So... lower corporate tax rates to the point where it's not worth the bother of jumping through these hoops.
But...but...that could lead to US economic and industrial growth with more and better-paying jobs and result in far fewer people dependent on government!
That would decimate the Liberal/Progressive-Democrat power- and voter-base that is dependent on maintaining the Marxist class-warfare memes! They say they are for reducing poverty, but wherever and whenever they've had the opportunities and control to do so, somehow, the poor end up still poor and joined by more poor (see: Detroit).
They can't actually go and solve the problems...they would lose their voter-base.
Wrong, because the scientists have politicized themselves and the science.
If a scientist advocates for some political action to be taken or not taken or policy to be enacted or not enacted then he has politicized himself, and his opinion is political, not scientific.
Your entire claim sounds like, if your a computer-guy (developer, engineer,...) you stop being a computer guy the second you leave your computer lab. Even if your doing that to go ask your boss for new hardware because the current setup is no longer up to it's tasks. Ask your boss something and now your a politician who lost all his computer-guy skills and knowledge...
Wow, hope your back is OK after all those contortions.
No. It would be like a sysadmin for some corporation personally sending out letters to the shareholders and news media over some IT issue without going through normal internal channels to have the issue addressed first, and causing the corporations' stock to tank.
That sysadmin would rightly be fired, maybe sued, possibly even criminally charged.
Scientists do science. That is what they are qualified for. Elected representatives make public policy. That's who we have decided is qualified to create public policy. Whenever one of those tries to do the other's job, look for the scam and/or ulterior motives/agendas.
Yeah, now legitimate, law-abiding gun owners can be arrested and labeled as terrorists for attempting to board an airplane after going to the gun range several days earlier.
Not just gun owners.
Guitar players, too.
Many of the most popular guitar picks, like the Fender Heavy picks I use, are celluloid. Which when used wear down, producing nitrocellulose dust.
That's nitrocellulose. Also known as gun-cotton which, when soaked with nitroglycerin and formed into sticks, makes dynamite.
Just try putting a flame to a celluloid pick sometime. Be prepared with a large ashtray or something fireproof to drop it into immediately, as it will flare into flame quite energetically with a small roar.
One could theoretically take a bag of picks into the aircrafts' lavatory, use an emery-board, fingernail file, or something similar to grind/abrade the picks into a rough powder, place it into an improvised small container, and have yourself an improvised explosive device.
And with that, I'm probably on yet another government list.
The one who developed TOR in the first place? Ya I figured you would, it wouldn't be a proper antidisestablishmentarism rant without them.
So the US Navy helped create TOR.
So what? DARPA helped develop the internet too, but that hasn't seemed to make a difference to many in the US government who have been working hard at crippling the free and open nature of the internet and the ability to communicate anonymously, and for many of the same reasons they would want TOR effectively de-fanged.
Those who who would make government and themselves our overlords will always take action to neutralize anything that can be used to oppose them, no mater how, what, where, why, or by whom it was developed...even if it was themselves. Just look at the history and development of modern firearms in the US from just prior to WW1 until now, and the ever-growing encroachments, conditions, and restrictions that have been placed upon the Second Amendment.
First you disarm them, then you take away the ability to communicate and organize anonymously.
And for all the people I see and hear cheering on the expansions of government, and then hear them bitch and moan whenever the government gets all jack-booty, it makes me think that maybe the colonists should have just paid the damned tea taxes and the stamp taxes, swore fealty to King George, and kept their damned mouths shut.
We've proven we don't give a shit about and don't deserve what they suffered and died and risked themselves and their families to give us.
I have a hard time imagining how all this "gun control" rhetoric keeps cropping up even though many decades of solid statistics show us that at least in the U.S., it simply does not work.
Well, Within the U.S., sure. For a simple reason, some U.S. areas have strong gun control laws, but they don't actually hae strong gun control. So smuggling in guns from other parts of the U.S. is easy, and criminals do that. So these places are unsafe.
Do not confuse having "gun control laws" with actually having "gun control"
Well the TSA/DHS are working on that by setting up random checkpoints at train and bus stations, as well as setting up random checkpoints on major roadways. Just search YouTube.
Pretty soon you'll have to pass through a TSA/DHS checkpoint to enter or leave any major metropolitan area, and you will be tracked by drone.
Don't confuse public policy with politics. The former is entirely appropriate for science.
Is this sarcasm?
Public policy is the product of politics. Politics is how public policy is formed. Science presents theories, then politics happens and public policies are the result.
When scientists cross over into advocating for/against public policies and political positions, the science is lost and simply becomes more politics.
Ergo, any scientist that comes out in favor of AGW or against AGW is not acting as a scientist, but as a partisan political/ideological advocate.
It's not political until the scientist advocates taking action to do something about it.
Basically correct and I agree, except that a scientist appearing on TV/cable interviews and basically parroting the pro-AGW OR the anti-AGW talking points, even if he doesn't actually advocate a specific action or policy, is still acting in a political/ideological capacity, not a scientific capacity.
A five year old can point to a drowning man, but can't swim out to pull him in. Our climate science is like that five year old.
Excellent, excellent point! Bravo, sir!
I've been saying roughly the same thing regarding even our ability to determine if that man is truly drowning, has a sloppy swim-kick that kicks up spray, or if he's simply splashing water about to watch it sparkle in the sunlight, as we've never seen a drowning man or a swimming man before. We've just barely grasped that water will wet us and that drowning is possible, and this is our first trip to the beach.
If a scientist advocates for some political action to be taken or not taken or policy to be enacted or not enacted then he has politicized himself, and his opinion is political, not scientific.
That's ridiculous. If astronomers detect an asteroid on a collision course with the earth and testify before Congress about it, does that disqualify them from having an opinion on the topic? (And justify ignoring the threat?)
Nice strawman, but that's not what's happened re: AGW. Scientists have come out making direct public statements and advocating proposals on public policy, not advising a government body whose job it is to do that.
The rest of your post seems to advocate a meritocracy. Who and what determines who has "merit"? A group of "more-equals" that have a single viewpoint (being human, the maintenance and expansion of their own power)?
Lisa Simpson learned why meritocracies eventually end in tyranny. Are you capable of as much critical thinking as a fictional animated preteen girl?
Ok, so you don't have anything to rebut with. It's not anything to get all butt-hurt over. You also didn't have to demonstrate those two facts to all of us with that statement.
According to you, a scientist that has fact based evidence of an immenemt disaster...
First, I think you meant "imminent". Chill out and take a breath. Besides, "imminent" in the case of AGW is in the same class of "imminent" as the next "ice age" part of the global climate cycle being "imminent".
According to you, a scientist that has fact based evidence of an immenemt disaster, has their facts count for nothing as soon as they warn the populace since that is political.
That is correct. Scientists publish studies, papers, and send reports to appropriate authorities whose job it is to set government agendas and policies. "Warning the populace" is correctly the job of the government and it's leaders, not some scientists taking it upon themselves to risk starting a panic and causing knee-jerk reactions.
That is one of the reasons we have governments and elected leaders, to maintain order and prevent some group of sincere-but-wrong wingnuts from causing public chaos and panic.
You could just stop listening to the political sides and listen to climate scientists instead. Problem solved.
Wrong, because the scientists have politicized themselves and the science.
If a scientist advocates for some political action to be taken or not taken or policy to be enacted or not enacted then he has politicized himself, and his opinion is political, not scientific.
Ergo, any scientist that comes out in favor of AGW or against AGW is not acting as a scientist, but as a partisan political/ideological advocate.
Scientists do studies, perform experiments, and publish papers on purely scientific topics. They don't engage in political/ideological advocacy. Those advocating one side or the other are not scientists, at least while they are advocating.
So, no scientists have advocated one side over another, as the very act of advocacy disqualifies them as performing "science" and therefor their opions are not "scientific", but political.
stricter licensing laws would pretty much put a large part of population out of work
Thus forcing a realignment of priorities, to such effects as incentivizing investment in public transportation, encouraging cycling and walking when there's no other choice, etc. You've got to start somewhere, no one will invest in infrastructure to support a non-driving public that doesn't exist (yet).
The problem is the time lag between the two (decades to build-out infrastructure) and the costs (trillions and trillions for a country the size of the US and the distances involved) and population density (huge areas with little population).
Of course, the UN's Agenda 21 seeks to solve that by enacting local policies while attacking private real-estate/property ownership and rights, and transferring wealth from 1st-World nations to 3rd-World nations, all aimed at eventually resulting in nearly all people crammed tightly together in urban centers in large "government housing project" style apartment blocks.
They use warm, fuzzy phrases like "sustainable development" to mask their true intentions and the negative effects of their policies upon individual liberty, property rights, and freedom, as well as national sovereignty.
It only stores the 4 seconds before the impact for now, until they decide to lengthen it and enhance the amount and types of data it records.
FTFY
I'm sure that the authorities would find it extremely helpful to have it record cabin video/audio of the last 30-60 seconds before an accident as well. And/or be able to trigger it from a police cruiser prior to a stop.
Police were never meant to solve all crimes, nor were police ever intended to be safe from the public or criminals. A place where nearly all crimes are solved and police are not at much more average risk than most other professions has a name.
Police state.
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Daniel Webster
Making the jobs of police easier and/or safer is no reason to abridge the freedoms, rights, and privacy of citizens. Nobody is forced to become a police officer. If the job is too hard or too risky, choose another job.
Government is itself good but the people in it are not always worth our trust.
The second part of that statement is why so many of us want it limited - more powerful government attracts nastier people, because you can use it to do nastier things more often. Why do you think of the government as "good"? Necessary, perhaps, but it's like insurance - you need to have enough to protect yourself, but diminishing returns and exponential price increases set it really quickly if you try to turn that protection into a bulletproof cocoon.
This is what so many people fail at connecting the dots on.
It's in everyone's interests to limit the size, scope, and power of government. Look, whatever political party you belong to, at some point your guys are going to lose an election and your enemies are going to be the ones in charge.
Every expansion in governments' size, scope, and power gives your opponents that power as well. Eventually, they'll have so much power that they stop fighting among themselves and work together as government-vs-citizens to increase their wealth, power, and control over, and at the cost of, the people and meanwhile incrementally removing their rights and freedoms, thus turning them into totally-dependent vassals of an authoritarian, tyrannical central government.
It's happened over and over in the same general manner throughout history. It's happening again, and not just in the US. Just look at the history of what was happening politically, economically, socially, and militarily, both nationally and globally, from 1900 to 1950 and then compare it to the things that have happened from the '50s until now.
I see repeating patterns, and the near future doesn't look good if those patterns hold and nothing major changes the path the US and the world is on.
For most of humanity's 5,000 years of civilization, personal/individual freedom and liberty as we've known it for only roughly the past 200 years has not existed.
Maybe humanity has forgotten how rare, precious, and still-in-alpha freedom is, how much work and attention it takes to maintain such individual freedom and liberty.
Maybe it will take another few millennia of being serfs to remind them of what they valued so little and gave away so freely in exchange for TV soundbites, government programs, and party mottos, while greeting each loss of freedom, every encroachment of government authority & control, with thunderous applause.
Maybe people have traveled too far down the road depicted in the movie "Idiocracy" and are no longer capable governing themselves or preventing themselves from becoming serfs to any "Not Sure" leader.
But never mind all that...there's a new smartphone coming out and a juicy new political sex scandal, and did you hear the latest outrage in the $WEDGEISSUE fight?
No, it will be similar, you are going to have a currency/economic crisis when the bond bubble bursts and probably a largely peaceful partial breakup.
I hope you're right. I see more similarities to the Wiemar Republic than I do the collapse of the USSR.
The federal military is not gonna march very far when they aren't paid any more than the soviet military did.
I think US soldiers, being volunteers, would stick to their posts and march where ordered for a good while longer than Soviet troops without pay. Besides, the President can always ask to have UN/foreign troops come in to assist with "Maintaining order and keeping the peace during this time of crisis".
When Washington has no more money to give there's no more reason for the state governments to listen to them.
Which should be the norm anyways. The Republic was not designed to have a balance of powers when so much wealth is taken away by the Federal government, only to be redistributed with strings. Each State was intended to be quite different from the others.That's called diversity. It allows for more freedom and avoids a mono-culture.
That didn't happen at the end of the Soviet Union and I doubt it would happen here.
Apples and oranges. What happened in the former USSR is not the same as what's happening in the US. There was not a rebellion or civil war between the government and the population in the old Soviet Union. What may occur in the US would be more akin to the fall of the Czars and the rise of Socialism and the Soviet Union or the takeover by the Nazis in 1930s Germany. Probably even closer would be the uprising in Syria and the failed uprising in Iran.
Intermittent use, perhaps, but I doubt widespread use.
Of course, I doubt that they'd try to turn the continental US into a glassed-over radioactive wasteland. But, when it comes to nuclear weapons, even two is pretty "widespread". Just ask Japan.
Interesting view of how a domestic suppression mission would work in US - FAE for best ROI.
When the SHTF I don't expect the government will adhere to Marcus of Queensbury rules, Geneva Convention rules, or any rules at all, actually. Might be a good idea to also stock up on protective gear for chemical attacks, too.
Unfortunately, not much besides crawling into a very deep, very reinforced and sealed hole in the ground will protect from a nuclear blast. And yes, if those in government think they may be losing the fight and are able, I fully expect they'd launch nukes at domestic targets and damn the consequences. Those currently in power are "dogs in the manger". If they can't be in charge of everything/everyone, they'll destroy everything/everyone first before that happens.
How exactly do you plan on shooting down a black hawk helicopter
Well, even one of these would make life very stressful indeed for a hostile Blackhawk, especially if you can secure some AP ammo. With several fighters equipped with these, that Blackhawk may quickly be doing a Mogadishu re-enactment.
My father carried the full-auto military version in WW2. He told me it would punch holes in German light-armor like half-tracks, armored cars, etc. Even with standard FMJ ammo it penetrates walls, tees, bricks, and concrete extremely well. It was also one of the favored weapons of Bonnie & Clyde and the Barrows gang.
Of course, one of these could punch *big* holes in a Blackhawk or Apache and ruin their entire day.
And it's legal to purchase and own in the US. And I know for a fact that.50BMG-AP rounds are readily available, even to the point they're not *that* much more expensive on the black market than legally-available surplus FMJ. Seems that since the US military has had so many different theaters of combat going lately that a lot of military weapons, ammo, and material has produced a bit of an overabundance of supply in the black markets around the world, including domestically in the US.
But heck, even without AP ammo, if one were to put a.50BMG round through both the side-doors, passing through without actually striking anything, the shockwave alone from the.50BMG round would likely kill or incapacitate anyone within a few feet of the rounds' path.
If a bunch of Jihadis in a 6th-century region can take out helos, depend on US citizens being able to take them down, even without Stingers or RPGs.
That means that when the US government sends them out on domestic civilian pacification/suppression/reconnaissance missions, the people can shoot them down without feeling bad about killing people
You mean other than the people that the downed chopper crashes on?
Oh, right. Better to let the chopper go ahead to it's heavily-populated target unmolested with that fuel-air bomb than risk the chopper crashing.
That means that when the US government sends them out on domestic civilian pacification/suppression/reconnaissance missions, the people can shoot them down without feeling bad about killing people. It's too bad the government does not share such reluctance.
Just look at what they [the US] didn't do for Rwanda or Yugoslavia, for example, in recent years, while 100s of thousands were slaughtered in massive ethnic cleansings...
Maybe the US was a little tired after helping Thailand and Haiti. Where were you and your country? Why didn't Europe/the EU step in if things were that bad, particularly because Yugoslavia is actually part of Europe? Europe is also much closer to Rwanda too.
Not sure why you think you're actually wanted in most place in the world as the 'world police'...
Wait, you just said the US wasn't doing enough. Which is it?
or how with your national debt you think you are the world's piggy bank
So tell your government and the others to stop begging for foreign aid and accusing the US of "not doing enough" if the US doesn't hand over ever-more money.
The US has many faults. However, the amount of aid given to other countries and regions, even to those who are not exactly friendly to the US, is orders of magnitude beyond what any other nation gives, and with far fewer and less-evil strings attached.
What you appear to be saying is, If the US provides lots of foreign aid etc, then it's acting fiscally-irresponsibly as "the world's piggy-bank" to buy influence, and if it reduces it's foreign spending and aid programs, it's greedy, selfish, and evil.
Personally, I think you're too ignorant, uninformed, propagandized, and bigoted to have a valid, worthwhile opinion on the matter. But, that's just me.
Don't treaties become automatically part of domestic laws via reference or rewrite? That is the way treaties are assimilated in other countries.
In the US, it is both Congress' and the Executive Branch's duty to pass legislation/regulations and to issue necessary Executive directives and orders to bring domestic law and policy into harmony with the treaty terms and conditions. The Judicial Branch also has a role in interpreting existing laws, regulations, and policies in accordance with the treaty.
It would be almost trivial to think that a treaty could modify the constitution as well if sufficiently important issues are at stake. Some countries do have rewrites of the their constitutions occasionally for those reasons.
The US Constitution specifically addresses this and forbids treaties from superseding the Constitution. Changes to the Constitution must be made by Constitutional Amendment. It was intentionally written that way to prevent the government from simply signing a treaty to effectively bypass Constitutional limitations on government power and abrogate individual freedom and the Bill of Rights through the back door.
There has to be a BIG push-back on this to stop it. Whether or not that push-back materializes to the strength and magnitude required to stop it is anyone's guess at this point, although I admit being pessimistic.
Strangely, I am, too. This isn't like SOPA with the legislature doing the dirty work.. this is the executive that's term-limited, now. Unless the administration has some weakness, elsewhere, that could stop them signing this crap, despite the necessary congressional ratification that likely won't happen, it's gonna be as real as socialized medicine. And then there's this inkling in the back of my mind saying there's no way that the gigantic US telcoms won't find some way to convince the administration that this 'treaty' is a terrible idea.
I don't think the telecoms will put up much fuss as they see what's happened to the private health insurance industry, auto industry, etc. They don't want to be next, and with an already-bold Executive Order pen that now isn't worried about re-election in play, they may be justified in their fears.
Especially when the current FCC chief has said these kinds of things publicly on video:
I shudder to think what the internet would become if the FCC is allowed to grab regulatory control. Probably a lot like a combination of the worst of the POTS and the cable TV systems.
One of the inventors of the telephone system was actually run out of a city after demonstrating the telegraph in front of an auddience. The crime was "performing illegal communication between two cities".
Things got quite weird and interesting for a while in the very early days of radio as well, until, much like now, all the governments got together to craft treaties to clamp down and control who had access to, and what was said over, the airwaves.
Just as is happening now with the attempts (and successes) at placing ever-more controls, restrictions, and intrusive monitoring on the internet, reasons were trotted out such as controlling chaos, crime, maintaining the publics' "moral turpitude" and more, as justifications for the governments of the world to seize control of this incredible new medium of instant long distance communication without wires.
The US then created the FCC who, as George Carlin famously quips, "...decided all on their own that radio and television were the only two areas of American life where the First Amendment didn't apply. What, are these people out of their fucking minds!? There are two *knobs* on the radio: One of them turns it OFF, and the other one *changes the station*!!"
I mean, I could be wrong, but damn if it doesn't look to me a whole lot like history, in general and with all things being equal, is repeating itself here with the internet.
And why wouldn't it? Wireless instant communications across borders in the case of radio/TV scared the bejeezus out of the world's leaders, and the internet is a all that times Chuck Norris as far as it's threat-potential to tyrannical/authoritarian leaders, despots, and regimes, and their propaganda programs that keep the people under control and producing.
And that's not to mention the force-multiplier it provides an abused population resisting and combating an authoritarian government that is cracking down on them.
Slashdot Mirror
So... lower corporate tax rates to the point where it's not worth the bother of jumping through these hoops.
But...but...that could lead to US economic and industrial growth with more and better-paying jobs and result in far fewer people dependent on government!
That would decimate the Liberal/Progressive-Democrat power- and voter-base that is dependent on maintaining the Marxist class-warfare memes! They say they are for reducing poverty, but wherever and whenever they've had the opportunities and control to do so, somehow, the poor end up still poor and joined by more poor (see: Detroit).
They can't actually go and solve the problems...they would lose their voter-base.
Strat
Wow, hope your back is OK after all those contortions.
No. It would be like a sysadmin for some corporation personally sending out letters to the shareholders and news media over some IT issue without going through normal internal channels to have the issue addressed first, and causing the corporations' stock to tank.
That sysadmin would rightly be fired, maybe sued, possibly even criminally charged.
Scientists do science. That is what they are qualified for. Elected representatives make public policy. That's who we have decided is qualified to create public policy. Whenever one of those tries to do the other's job, look for the scam and/or ulterior motives/agendas.
Strat
Yeah, now legitimate, law-abiding gun owners can be arrested and labeled as terrorists for attempting to board an airplane after going to the gun range several days earlier.
Not just gun owners.
Guitar players, too.
Many of the most popular guitar picks, like the Fender Heavy picks I use, are celluloid. Which when used wear down, producing nitrocellulose dust.
That's nitrocellulose. Also known as gun-cotton which, when soaked with nitroglycerin and formed into sticks, makes dynamite.
Just try putting a flame to a celluloid pick sometime. Be prepared with a large ashtray or something fireproof to drop it into immediately, as it will flare into flame quite energetically with a small roar.
One could theoretically take a bag of picks into the aircrafts' lavatory, use an emery-board, fingernail file, or something similar to grind/abrade the picks into a rough powder, place it into an improvised small container, and have yourself an improvised explosive device.
And with that, I'm probably on yet another government list.
Strat
So the US Navy helped create TOR.
So what? DARPA helped develop the internet too, but that hasn't seemed to make a difference to many in the US government who have been working hard at crippling the free and open nature of the internet and the ability to communicate anonymously, and for many of the same reasons they would want TOR effectively de-fanged.
Those who who would make government and themselves our overlords will always take action to neutralize anything that can be used to oppose them, no mater how, what, where, why, or by whom it was developed...even if it was themselves. Just look at the history and development of modern firearms in the US from just prior to WW1 until now, and the ever-growing encroachments, conditions, and restrictions that have been placed upon the Second Amendment.
First you disarm them, then you take away the ability to communicate and organize anonymously.
And for all the people I see and hear cheering on the expansions of government, and then hear them bitch and moan whenever the government gets all jack-booty, it makes me think that maybe the colonists should have just paid the damned tea taxes and the stamp taxes, swore fealty to King George, and kept their damned mouths shut.
We've proven we don't give a shit about and don't deserve what they suffered and died and risked themselves and their families to give us.
Strat
Well the TSA/DHS are working on that by setting up random checkpoints at train and bus stations, as well as setting up random checkpoints on major roadways. Just search YouTube.
Pretty soon you'll have to pass through a TSA/DHS checkpoint to enter or leave any major metropolitan area, and you will be tracked by drone.
"Papiere, bitte!"
Strat
Apple users don't have any principles ;-)
They can't even think of a word that rhymes!
-By an "AC" of another variety altogether! ;-)
Strat
Don't confuse public policy with politics. The former is entirely appropriate for science.
Is this sarcasm?
Public policy is the product of politics. Politics is how public policy is formed. Science presents theories, then politics happens and public policies are the result.
When scientists cross over into advocating for/against public policies and political positions, the science is lost and simply becomes more politics.
Strat
Basically correct and I agree, except that a scientist appearing on TV/cable interviews and basically parroting the pro-AGW OR the anti-AGW talking points, even if he doesn't actually advocate a specific action or policy, is still acting in a political/ideological capacity, not a scientific capacity.
A five year old can point to a drowning man, but can't swim out to pull him in. Our climate science is like that five year old.
Excellent, excellent point! Bravo, sir!
I've been saying roughly the same thing regarding even our ability to determine if that man is truly drowning, has a sloppy swim-kick that kicks up spray, or if he's simply splashing water about to watch it sparkle in the sunlight, as we've never seen a drowning man or a swimming man before. We've just barely grasped that water will wet us and that drowning is possible, and this is our first trip to the beach.
Strat
Nice strawman, but that's not what's happened re: AGW. Scientists have come out making direct public statements and advocating proposals on public policy, not advising a government body whose job it is to do that.
The rest of your post seems to advocate a meritocracy. Who and what determines who has "merit"? A group of "more-equals" that have a single viewpoint (being human, the maintenance and expansion of their own power)?
Lisa Simpson learned why meritocracies eventually end in tyranny. Are you capable of as much critical thinking as a fictional animated preteen girl?
Strat
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
Ok, so you don't have anything to rebut with. It's not anything to get all butt-hurt over. You also didn't have to demonstrate those two facts to all of us with that statement.
According to you, a scientist that has fact based evidence of an immenemt disaster...
First, I think you meant "imminent". Chill out and take a breath. Besides, "imminent" in the case of AGW is in the same class of "imminent" as the next "ice age" part of the global climate cycle being "imminent".
According to you, a scientist that has fact based evidence of an immenemt disaster, has their facts count for nothing as soon as they warn the populace since that is political.
That is correct. Scientists publish studies, papers, and send reports to appropriate authorities whose job it is to set government agendas and policies. "Warning the populace" is correctly the job of the government and it's leaders, not some scientists taking it upon themselves to risk starting a panic and causing knee-jerk reactions.
That is one of the reasons we have governments and elected leaders, to maintain order and prevent some group of sincere-but-wrong wingnuts from causing public chaos and panic.
Strat
You could just stop listening to the political sides and listen to climate scientists instead.
Problem solved.
Wrong, because the scientists have politicized themselves and the science.
If a scientist advocates for some political action to be taken or not taken or policy to be enacted or not enacted then he has politicized himself, and his opinion is political, not scientific.
Ergo, any scientist that comes out in favor of AGW or against AGW is not acting as a scientist, but as a partisan political/ideological advocate.
Scientists do studies, perform experiments, and publish papers on purely scientific topics. They don't engage in political/ideological advocacy. Those advocating one side or the other are not scientists, at least while they are advocating.
So, no scientists have advocated one side over another, as the very act of advocacy disqualifies them as performing "science" and therefor their opions are not "scientific", but political.
Strat
The problem is the time lag between the two (decades to build-out infrastructure) and the costs (trillions and trillions for a country the size of the US and the distances involved) and population density (huge areas with little population).
Of course, the UN's Agenda 21 seeks to solve that by enacting local policies while attacking private real-estate/property ownership and rights, and transferring wealth from 1st-World nations to 3rd-World nations, all aimed at eventually resulting in nearly all people crammed tightly together in urban centers in large "government housing project" style apartment blocks.
They use warm, fuzzy phrases like "sustainable development" to mask their true intentions and the negative effects of their policies upon individual liberty, property rights, and freedom, as well as national sovereignty.
Strat
It only stores the 4 seconds before the impact for now, until they decide to lengthen it and enhance the amount and types of data it records.
FTFY
I'm sure that the authorities would find it extremely helpful to have it record cabin video/audio of the last 30-60 seconds before an accident as well. And/or be able to trigger it from a police cruiser prior to a stop.
Police were never meant to solve all crimes, nor were police ever intended to be safe from the public or criminals. A place where nearly all crimes are solved and police are not at much more average risk than most other professions has a name.
Police state.
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Daniel Webster
Making the jobs of police easier and/or safer is no reason to abridge the freedoms, rights, and privacy of citizens. Nobody is forced to become a police officer. If the job is too hard or too risky, choose another job.
Strat
This is what so many people fail at connecting the dots on.
It's in everyone's interests to limit the size, scope, and power of government. Look, whatever political party you belong to, at some point your guys are going to lose an election and your enemies are going to be the ones in charge.
Every expansion in governments' size, scope, and power gives your opponents that power as well. Eventually, they'll have so much power that they stop fighting among themselves and work together as government-vs-citizens to increase their wealth, power, and control over, and at the cost of, the people and meanwhile incrementally removing their rights and freedoms, thus turning them into totally-dependent vassals of an authoritarian, tyrannical central government.
It's happened over and over in the same general manner throughout history. It's happening again, and not just in the US. Just look at the history of what was happening politically, economically, socially, and militarily, both nationally and globally, from 1900 to 1950 and then compare it to the things that have happened from the '50s until now.
I see repeating patterns, and the near future doesn't look good if those patterns hold and nothing major changes the path the US and the world is on.
For most of humanity's 5,000 years of civilization, personal/individual freedom and liberty as we've known it for only roughly the past 200 years has not existed.
Maybe humanity has forgotten how rare, precious, and still-in-alpha freedom is, how much work and attention it takes to maintain such individual freedom and liberty.
Maybe it will take another few millennia of being serfs to remind them of what they valued so little and gave away so freely in exchange for TV soundbites, government programs, and party mottos, while greeting each loss of freedom, every encroachment of government authority & control, with thunderous applause.
Maybe people have traveled too far down the road depicted in the movie "Idiocracy" and are no longer capable governing themselves or preventing themselves from becoming serfs to any "Not Sure" leader.
But never mind all that...there's a new smartphone coming out and a juicy new political sex scandal, and did you hear the latest outrage in the $WEDGEISSUE fight?
Is the giant asteroid here yet?
Strat
We just have to start drilling for our own All-American Freedom-Unicorn Lairs using Brawndo as the fracking agent. Freedom-Unicorns love electrolytes.
Some unicorn video love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGYh8AacgY
Strat
No, it will be similar, you are going to have a currency/economic crisis when the bond bubble bursts and probably a largely peaceful partial breakup.
I hope you're right. I see more similarities to the Wiemar Republic than I do the collapse of the USSR.
The federal military is not gonna march very far when they aren't paid any more than the soviet military did.
I think US soldiers, being volunteers, would stick to their posts and march where ordered for a good while longer than Soviet troops without pay. Besides, the President can always ask to have UN/foreign troops come in to assist with "Maintaining order and keeping the peace during this time of crisis".
When Washington has no more money to give there's no more reason for the state governments to listen to them.
Which should be the norm anyways. The Republic was not designed to have a balance of powers when so much wealth is taken away by the Federal government, only to be redistributed with strings. Each State was intended to be quite different from the others.That's called diversity. It allows for more freedom and avoids a mono-culture.
Strat
That didn't happen at the end of the Soviet Union and I doubt it would happen here.
Apples and oranges. What happened in the former USSR is not the same as what's happening in the US. There was not a rebellion or civil war between the government and the population in the old Soviet Union. What may occur in the US would be more akin to the fall of the Czars and the rise of Socialism and the Soviet Union or the takeover by the Nazis in 1930s Germany. Probably even closer would be the uprising in Syria and the failed uprising in Iran.
Intermittent use, perhaps, but I doubt widespread use.
Of course, I doubt that they'd try to turn the continental US into a glassed-over radioactive wasteland. But, when it comes to nuclear weapons, even two is pretty "widespread". Just ask Japan.
Strat
Interesting view of how a domestic suppression mission would work in US - FAE for best ROI.
When the SHTF I don't expect the government will adhere to Marcus of Queensbury rules, Geneva Convention rules, or any rules at all, actually. Might be a good idea to also stock up on protective gear for chemical attacks, too.
Unfortunately, not much besides crawling into a very deep, very reinforced and sealed hole in the ground will protect from a nuclear blast. And yes, if those in government think they may be losing the fight and are able, I fully expect they'd launch nukes at domestic targets and damn the consequences. Those currently in power are "dogs in the manger". If they can't be in charge of everything/everyone, they'll destroy everything/everyone first before that happens.
Strat
How exactly do you plan on shooting down a black hawk helicopter
Well, even one of these would make life very stressful indeed for a hostile Blackhawk, especially if you can secure some AP ammo. With several fighters equipped with these, that Blackhawk may quickly be doing a Mogadishu re-enactment.
http://www.gunsinternational.com/Browning-BAR-Grade-II-69-Belgium-30-06-Blond-Wood.cfm?gun_id=100304244
My father carried the full-auto military version in WW2. He told me it would punch holes in German light-armor like half-tracks, armored cars, etc. Even with standard FMJ ammo it penetrates walls, tees, bricks, and concrete extremely well. It was also one of the favored weapons of Bonnie & Clyde and the Barrows gang.
Of course, one of these could punch *big* holes in a Blackhawk or Apache and ruin their entire day.
http://www.barrett.net/firearms/m107a1
And it's legal to purchase and own in the US. And I know for a fact that .50BMG-AP rounds are readily available, even to the point they're not *that* much more expensive on the black market than legally-available surplus FMJ. Seems that since the US military has had so many different theaters of combat going lately that a lot of military weapons, ammo, and material has produced a bit of an overabundance of supply in the black markets around the world, including domestically in the US.
But heck, even without AP ammo, if one were to put a .50BMG round through both the side-doors, passing through without actually striking anything, the shockwave alone from the .50BMG round would likely kill or incapacitate anyone within a few feet of the rounds' path.
If a bunch of Jihadis in a 6th-century region can take out helos, depend on US citizens being able to take them down, even without Stingers or RPGs.
Strat
Oh, right. Better to let the chopper go ahead to it's heavily-populated target unmolested with that fuel-air bomb than risk the chopper crashing.
My bad.
Strat
That means that when the US government sends them out on domestic civilian pacification/suppression/reconnaissance missions, the people can shoot them down without feeling bad about killing people. It's too bad the government does not share such reluctance.
Strat
Just look at what they [the US] didn't do for Rwanda or Yugoslavia, for example, in recent years, while 100s of thousands were slaughtered in massive ethnic cleansings...
Maybe the US was a little tired after helping Thailand and Haiti. Where were you and your country? Why didn't Europe/the EU step in if things were that bad, particularly because Yugoslavia is actually part of Europe? Europe is also much closer to Rwanda too.
Not sure why you think you're actually wanted in most place in the world as the 'world police'...
Wait, you just said the US wasn't doing enough. Which is it?
or how with your national debt you think you are the world's piggy bank
So tell your government and the others to stop begging for foreign aid and accusing the US of "not doing enough" if the US doesn't hand over ever-more money.
The US has many faults. However, the amount of aid given to other countries and regions, even to those who are not exactly friendly to the US, is orders of magnitude beyond what any other nation gives, and with far fewer and less-evil strings attached.
What you appear to be saying is, If the US provides lots of foreign aid etc, then it's acting fiscally-irresponsibly as "the world's piggy-bank" to buy influence, and if it reduces it's foreign spending and aid programs, it's greedy, selfish, and evil.
Personally, I think you're too ignorant, uninformed, propagandized, and bigoted to have a valid, worthwhile opinion on the matter. But, that's just me.
Strat
Don't treaties become automatically part of domestic laws via reference or rewrite? That is the way treaties are assimilated in other countries.
In the US, it is both Congress' and the Executive Branch's duty to pass legislation/regulations and to issue necessary Executive directives and orders to bring domestic law and policy into harmony with the treaty terms and conditions. The Judicial Branch also has a role in interpreting existing laws, regulations, and policies in accordance with the treaty.
It would be almost trivial to think that a treaty could modify the constitution as well if sufficiently important issues are at stake. Some countries do have rewrites of the their constitutions occasionally for those reasons.
The US Constitution specifically addresses this and forbids treaties from superseding the Constitution. Changes to the Constitution must be made by Constitutional Amendment. It was intentionally written that way to prevent the government from simply signing a treaty to effectively bypass Constitutional limitations on government power and abrogate individual freedom and the Bill of Rights through the back door.
Strat
I don't think the telecoms will put up much fuss as they see what's happened to the private health insurance industry, auto industry, etc. They don't want to be next, and with an already-bold Executive Order pen that now isn't worried about re-election in play, they may be justified in their fears.
Especially when the current FCC chief has said these kinds of things publicly on video:
Part 1> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysqsa_TeLys
Part 2> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQb_H6rxhQc
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
I shudder to think what the internet would become if the FCC is allowed to grab regulatory control. Probably a lot like a combination of the worst of the POTS and the cable TV systems.
Strat
One of the inventors of the telephone system was actually run out of a city after demonstrating the telegraph in front of an auddience. The crime was "performing illegal communication between two cities".
Things got quite weird and interesting for a while in the very early days of radio as well, until, much like now, all the governments got together to craft treaties to clamp down and control who had access to, and what was said over, the airwaves.
Just as is happening now with the attempts (and successes) at placing ever-more controls, restrictions, and intrusive monitoring on the internet, reasons were trotted out such as controlling chaos, crime, maintaining the publics' "moral turpitude" and more, as justifications for the governments of the world to seize control of this incredible new medium of instant long distance communication without wires.
The US then created the FCC who, as George Carlin famously quips, "...decided all on their own that radio and television were the only two areas of American life where the First Amendment didn't apply. What, are these people out of their fucking minds!? There are two *knobs* on the radio: One of them turns it OFF, and the other one *changes the station*!!"
I mean, I could be wrong, but damn if it doesn't look to me a whole lot like history, in general and with all things being equal, is repeating itself here with the internet.
And why wouldn't it? Wireless instant communications across borders in the case of radio/TV scared the bejeezus out of the world's leaders, and the internet is a all that times Chuck Norris as far as it's threat-potential to tyrannical/authoritarian leaders, despots, and regimes, and their propaganda programs that keep the people under control and producing.
And that's not to mention the force-multiplier it provides an abused population resisting and combating an authoritarian government that is cracking down on them.
Strat