to those who rule and not govern. That's why Congress gave itself a pass on participating in the ACA and from insider-trading laws & regulations They view themselves as rulers, and so they feel they can violate laws with impunity.
And, why shouldn't they? They can and do because fuck you, what are *you* gonna do about it? Hell, half the country is so caught up in the class-warfare, racial-victimhood, (R) vs (D), Progressive/Conservative, "terrists", think-of-the-children, anti-gun/pro-helpless-victim, divide-and-conquer propaganda, that they're busy actually cheering them on and trying to give them even more power.
This NSA surveillance and "above the law" mindset & behavior is part of the natural progression that occurs when governments get too big and powerful, and is to be expected.
Strat
He's clearly referring to the anti-voting laws...
Wait, wait, wait...
So, now laws that simply require presenting basic personal ID (which everybody would need to have to do almost anything in society) in order to prevent election fraud are now "anti-voting laws"?
LMAO!!
Sheesh, you people just get funnier (and more desperate) every single day!
Strat
What do you have against people in the southern UK?
I know you can't mean the American South. This kind of nanny-state crap is the kind of thing you'd expect from the Northeast from people like Herr Bloomberg and/or from the "land of fruits & nuts" aka California and some of the northwestern States from people like Feinstein & Pelosi.
Strat
The shooting was not shown live on TV.
Well, I was 7. I was on my way home from a half-day of school and stopped at a classmate's home and, standing in their living room, watched and listened to the reports. Maybe they didn't show the shooting live, but it seems like footage was presented within a very short period of time. Or maybe my ~50-yr-old memory of that day got mixed with news reports later that day showing the footage of the shooting.
It was still pretty shocking to a 7-yo.
Strat
However, the libertarians think that somehow paying taxes is against liberty, making regulations against fouling my air and water is against liberty,...
Paying taxes for things like the common defense, police, firefighters, etc etc are no problem. Taxes intended to fund things that are not included in the Constitution, and for purposes of social engineering like income redistribution, not so much.
...laws mandating that you don't pay starvation wages are against liberty...
That you got one right. Minimum wage laws simply limit entry-level employment opportunities and disenfranchise new workers. They also prevent low or no-skilled workers from voluntarily participating in low/no-pay apprenticeships and internships that gain them new skills and work experience which greatly increases their earning ability.
...that regulations against unsafe workplaces is against liberty.
Wrong again. Wanting less regulation does not mean no regulation. If your business blows up or catches fire, it could damage my property and/or endanger my life. Same with the stupid meme that libertarians don't want to pay for police or firemen and want something resembling Somalia. Bullshit propaganda from authoritarians.
Libertarians want the government to be restricted to what the Constitution allows it to do, and that's all. If you want a change, simply amend the Constitution. That's why there is a process for amending it. If your ideas have the support of most people, it will be voted in to be added to the Constitution. The government doesn't get to do things the Constitution does not allow, no matter how many secret courts they create or how many secret rulings they make.
You think those people working at WalMart should have to have a food drive to be fed?
Better ask the administration, because the ACA is forcing employers to drop full-time employees who were working up to 40 hours a week to now work less than 30 hours or face steep cost increases. Besides, "Walmart stock clerk" is not a career position that can support a family or even an individual alone at anything like a comfortable lifestyle, it's an entry-level position for new workers. To expect such jobs to pay enough to support a family or a comfortable individual lifestyle is fantasy.
An employer can only afford to pay an employee what the employee generates for the employer. A shelf-stocker or checkout register clerk is not making an employer enough to be able to pay him/her $10-$15 an hour plus benefits.
Employers will reduce the number of employees, relocate to somewhere where they can afford to stay in business, or they'll simply close shop, retire to Fiji, and leave you guys to figure out where those people will work now that they're unemployed completely.
Strat
I remember being 7 years old and watching TV when Kennedy was shot, and seeing it all unfold, the Secret Service agents running after the limo and the shocked news announcer. I was stunned. That was a lot to take in for a 7-yo, and it was just myself and a friend at his house with no adults present at that moment (his mother ran across the street to borrow something).
The actual shots were only about 80 to 100 yards. I can put rounds into a 6-inch wide circle at 100 yards quite reliably with a decent bolt-action rifle like a 6.5mm 91/38 Carcano using a 4x scope, and I have no military training and don't go to the range every chance I have.
I'm confident that I would stand an excellent chance of hitting that circle if it was moving like the limo did in relation to Oswald's viewpoint, with target-travel mostly directly away, and only a very slow lateral target-picture movement. Especially if I had the chance to put a hundred rounds or more through the rifle at a range prior, so that I knew the weapon.
I'm no marksman, just an occasional hunter. IMHO there's nothing that amazing about Oswald's shots. If he was aiming at Kennedy alone, which I must assume he was, then he missed more than he hit.
Strat
(Note: Tea Partiers and Libertarians want other people to spend less. They, themselves, are by far the worst of the pork barrel spenders.)
What!? You're joking, right? Maybe my sarcasm detector needs calibration.
Now, the "establishment" Republicans, people like John Boehner, McCain, Graham, the "moderate" and RINO Republicans, they're nearly as Progressive as the Progressive Democrats and have been the ones in control of the Republican party and together with Progressive Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress and consistently expanded the size, scope, budget, and power of the Federal government for decades. That's why nothing that really matters changes very often.
Both the establishment/Progressive (R)s and the (D)s have been excoriating the TEA party-associated members and those who speak of libertarianism (not the R. Paul brand of crazy, the concept of "libertarian") and sabotaging them at every turn because they keep proposing things that cut spending, government growth, and expansion of government power/loss of freedom (having more of one means having less of the other).
The TEA Party-supporting and libertarian-leaning are the only ones proposing any meaningful reductions in spending (including pork). Of course, one can call anything they want "pork" if they already have their politically-biased conclusions beforehand, and are simply hunting for something to back up their narrow beliefs.
The US basically has a one-Party system, with TEA Party and others who believe in less government, less spending, and more freedom, trying to gain a foothold.
There's one simple principle that people should never forget.
More government = less freedom.
How much less-free do *you* want to be today?
Strat
Seriously, if I had a secret compartment in my car, I would keep a copy of the King James Bible, a copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and a registered handgun in there.
[sarc]
Terrorist!
Those are far, far worse than illegal drugs!
Carrying a copy of the US Constitution, according to the US government, is an indicator of someone possibly being a domestic terrorist, as is anyone who is a military vet, or a Christian, or a member of the TEA Party, or who talks about making the world a better place.
Enjoy your stay at GITMO.
[/sarc]
Strat
Yes, we're talking about huge players and huge deals.
No, we're talking about an Obama campaign contribution bundler getting a sweet payback at taxpayer expense to create something that's not designed to work in the first place. Not that that kind of thing is out of character for this administration [cough]rape-A-scan[cough].
But I'll take your bet that this is all a conspiracy to bring about single-payer healthcare. You've made a prediction, now we'll sit back and observe you being wrong.
What conspiracy? It's no secret. Here's one of the architects of Obamacare openly stating it, in a manner and tone suggesting that anyone would be stupid to NOT believe Obamacare is a path to single-payer government health care.
Jacob Hacker, The Architect of ObamaCare and the Public Option in making his case, admits that this idea is a covert route to a Single Payer System.
http://youtu.be/3sTfZJBYo1I
Sorry, but the facts seem to be in conflict with your world-view. I'll take facts over hand-waving, thanks all the same.
Strat
I'm guessing they were lowest bid.
Bids? What bids?
There was no bidding.
http://nypost.com/2013/11/01/obama-donors-firm-hired-to-fix-web-mess-it-helped-make/
----
"WASHINGTON â" A tech firm linked to a campaign-donor crony of President Obama not only got the job to help build the federal health-insurance Web site â" but also is getting paid to fix it.
Anthony Welters, a top campaign bundler for Obama and frequent White House guest, is the executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, which owns the software company now at the center of the ObamaCare Web-site fiasco.
UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Quality Software Services Inc. (QSSI), which built the data hub for the ObamaCare system, has been named the new general contractor in charge of repairing the glitch-plagued HealthCare.gov.
Welters and his wife, Beatrice, have shoveled piles of cash into Obamaâ(TM)s campaign coffers and Âapparently reaped the rewards.
Beatrice Welters bundled donations totaling between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obamaâ(TM)s campaign during the 2008 election Âcycle, according to campaign- Âfinance data compiled by Center for Responsive Politics.
SICK CALL: Obama bundler Anthony Weltersâ(TM) firm owns the company picked to repair the health Web site.
The couple then became top donors for Obamaâ(TM)s inauguration festivities, kicking in $100,000 out of their own pockets and bundling another $300,000 from friends and business associates, according to the center.
The investments quickly paid off for Beatrice Welters. The Obama administration tapped her in 2009 for the plum job of US ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, which she held through last November.
The couple have been frequent guests at the White House.
Visitors logs show at least a dozen visits between the two by the end of 2012, the most recent information available.
The entire Welters family has gotten into the donation game.
The Welters, along with their sons, Andrew and Bryant, have contributed more than $258,000 to mostly Democratic candidates and committees since 2007.
Whatâ(TM)s more, UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest health-insurance companies in the country and spent millions lobbying for ObamaCare.
The insurance giantâ(TM)s purchase of QSSI in 2012 raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, but the tech firm nevertheless kept the job of building the data hub for the ObamaCare Web site where consumers buy the new mandatory health- Âinsurance plans.
QSSI has been paid an estimated $150 million so far, but officials couldnâ(TM)t say how much more the company might collect on the Ârepair contract.
By all accounts, the data hub has run smoothly while many other components of the Web site have failed.
Meanwhile, tempers flared among Obamaâ(TM)s Democratic allies over the disastrous rollout of the presidentâ(TM)s signature initiative.
âoeIâ(TM)m extraordinarily frustrated,â said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) Âafter top Obama-administration officials gave Senate Democrats a private briefing on the state of the Web-site repairs.
He said they were losing confidence the site could be quickly fixed.
âoeI donâ(TM)t think thereâ(TM)s confidence by anyone in the room. This is more of a show-me moment,â said Merkley."
----
This thing was never meant to function in any event. They didn't pay attention to the details because they didn't matter.
It was designed to fail so that the "Holy Grail" of single-payer government-run healthcare could be rolled out as a "fix". As a bonus, they get to hand a big bag of taxpayer's money to their "bag-man".
Just watch. Single-payer will be the "fix" insisted upon.
At least we won't have so many foreigners coming to the US for our excellent health care any more.
Strat
No need for any "power vacuum".
The powers we find essential can still be there, just distributed to individuals, cities, counties, and States instead of centralized at the Federal level There are also entire federal departments that could be eliminated entirely.
There is only one way a government gains power. That's by taking that power from the people it governs. The more power the government has, the less free the people are. When you give government more power in whatever form, you surrender freedom.
How much less-free would you like to be?
Strat
More than likely the case. He's probably more familiar with things he was actually involved with, but it's doubtful he's had time to educate himself on the details of every program and initiative for which he released data.
However.
Even if Snowden has no intimate details for Indonesian officials, they would likely, even knowing it was pointless intelligence-wise, make a big production as they've done out of "interviewing" Snowden simply for international and domestic-Indonesian propaganda and political PR purposes.
This whole dog-and-pony show gives Australia, and by extension the US government, a serious, and *deserved*, black eye internationally.
The US government has grown so powerful that it has become a threat to both the domestic and international population. They've got their "guns" pointed at everyone...citizens, foreigners, allies, enemies, journalists, and whistle-blowers all over the world.
So, why is shrinking the federal government and taking away some of the powers it has given itself a bad idea, again?
This isn't about political Party or ideology, simply basic human nature and the way groups of humans interact and behave. If you've got a large enough government apparatus to operate an entitlement society the size of the US, it's going to become corrupt and abuse that power, and it's not like corrupt power-abusers would care about abusing foreigners any more than citizens.
Once the apparatus of government grows large enough, no amount of oversight or checks-and-balances will be able to contain it's growth in scope, power, and level of corruption. There are now secret courts FFS! There's simply too much wealth being spent and too many people in too many agencies, bureaus, departments, offices, etc etc etc, to watch. At this point, any instrument of oversight will be "captured" and become a further enabler and provide "cover". Witness the "Deep Horizon" BP oil spill incident.
Strat
We are a 2 truck household, both myself and my wife work.
I'd be very interested in an EV to replace 1 of them, perhaps both if they were "volt" type technology with range extending engines.
But there are no full-size SUV EVs. So we drive gas trucks. The little cars are of no interest to us.
BTW, just to be clear, I'd be a buyer of a full-size SUV EV if the price is about the same as the gas version, or $5K more if it is the "volt" technology. Much more than that and I'm not really interested.
The reason the electric vehicles generally tend towards being smaller & as light as possible is the reason a truck/SUV isn't anywhere near practical. Energy storage density/weight/size efficiency & practicality. The same reason there won't be electric intercontinental passenger aircraft any time soon.
Now, in an ideal world without Darwin-award contenders and nut-jobs, I was thinking about a small heavily-shielded and sealed thorium-based reactor that simply heated water for steam to drive a turbine. Plenty of power and torque for a truck. No moving parts. Heat exchanger built around it and encases it. Design the reactor to produce one constant temperature calculated to cause no damage if the heat exchanger is not in a vehicle and doesn't have water.
Heck, you could standardize the things and use them for cars/trucks, and for heating/cooling houses and buildings as well as produce electricity.
I'm afraid that in the real world, with the aforementioned Darwin-award contenders and nut-jobs strongly represented, the thing would have to use such a large quantity of such an extremely low-grade thorium bed material, and be so heavily armored against tampering/opening, that the thing would end up being nearly the size (and weight!) of a bank vault and end up incapable of producing enough energy to move it's own weight/mass.
[sigh]
This is why we can't have nice things.
Strat
How much does the battery assembly in a Model S weigh? How far do you think you could carry it compared to a 5 gallon can filled with gasoline? Can you say "forklift"? Can you pop a freshly charged battery into a Model S with a dead battery on the side of the road in a minute or two and be on your way like one can with 5 gallons of gasoline?
Energy density and portability that can compete favorably with gasoline are hurdles that will have to be overcome if EV technology is to be widely adopted. We're not there yet.
First, most people won't replace their gasoline vehicle, just supplement it with an EV. So then you've nearly doubled the amount of resources used and pollution created in the making of vehicles, not to mention the money that will be sunk into a second EV car that will no longer go to support other parts of the economy.
Second, the poor and working-poor cannot afford EVs, and the working-poor are the largest part of the commuting workforce by far. You're not going to see Walmart, 7-11, and McD employees driving Teslas or Volts. Even many lower-middle and middle-income families that once were two-car families are having to downsize to a single vehicle, and since most people want the ability to travel more than 200 miles without stopping if they need to travel, an EV won't be the one vehicle they choose. I don't think you'll see anywhere like the magnitude of reductions you imagine.
Finally, you're adding the externalities of EV production to the existing externalities of gasoline vehicle production. Then you have to add in the externalities of the additional electrical generation capacity required and the additional externalities involved with building & deploying the huge amount of new infrastructure and refitting of old infrastructure necessary to support EVs. Even if the vehicles and infrastructure components are mostly manufactured outside the US, that's just exporting the pollution and other negative externalities.
The reason more EVs aren't being sold is that the technology isn't ready for prime-time quite yet and simply can't compete.
Strat