With their handy robots the Bush administration and its hand-picked shills at the EPA can ignore and/or redact even more evidence regarding global warming!
First -- I'm aware this post & my response are off-topic. I'm fine with modding down. I've been wanting to discuss this topic for a while so I'm going to go right ahead with my off-topic post.
Health care is expensive, yes, and for the reasons you state as well. However I think you're missing several key points in your argument. Medical training is only expensive for the prospective med school student because the U.S. government allows it to be. The U.S. stands alone among Western nations in its opinion that medical care is not considered a public service.
Medical training is only minimally subsidized by tax dollars. Med school (and health care in general) would be affordable if the U.S. government placed as much value on medicine as they do on the military industrial complex. Consider the no-bid contracts to Halliburton or the other greedy piglets suckling at the teat of government funds. Review the reports from the Office of the Inspector General in regard to Halliburton property in Iraq and you'll see just how much of our tax money Cheney's cronies have run off with. Halliburton can't account for 75% of the items it supposedly purchased with tax dollars -- and this isn't just office supplies. This is stuff like bulldozers, tractor trailers, computer equipment, etc. But somehow nobody squeaks about "fraud" or "waste". These thieves hide under the blanket of "support the troops" while they bleed the nation dry of funds that could be used for other, more constructive uses. All this while the real soldiers fighting the war have to deal with reductions in combat pay, removal of death benefits and reduced funding to the VA. Go fight and die, but don't get wounded because we don't have the money to take care of you.
But I digress. We're talking about what makes health care expensive. Has anyone considered the vicious circle that medical costs increase to meet the increasing cost of lobbying to keep costs high? The higher costs to consumers get, the more lobbyists you have to hire to explain to Congress why costs should be allowed to be so high, which in turn increases costs to consumers.
Let us consider the other factor driving up health care costs: drugs. The average person buys the line that pharmaceuticals cost as much as they do because the costs pay for research into new drugs. This argument holds as much water as your average Kleenex(tm), however, because drug research is the one aspect of the medical industry that is heavily subsidized by the government. The drug companies don't tell you about the real costs to them -- lobbyists and advertisements, both of which are entirely superfluous. Drugs are wildly profitable, especially if you need the drug to survive. Like HIV/AIDS or cancer patients. Or hemophiliacs.
Are you familiar with the situation hemophiliacs have to deal with in this country? No? Did you know the average hemophiliac runs a tab of $250,000 to $500,000 a year in clotting factor alone? Not preventative care, not doctor visits, not emergency room costs, just the drug they have to take to keep from bleeding to death. Severe hemophilia cases run well over $1,000,000 a year in factor. This isn't something they caught from indiscreet sexual encounters, this is a genetic disorder. But U.S. drug manufacturers make a killing of folks with this disability. Drug manufacturers in the U.S. keep the cost to create a unit of factor a closely-guarded secret. Why? Because they might get hauled into court for price gouging if it ever got out. In every western nation but the U.S., factor is fully subsidized by the government. Everywhere but here Hemophiliacs don't have to pay a red cent for having been born with a handicap. Yet here they can't get insurance coverage -- or if they do they burn through a lifetime's worth of coverage in 18 months.
Let me address your next point: "we live in a highly litigious society". True enough. But have you ever stopped to consider the reasons behind why there are so many med
The current difficulties with touch-screen voting are really just a 21st-Century continuation of the fine, American tradition of rigging elections. It's been going on for most of the time the United States has existed; the only difference being that it is much harder to be able to prove it's been happening and even harder to get a court to hear the matter. To paraphrase Joseph Stalin: "It's not who votes that matters, it's who counts the votes that matters". The argument over voting goes all the way back to founding of the nation. Many of the original framers of the Constitution felt that the populace should be prevented from engaging in free and fair elections; that the voices of the governed should be muted if heard at all and public sway of government policy should be kept to the absolute minimum. Hence the reason for the foundation of the Electoral College.
Voting has always been a class struggle. The democratic revolutionaries of the 18th Century were treated with much of the same disgust as any populist movement: the labor agitators or the original communist revolutionaries (I mean true communists, not totalitarianists, who simply re-instated a class system within a supposedly "communist" structure). Ruling minorities have always feared the "unwashed masses" would start considering self-governance. That very difference of philosophy forms the fundamental difference between "liberal" and "conservative" and the argument has gone on for centuries. For example: Martin Luther's proposed democratization of Christianity; the democratic revolutions in America and France; the anti-slavery movement; the labor movement; socalist & communist revolutionaries -- all sprouted out of the desire of the governed to have a say in their governance (if not do away with ruling classes entirely) and demand a greater share of the profits of their labor. Against which, of course, the ruling classes have fought with tooth & nail, sword & musket. And now, electronic voting machine. The rulers learned their lessons well: force is met with force, but if the masses are taught to believe they have a say in their governance, they'll tolerate all manner of injustice.
The various populist movements in the United States made strides in circumventing the barriers placed between the governors and the governed. By the 20th Century, the most egregious forms of vote fraud had been minimized--though not totally eliminated. Unfortunately, thanks to Diebold, Sequoia and others, those achievements have all been discarded. We have to simply "trust" that these ultra-conservative businesses will count the votes accurately -- even when those votes are in direct opposition to their corporate agendas. In other words, we can't trust them. The first instances of massive voting fraud via touch-screen electronics occurred in 2002, and the lawsuits over those fraud cases are *still* tied up in courts. Furthermore, now that the Bush Administration, with full complicity of the GOP-dominated Congress has stacked the State Supreme & Federal Circuit Courts with hard-right partisans who basically adhere to Machiavellian ethics (the ends justify the means), I'll be surprised if this debacle can actually get the judicious consideration it deserves.
America: Land of the Free Market and Home of the Brave Investor. Our "Democracy" is a sham and always has been.
You know, I'm guessing those folks opposed to the.xxx domain name aren't necessarily opposed to a "red light" section of the internet.
Before we go much further, we need to look at the way that "protecting the children from porn" has been used as a means to justify all sorts of suppression of free speech - and I don't simply mean nekkid pictures. It was used during the late '40s, '50s and early '60s in this country as a "foot in the door" from which was launched all sorts of censorship campaigns.
Very simply, by creating a.xxx domain that's easily filterable, conservative Christians (as well as other theo-fascist and crypto-fascist governments & groups) will be deprived of their most easily-touted excuse to engage in censorhip: "Won't someone think of the children?"
...Didn't I remember reading an industry publication about the fact that iPod/iTunes users are actually less likely to engage in piracy than non-iPod/iTunes user? That the rate of piracy amongst iPod/iTunes users is estimated at between ~5% to ~15%, while non-users are estimated around ~60%?
This sounds to me like the RIAA is throwing a tantrum and wielding its legislative power to force Apple to increase prices on iTunes like they've been bitching about for the past year or two. "What? 99 cents a song? That's not enough of a profit margin for us! We want to charge people $2.50 per song!" So they claim "price fixing" and "unfair pricing" so they can have an excuse to sue Apple into allowing them to dictate the sale prices.
Problem is that the RIAA is keeping to an obsolete sales scheme. Increasing prices for music downloads decreases the incentive to buy and increases the incentive for piracy. The whole effing point of iTunes is to provide a sales forum where prices are low enough that users consider the risk/benefit ratio to be in their favor (i.e., buying versus piracy).
Fascism transcends party line. The definition of fascism, as offered by its creator Benito Mussolini: "The collusion of business and government for the mutual benefit of both."
Ergo, President Bush is a consummate fascist because he places the interests of business foremost in his agenda. Furthermore, the Republican Party - the 'party of business' - is interested in minimizing government restriction on business at the expense of the common citizen. Can't get much more fascist than that.
And before you accuse me of being specifically anti-Republican, the Democrats do the same, they just sugar-coat it. They soft-sell fascism. The key difference between them is that the Republicans these days have made a point of ensuring anyone who might have a moderating influence is safely out of power, while a few key Democrats who believe in the rights of the common person have somehow managed to keep afloat within their party...
This year with Diebold-brand electronic voting, we can expect even these few reasonable guys to be run out of office thanks to the happily untracable rigging of elections.
First, allow me commend you for keeping a civil tongue, Mr. Tie. I appreciate civil discourse.
I would also like to nudge the thread back in the direction of my original point, which isn't so much about the minutae of evolutionary science but rather with the political motives behind the "Intelligent Design" debate. The "Intelligent Design" debate is only one of many attacks on secularism being levied by the Religious Right. The Relgious Right claims something along the lines that (to paraphrase) "...secularists are trying to take away God", the point is that "God" never really belonged there in the first place, not if our nation is built on fundamental equality of all citizens. They see attempts at excluding God from public sponsorship as an attack, instead of silent acknowledgement. Once again, it's not enough to be secure in the knowledge that you are equal to your neighbor -- the folks pushing I.D. want to be "more equal". I.D. is a "foot in the door", so to speak, and they can use said foot as leverage to enforce more and more public sponsorship of Christianity.
If our nation is built on fundamental equality of all citizens, government sponsorship of one sect of one religion creates a state of inequality. Those who subscribe to the dominant sect of the dominant faith can be certain that their rights will be protected. Subscribers to other sects, other religions or those who subscribe to no religion at all cannot expect to be accorded equal protection under law-- because the law is fundamentally biased against them. Hence the establishment of a state of second-class citizenship. Maintaining secularism is the only way to ensure that all citizens are treated as equally under law as is possible.
Unfortunately, those who feel they are "more equal than others" see the lack of public sponsorship as a means to claim martyrdom at the hands of the state. And there's nothing so motivated as a martyred Christian.
Admittedly, I'm not surprised that Utah voted against this. For the Mormon Church (virtually indistinguishable from the State of Utah) to throw their lot in with Evangelical Christians would be self-defeating. Perhaps they recognize the idea that the establishment of a "Christian Nation" as the Evangelicals so dearly wish to do would preclude their participation.
Basically the whole 'intelligent design' movement is yet another attack on secularism. For those who embrace this theory, it's not enough for the state to acknowledge the right of people to worship as they see fit and go about teaching science, the state must be forced to operate according to the Evangelicals' interpretation of Biblical law. Whether or not Evangelicals admit it, the vaunted "Christian Nation" they're trying to forge would make second-class citizens of everyone who doesn't subscribe to their interpretation of their religion. This is fine, because according to my observation they want to create a sort of environment where non-Evangelicals are barely tolerated and subjected to a torrent of Bible-thumping and state-sponsored oppression until they convert. I think the Mormons recognize this, and since they're not in the religio-political mainstream insofar as the Religious Right is concerned, they're likely nervous about getting into bed with their main competition.
In short, this gives me hope that some religious, right-wing people recognize the fact that religion and public governance should be kept separate-- even if their motives are based on a level playing field for competition over converts.
The people who believe "global warming is good" aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the package. Please note that three weeks ago BBC reported there was nearly abject terror in the oceanological community because in 2005 (the warmest year currently on record) there was a massive plankton die-off in the Pacific, which evidence showed was directly attributable to higher ocean temperatures. They went on to explain that if the ocean temperature continues to rise at the current rate, the continued plankton die-offs would create a twofold problem. One, because plankton is the lowest rung on the food chain, ocean-going animals would die out. Two, the more plankton dies, the less CO2 the oceans can process and the faster the average planetary temperature rises, thus killing more plankton, thus killing more ocean-life and so on.
So enjoy your summer in February, everyone. Enjoy the sunny days while you can because when the oceans die, they'll be taking us with them.
Please note that at no point in the above post did I say that it was "doctrine', or is stated as such by any religious authority. Religious authorities know better than to state categorically that HIV/AIDS is "God's punishment", for to do so would be to open their church as an instution and themselves as people to public protest and/or litigation over 'hate speech', especially since AIDS is legally considered a 'disability'.
That being said, it doesn't mean religious authorities can't hint at that inference, however. Many, many Christians-- Mormons included-- with whom I have spoken on the matter of HIV/AIDS have expressed an opinion that HIV/AIDS is a punishment from God. I doubt that so many people came to this conclusion entirely on their own. While it may not be "official doctrine" of any church, as I said in the first post, the "punishment" theory of HIV/AIDS unarguably keeps currency among many devout Christians.
I am afraid I agree that we will see no cure in this lifetime. Whether or not cures will be discovered is another matter. Curing HIV/AIDS would create both religious and economic uproar -- and would be therefore highly political. My arguments are as follows:
1. Religious: Many Christians (Mormons very much included) are of the opinion that HIV/AIDS is "God's punishment" for fornication, and the preach that HIV/AIDS is God's incentive to abstain from sex. Although this is a flawed argument, especially in regard to people who contract HIV/AIDS through non-sexual activity (haemophilacs, newborn children, blood transfusees, etc.), it carries a lot of weight within the Christian community. I find it distressing that this discovery occurred at BYU, due to the religious considerations surrounding HIV/AIDS.
2. Economic: Every pharmaceutical manufacturer that has an AIDS drug makes money hand-over-fist by selling it. It is more financially viable to "treat" an illness, because "curing" an illness is tantamount to killing the Golden Goose. For example: haemophilacs are considered a target market for drug companies who make clotting factor because haemophilia is a genetic disease and therefore incurable. A severe haemophiliac cannot survive without factor, and drug companies know this. It is common for a family with a child who develops haemophilia to go into bankruptcy over the costs of financing treatment for their disease. Further, the drug companies keep secret the cost to manufacture a single unit of factor-- largely because to make it public would open them to suits over "price gouging". HIV/AIDS patients are no different. It is a chronic, incurable disease that takes a lot of high-priced medicine every day to keep it manageable. An HIV/AIDS cure would close this lucrative market and therefore curtail profits. Due to this fact, I doubt seriously whether we will even know if this new discovery turns out to be a cure, because any peer review be performed at least in part by Big Pharma -- and we already know from experience what altruistic folks they are. I predict this will be like the discovery of any other possible HIV/AIDS cure: it will sound great, it will have a lot of promise, then it will be "discovered" to be yet another red herring.
3. Politics. When the religious and pharmaceutical lobbies get involved, one can be sure there will be little or no government involvement with peer review of a cure. Any tests from public institutions that dispute those from the pharmaceutical industry will be subject to debate and perhaps even lawsuits. Because Big Pharma and the religious lobby wields such tremendous power, it is inevitable that any funding to a public insitution researching potential cures will be cut. One need only look at the fight over nicotine research and tobacco-related diseases. Big Tobacco fought with public institutions for decades and by dint of keen lobbying --essentially graft-- they kept the real results buried.
DOUBLEPLUSGOOD NOWNEWS for 07SEP 5 yp 3rd Quarter:
Ministry of Truth reports NewsCorp / IGN merger as doubleplusgood opp for expand of prolefeed into compnets. Oldthinking gameplayers must now reject ownlife and bellyfeel AmSoc.
NewsCorp insists fortunate outcome: oldthinkers will learn goodthink speedwise or be sent to joycamps.
The problem is that New Orleans is now almost completely destroyed and it's going to take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to bring it back. We as a nation don't have that kind of money to waste; we're already making sacrifices on things like education, public assistance, universal healthcare, social security -- and then there's the war, another money sink, but one that we can't fight effectively because we can't afford armor for troops or vehicles or death benefits for KIAs.
Rather than pouring money the U.S. doesn't really have into a location that's assuredly going to suffer another catastrophic inundation, why not move the port to higher ground, at the very least?
The problem is the rebuilding effort is focusing on where everything used to be instead of looking for new locations. By insisting we must rebuild exactly where everything used to be, we are effectively thumbing our nose at Mother Nature.
If you feel it necessary to ignore the salient points of my argument, grab a few sentences out of context so you can then insult me, you do more to support my argument than your own. I'm sure you won't care, but when you have to resort to insults and argumentum ad hominem to back up your position then you have already conceded.
You may notice the rich white folks aren't the ones who are camped out on rooftops or swimming through sewage and corpses, but that's okay - you can go on blaming the victims if you feel you must. Developers play the odds, but you've ignored the point I made about how they rig the game in their favor. I suppose it's about "playing the odds" to build Colorado's Rocky Flats developments in plutonium slurry fields, and hence it must be the buyer's responsibility to investigate the kick-backs involved in the cover-up of the existence of that toxic waste dump -- or maybe it's their responsibility to own a geiger counter before they move into a home.
I'm not saying that living anywhere in the country isn't risky, either. But you also totally disregarded my point about it being possibly more efficient to invest in moving from a destroyed city to a more hospitable and less dangerous place rather than dump money into the pockets of people who will repeat ad infinitum the cycle of corruption.
The question still stands: if we as a nation are are already making budgetary sacrifices when it comes to proper schools, firefighters, police, health care coverage, and other war-related things like veterans' benefits, funeral costs for KIAs, armor for troops & vehicles, etc., it makes no sense to spend tens of billions rebuilding and maintaining a city that's already pretty much destroyed and stands a good chance of being destroyed again in the near future. Why not just relocate people into existing cities? Or if you must move to a location - preferably above sea level - and start from scratch?
I remember both those floods pretty well. '97 was a vicious flood year, not just in Sacramento County, but in other surrounding counties as well.
From my memory, a lot of the major problems in the surrounding counties came from the token efforts at infrastructure (if they even existed), the cover-ups relating to historical flood records and the general philosophy of "throw enough money at the problem and it'll go away". When the floods came and demolished the homes of people who had been enticed to come live there, the developers got off scot-free -- better than scot-free in fact, because they got government funding to rebuild on exactly the same spot. The developers' evasion was mainly built upon the caveat emptor argument, never mind that prior to the disaster they had done their best to make sure that historical records, environmental reports and other data were unattainable to buyers. The weather patterns were not unforseen, but rather were disregarded or obfuscated in the quest for profit, and such criminal disregard went completely unpunished.
Caveat emptor is an empty argument because there should be layers of protection when it comes to land ownership, some of the big ones being planning commissions, county boards of supervisors and city councils. Hazardous locations such as flood plains, active volcanoes, tailings fields and settling ponds should never be zoned for development in the first place, and to evade prosecution by claiming "let the buyer beware" is in effect, blaming the victim.
Every hundred years? How many hurricanes have happened in central Atlantic the past 18 months? How many more are projected to occur in the next 18 months? What's the likelihood that New Orleans will be hit by a hurricane during the rebuilding effort? How much more damage will it cause? How much will it cost the national economy?
Many coastal cities are sinking into the sea, but the point of my "pedantic, infantile rant" was that there are major differences between cities like Venice or Rotterdam and New Orleans -- not simply environment and location, but primarily economic. For example, Italy isn't carrying the world's largest national debt. Venice hasn't had the national government cut funding to its system of protection & maintenance by 80%. Developers aren't undercutting regulations in order to build suburbs in the flood plains outside the city despite the danger in doing so. That's not to say Venice doesn't have its problems, but simply because it's a coastal city below sea level doesn't mean its problems are comparable to New Orleans, nor does it mean the solution to those problems can be applied to all cities in the same situation.
Did you actually read anything in the parent post? What I said has to do with developers ignoring danger and then exploiting disaster -- and asked the question whether the U.S. would be better served by spending money it can't really afford to spend relocating the victims of the disaster or set itself up for failure & subject people to more hardship by pouring it into the pockets of people who cut and run at the first sign of trouble?
Especially because of all those hurricanes that happen in the Adriatic. Tragic, indeed.
The Italian government spends a tremendous amount every year to keep Venice above water and much of that money comes from tourism. There also isn't a whole lot of development occurring within the city either. However, should that funding be cut and an equally destructive event occurs a few years down the line that inundates & destroys Venice, it would be equally pointless to try and rebuild it.
Hey, why not bring back Alexandria while you're at it? The lighthouse has been found in the Mediterranean, so the city's got to be around there somewhere. People would love to live there-- think of the amount you could make on tourism!
What's the point in rebuilding? The city's already been destroyed and the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the central Atlantic & Gulf of Mexico means that we're just asking for another disaster. Whether or not you subscribe to global warming being human-induced is beside the point; the temperature of the Earth is increasing, as is the destructiveness of the weather.
The Netherlands argument just doesn't hold water (no pun intended) because that part of the world isn't subject to the same type of weather conditions - in other words, there ain't no hurricanes in the North Sea. There are also the economic factors to consider. The United States is in debt over its head and frankly doesn't have the financial resources to waste on rebuilding a city which would then require greater and greater expenditures of capital to keep from being inundated as the ocean level rises.
Rebuilding New Orleans shows stubbornness well beyond the border of idiocy and is a stunning example of the old axiom: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." It also shows the tremendous amount of greed involved; whether or not New Orleans is rebuilt, the impoverished who have borne the brunt of this disaster will be left out of the process, except maybe as a disposable work force to exploit in the building of new condos and upscale developments that the real estate markets in New Orleans have been looking for an excuse to install -- especially since builders can use such low-wage exploitation as a tax write-off.
Then there's also the fact that developers were allowed to build in hazardous locations to begin with -- what with the Bush Administration doing away with the Federal land easements (wetlands) that existed as a storm surge buffer and turning it over to developers.
Sacramento, California is an example of just such short-sightedness. The Sacramento River flood plains are catastrophically inundated every ten to fifteen years or so. Despite this fact, developers have been allowed to build there because they've bought and/or sued the city & county into letting them do whatever in the hell they want. The developers have also stifled the environmental and news reports as well as done their best to obscure the historical record because such information conflicts with their immediate profit interests. The result? Houses get flooded, families are ruined and the taxpayers are left with the responsibility.
Frankly, developers don't give a shit whether five or ten years down the line those houses are flooded out and destroyed, incidentally sending into financial ruin the families gullible, desperate, uninformed and/or stupid enough to be living there. They've made their profits and get to hide comfortably behind the lawsuit protection laws established to prevent consumers from holding developers responsible for faulty and/or dangerous housing. Besides, the government will pay for disaster relief and subsidize the rebuilding efforts for a new generation of suckers -- because once those houses have been built, by God they've got to stay there.
With the the Bush Administration doing the best it can to aid unscrupulous businesspeople by circumventing legal measures set up to prevent people from putting themselves into harm's way, is it any wonder there's such a cry to rebuild New Orleans? You've got people who stand to make a killing by exploiting this very preventable disaster. But then again, I guess caveat emptor is the ultimate answer and anything else is heresy to the religion of the Free Market.
Let this also serve as a reminder those who believe overpopulation is a myth that not every square mile of the Earth's surface is inhabitable or arable.
At least here in the good ol' You-Ess-of-Ay it's not so much the government-funded disaster relief that's responsible for so much disaster, it's the fact that people were allowed to build in hazardous locations to begin with.
Let's take Sacramento, California as an example...
Land prices in California have skyrocketed, especially around Sacramento County. Recently, housing developers have been allowed to build in the Sacramento River flood plains - plains that flood catastrophically every ten to fifteen years or so. These developers have either bought or sued the city & county into allowing them to build in the flood plains and have stifled any environmental and news reports on the historical record that conflict with their immediate profit interests. Frankly, developers don't give a shit whether five or ten years down the line those houses are flooded out and destroyed and incidentally sending into financial ruin the families gullible, desperate, uninformed and/or stupid enough to be living there. They've made their profits and are hiding comfortably behind the recent lawsuit protection laws established to prevent consumers from holding developers responsible for faulty and/or dangerous housing.
Magnify this problem by several factors of ten and you see the scope of the issue. Yeah, the planet's dangerous all right, but it doesn't help that unscrupulous people are taking advantage of the situation -- and with the help of the Bush Administration circumventing legal measures set up to prevent people from putting themselves into harm's way. But I guess caveat emptor is the ultimate answer and anything else is heresy to the religion of the Free Market.
Let this remind those believe overpopulation is a myth that not every square mile of the Earth's surface is inhabitable or arable.
This has been going on for the past half-century. It's not just the anti-piracy software copyright zealots who've accelerated the problem, though they're some of the worst in a long time.
Well before computer piracy was a problem, Di$ney spearheaded the anti-public domain/copyright-extension lobby in order to maintain its copyright on Mickey Mou$e. Each time the Hydrocephalic Mouse God is threatened with falling into the unwashed mitts of public domain, Di$ney tosses some cash around, pulls its Congressional strings and gets the copyright public domain clause extended for another 25 years. Now copyrights last for over a century and Di$ney maintains its comfortable deathgrip on all that's spherical and mousy.
I work in computer forensics and it isn't that goddamned hard to develop tools to process different kinds of databases, encrypted or otherwise. Besides, I'm certain that if it were in the interests of "National Security", Federal investigators could get ensure cooperation between developers of FireFox or Opera and the contractors who actually do the forensics work.
All you have to do is play "follow the money" and it quickly sounds like Micro$oft is using the God-and-Country argument to win by default the Second Browser War. Considering how invested Micro$oft has been in the US Justice Dep't. (one of former USAG John Ashcroft's biggest campaign contributors and still heavily involved to this date) it would be unsurprising if they were the ones pulling the strings on the issuance of a statement like this.
What ought to happen is for the Dep't. of Homeland Security to proclaim Internet Explorer as the single largest cause of "electronic terrorism" because of Micro$oft's half-assed security measures.
I for one find that the insistent harping by the oil industry and their political puppets that "global warming isn't real" to be a pretty good indicator that the science warning about human-induced global warming is real. If we look at the number of instances when industries swore up and down that "alarmist scientists are wrong, our corporate-funded scientists are right" in regards to the addictive qualities of nicotine, the carcinogenic properties of dioxins, DDT or Agent Orange as well as other industrial chemicals -- all these were deemed as "safe" by the scientists funded by industries manufacturing these products, and it's taken decades of work and a political seachange to disprove the industry science. Not to say this "guilt by association" is conclusive proof of global warning in and of itself, but the increasingly shrill denouncements of global warming science in this manner are reminiscent of the arguments I describe.
The really aggravating part of the global warming debate is the review process established by the Bush Administration - which is really a system of discrediting scientists with whom they don't agree. While few of us are surprised that the Bush Administration would in this instance employ its classic tactic of discrediting those against whom they can't form a solid defense, the systematic manner with which this is done against environmental scientists is quite shocking. Those scientists who are called in to present their evidence to Congress and the Bush Administration are subjected to a level of inquiry that is both unfair and unprecedented. The scientist in question must present his/her entire career's worth of work for review, and it must be done within a few weeks. If the scientist is unable to come up with the paperwork for review, then he/she is dismissed out of hand and his/her work is discredited by the Administration-- and claims of "stalling" or "obfuscation" or "obstruction are leveled against the researcher.
Now at first blush presenting a career's worth of evidence may not sound difficult, considering the prevalence of digital data in the scientific fields, but think again. To do so involves collating decades' worth of data, both digital and paper, over a variety of computer systems (many now obsolete) and putting them into a court-admissable format (e.g., one that avoids spoliation). The preparation of that material involves literally months of processing by an army of paralegals, which can run into the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if the unrealistic time deadlines set by the Bush Administration are met (which is nearly impossible), the cost of processing all that data is the scientist's responsibility.
To further complicate matters, the scientists representing the oil industry aren't subjected to that same standard. Ergo, the review process is unfairly biased toward the oil industry's "science". This unfair standard, when combined with the degree of obfuscation and smokescreening on the part of the Bush Administration (on this and other topics) leads me to believe that the global warming science "alarmists" are the ones closer to the truth.
Not that I'm comparing the Washowski Bros. to George Orwell, but this is equivalent to releasing 1984 in 1985. It's a matter of course that the 'anonymous spokeperson' denied any political implications -- just like people under scrutiny in Washington D.C. resign "to spend more time with their families". It's a bullshit excuse but they can't admit it as such.
*sigh* I guess we should just be happy the movie's being released at all. However, I wonder how heavily it will have been edited for content?
Oh, but don't you see?
According to the U.S. Dep't. of Justice, terrorists are now using intellectual property piracy to fund their global jihad against the western infidel, along with dope-smuggling, baby-selling and white slavery. Don't download MP3s - the next thing you see might be a mushroom cloud!
Hence the priorities are straight, now the world's boiled down to G.I. Joe vs. Cobra. At least that's what FOX News tells me.
Durk-durka allah, mohammed jihad! Sherpa sherpa!
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With their handy robots the Bush administration and its hand-picked shills at the EPA can ignore and/or redact even more evidence regarding global warming!
First -- I'm aware this post & my response are off-topic. I'm fine with modding down. I've been wanting to discuss this topic for a while so I'm going to go right ahead with my off-topic post.
Health care is expensive, yes, and for the reasons you state as well. However I think you're missing several key points in your argument. Medical training is only expensive for the prospective med school student because the U.S. government allows it to be. The U.S. stands alone among Western nations in its opinion that medical care is not considered a public service.
Medical training is only minimally subsidized by tax dollars. Med school (and health care in general) would be affordable if the U.S. government placed as much value on medicine as they do on the military industrial complex. Consider the no-bid contracts to Halliburton or the other greedy piglets suckling at the teat of government funds. Review the reports from the Office of the Inspector General in regard to Halliburton property in Iraq and you'll see just how much of our tax money Cheney's cronies have run off with. Halliburton can't account for 75% of the items it supposedly purchased with tax dollars -- and this isn't just office supplies. This is stuff like bulldozers, tractor trailers, computer equipment, etc. But somehow nobody squeaks about "fraud" or "waste". These thieves hide under the blanket of "support the troops" while they bleed the nation dry of funds that could be used for other, more constructive uses. All this while the real soldiers fighting the war have to deal with reductions in combat pay, removal of death benefits and reduced funding to the VA. Go fight and die, but don't get wounded because we don't have the money to take care of you.
But I digress. We're talking about what makes health care expensive. Has anyone considered the vicious circle that medical costs increase to meet the increasing cost of lobbying to keep costs high? The higher costs to consumers get, the more lobbyists you have to hire to explain to Congress why costs should be allowed to be so high, which in turn increases costs to consumers.
Let us consider the other factor driving up health care costs: drugs. The average person buys the line that pharmaceuticals cost as much as they do because the costs pay for research into new drugs. This argument holds as much water as your average Kleenex(tm), however, because drug research is the one aspect of the medical industry that is heavily subsidized by the government. The drug companies don't tell you about the real costs to them -- lobbyists and advertisements, both of which are entirely superfluous. Drugs are wildly profitable, especially if you need the drug to survive. Like HIV/AIDS or cancer patients. Or hemophiliacs.
Are you familiar with the situation hemophiliacs have to deal with in this country? No? Did you know the average hemophiliac runs a tab of $250,000 to $500,000 a year in clotting factor alone? Not preventative care, not doctor visits, not emergency room costs, just the drug they have to take to keep from bleeding to death. Severe hemophilia cases run well over $1,000,000 a year in factor. This isn't something they caught from indiscreet sexual encounters, this is a genetic disorder. But U.S. drug manufacturers make a killing of folks with this disability. Drug manufacturers in the U.S. keep the cost to create a unit of factor a closely-guarded secret. Why? Because they might get hauled into court for price gouging if it ever got out. In every western nation but the U.S., factor is fully subsidized by the government. Everywhere but here Hemophiliacs don't have to pay a red cent for having been born with a handicap. Yet here they can't get insurance coverage -- or if they do they burn through a lifetime's worth of coverage in 18 months.
Let me address your next point: "we live in a highly litigious society". True enough. But have you ever stopped to consider the reasons behind why there are so many med
The current difficulties with touch-screen voting are really just a 21st-Century continuation of the fine, American tradition of rigging elections. It's been going on for most of the time the United States has existed; the only difference being that it is much harder to be able to prove it's been happening and even harder to get a court to hear the matter. To paraphrase Joseph Stalin: "It's not who votes that matters, it's who counts the votes that matters". The argument over voting goes all the way back to founding of the nation. Many of the original framers of the Constitution felt that the populace should be prevented from engaging in free and fair elections; that the voices of the governed should be muted if heard at all and public sway of government policy should be kept to the absolute minimum. Hence the reason for the foundation of the Electoral College.
Voting has always been a class struggle. The democratic revolutionaries of the 18th Century were treated with much of the same disgust as any populist movement: the labor agitators or the original communist revolutionaries (I mean true communists, not totalitarianists, who simply re-instated a class system within a supposedly "communist" structure). Ruling minorities have always feared the "unwashed masses" would start considering self-governance. That very difference of philosophy forms the fundamental difference between "liberal" and "conservative" and the argument has gone on for centuries. For example: Martin Luther's proposed democratization of Christianity; the democratic revolutions in America and France; the anti-slavery movement; the labor movement; socalist & communist revolutionaries -- all sprouted out of the desire of the governed to have a say in their governance (if not do away with ruling classes entirely) and demand a greater share of the profits of their labor. Against which, of course, the ruling classes have fought with tooth & nail, sword & musket. And now, electronic voting machine. The rulers learned their lessons well: force is met with force, but if the masses are taught to believe they have a say in their governance, they'll tolerate all manner of injustice.
The various populist movements in the United States made strides in circumventing the barriers placed between the governors and the governed. By the 20th Century, the most egregious forms of vote fraud had been minimized--though not totally eliminated. Unfortunately, thanks to Diebold, Sequoia and others, those achievements have all been discarded. We have to simply "trust" that these ultra-conservative businesses will count the votes accurately -- even when those votes are in direct opposition to their corporate agendas. In other words, we can't trust them. The first instances of massive voting fraud via touch-screen electronics occurred in 2002, and the lawsuits over those fraud cases are *still* tied up in courts. Furthermore, now that the Bush Administration, with full complicity of the GOP-dominated Congress has stacked the State Supreme & Federal Circuit Courts with hard-right partisans who basically adhere to Machiavellian ethics (the ends justify the means), I'll be surprised if this debacle can actually get the judicious consideration it deserves.
America: Land of the Free Market and Home of the Brave Investor. Our "Democracy" is a sham and always has been.
You know, I'm guessing those folks opposed to the .xxx domain name aren't necessarily opposed to a "red light" section of the internet.
.xxx domain that's easily filterable, conservative Christians (as well as other theo-fascist and crypto-fascist governments & groups) will be deprived of their most easily-touted excuse to engage in censorhip: "Won't someone think of the children?"
Before we go much further, we need to look at the way that "protecting the children from porn" has been used as a means to justify all sorts of suppression of free speech - and I don't simply mean nekkid pictures. It was used during the late '40s, '50s and early '60s in this country as a "foot in the door" from which was launched all sorts of censorship campaigns.
Very simply, by creating a
...Didn't I remember reading an industry publication about the fact that iPod/iTunes users are actually less likely to engage in piracy than non-iPod/iTunes user? That the rate of piracy amongst iPod/iTunes users is estimated at between ~5% to ~15%, while non-users are estimated around ~60%?
This sounds to me like the RIAA is throwing a tantrum and wielding its legislative power to force Apple to increase prices on iTunes like they've been bitching about for the past year or two. "What? 99 cents a song? That's not enough of a profit margin for us! We want to charge people $2.50 per song!" So they claim "price fixing" and "unfair pricing" so they can have an excuse to sue Apple into allowing them to dictate the sale prices.
Problem is that the RIAA is keeping to an obsolete sales scheme. Increasing prices for music downloads decreases the incentive to buy and increases the incentive for piracy. The whole effing point of iTunes is to provide a sales forum where prices are low enough that users consider the risk/benefit ratio to be in their favor (i.e., buying versus piracy).
Dog in the manger syndrome, anyone?
Fascism transcends party line. The definition of fascism, as offered by its creator Benito Mussolini: "The collusion of business and government for the mutual benefit of both."
Ergo, President Bush is a consummate fascist because he places the interests of business foremost in his agenda. Furthermore, the Republican Party - the 'party of business' - is interested in minimizing government restriction on business at the expense of the common citizen. Can't get much more fascist than that.
And before you accuse me of being specifically anti-Republican, the Democrats do the same, they just sugar-coat it. They soft-sell fascism. The key difference between them is that the Republicans these days have made a point of ensuring anyone who might have a moderating influence is safely out of power, while a few key Democrats who believe in the rights of the common person have somehow managed to keep afloat within their party...
This year with Diebold-brand electronic voting, we can expect even these few reasonable guys to be run out of office thanks to the happily untracable rigging of elections.
First, allow me commend you for keeping a civil tongue, Mr. Tie. I appreciate civil discourse.
I would also like to nudge the thread back in the direction of my original point, which isn't so much about the minutae of evolutionary science but rather with the political motives behind the "Intelligent Design" debate. The "Intelligent Design" debate is only one of many attacks on secularism being levied by the Religious Right. The Relgious Right claims something along the lines that (to paraphrase) "...secularists are trying to take away God", the point is that "God" never really belonged there in the first place, not if our nation is built on fundamental equality of all citizens. They see attempts at excluding God from public sponsorship as an attack, instead of silent acknowledgement. Once again, it's not enough to be secure in the knowledge that you are equal to your neighbor -- the folks pushing I.D. want to be "more equal". I.D. is a "foot in the door", so to speak, and they can use said foot as leverage to enforce more and more public sponsorship of Christianity.
If our nation is built on fundamental equality of all citizens, government sponsorship of one sect of one religion creates a state of inequality. Those who subscribe to the dominant sect of the dominant faith can be certain that their rights will be protected. Subscribers to other sects, other religions or those who subscribe to no religion at all cannot expect to be accorded equal protection under law-- because the law is fundamentally biased against them. Hence the establishment of a state of second-class citizenship. Maintaining secularism is the only way to ensure that all citizens are treated as equally under law as is possible.
Unfortunately, those who feel they are "more equal than others" see the lack of public sponsorship as a means to claim martyrdom at the hands of the state. And there's nothing so motivated as a martyred Christian.
Admittedly, I'm not surprised that Utah voted against this. For the Mormon Church (virtually indistinguishable from the State of Utah) to throw their lot in with Evangelical Christians would be self-defeating. Perhaps they recognize the idea that the establishment of a "Christian Nation" as the Evangelicals so dearly wish to do would preclude their participation.
Basically the whole 'intelligent design' movement is yet another attack on secularism. For those who embrace this theory, it's not enough for the state to acknowledge the right of people to worship as they see fit and go about teaching science, the state must be forced to operate according to the Evangelicals' interpretation of Biblical law. Whether or not Evangelicals admit it, the vaunted "Christian Nation" they're trying to forge would make second-class citizens of everyone who doesn't subscribe to their interpretation of their religion. This is fine, because according to my observation they want to create a sort of environment where non-Evangelicals are barely tolerated and subjected to a torrent of Bible-thumping and state-sponsored oppression until they convert. I think the Mormons recognize this, and since they're not in the religio-political mainstream insofar as the Religious Right is concerned, they're likely nervous about getting into bed with their main competition.
In short, this gives me hope that some religious, right-wing people recognize the fact that religion and public governance should be kept separate-- even if their motives are based on a level playing field for competition over converts.
The people who believe "global warming is good" aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the package. Please note that three weeks ago BBC reported there was nearly abject terror in the oceanological community because in 2005 (the warmest year currently on record) there was a massive plankton die-off in the Pacific, which evidence showed was directly attributable to higher ocean temperatures. They went on to explain that if the ocean temperature continues to rise at the current rate, the continued plankton die-offs would create a twofold problem. One, because plankton is the lowest rung on the food chain, ocean-going animals would die out. Two, the more plankton dies, the less CO2 the oceans can process and the faster the average planetary temperature rises, thus killing more plankton, thus killing more ocean-life and so on.
So enjoy your summer in February, everyone. Enjoy the sunny days while you can because when the oceans die, they'll be taking us with them.
Please note that at no point in the above post did I say that it was "doctrine', or is stated as such by any religious authority. Religious authorities know better than to state categorically that HIV/AIDS is "God's punishment", for to do so would be to open their church as an instution and themselves as people to public protest and/or litigation over 'hate speech', especially since AIDS is legally considered a 'disability'.
That being said, it doesn't mean religious authorities can't hint at that inference, however. Many, many Christians-- Mormons included-- with whom I have spoken on the matter of HIV/AIDS have expressed an opinion that HIV/AIDS is a punishment from God. I doubt that so many people came to this conclusion entirely on their own. While it may not be "official doctrine" of any church, as I said in the first post, the "punishment" theory of HIV/AIDS unarguably keeps currency among many devout Christians.
-Mekkis
I am afraid I agree that we will see no cure in this lifetime. Whether or not cures will be discovered is another matter. Curing HIV/AIDS would create both religious and economic uproar -- and would be therefore highly political. My arguments are as follows:
1. Religious: Many Christians (Mormons very much included) are of the opinion that HIV/AIDS is "God's punishment" for fornication, and the preach that HIV/AIDS is God's incentive to abstain from sex. Although this is a flawed argument, especially in regard to people who contract HIV/AIDS through non-sexual activity (haemophilacs, newborn children, blood transfusees, etc.), it carries a lot of weight within the Christian community. I find it distressing that this discovery occurred at BYU, due to the religious considerations surrounding HIV/AIDS.
2. Economic: Every pharmaceutical manufacturer that has an AIDS drug makes money hand-over-fist by selling it. It is more financially viable to "treat" an illness, because "curing" an illness is tantamount to killing the Golden Goose. For example: haemophilacs are considered a target market for drug companies who make clotting factor because haemophilia is a genetic disease and therefore incurable. A severe haemophiliac cannot survive without factor, and drug companies know this. It is common for a family with a child who develops haemophilia to go into bankruptcy over the costs of financing treatment for their disease. Further, the drug companies keep secret the cost to manufacture a single unit of factor-- largely because to make it public would open them to suits over "price gouging". HIV/AIDS patients are no different. It is a chronic, incurable disease that takes a lot of high-priced medicine every day to keep it manageable. An HIV/AIDS cure would close this lucrative market and therefore curtail profits. Due to this fact, I doubt seriously whether we will even know if this new discovery turns out to be a cure, because any peer review be performed at least in part by Big Pharma -- and we already know from experience what altruistic folks they are. I predict this will be like the discovery of any other possible HIV/AIDS cure: it will sound great, it will have a lot of promise, then it will be "discovered" to be yet another red herring.
3. Politics. When the religious and pharmaceutical lobbies get involved, one can be sure there will be little or no government involvement with peer review of a cure. Any tests from public institutions that dispute those from the pharmaceutical industry will be subject to debate and perhaps even lawsuits. Because Big Pharma and the religious lobby wields such tremendous power, it is inevitable that any funding to a public insitution researching potential cures will be cut. One need only look at the fight over nicotine research and tobacco-related diseases. Big Tobacco fought with public institutions for decades and by dint of keen lobbying --essentially graft-- they kept the real results buried.
Sorry to be such a joykill...
Mekkis, The Eyeconoclast
DOUBLEPLUSGOOD NOWNEWS for 07SEP 5 yp 3rd Quarter:
Ministry of Truth reports NewsCorp / IGN merger as doubleplusgood opp for expand of prolefeed into compnets. Oldthinking gameplayers must now reject ownlife and bellyfeel AmSoc.
NewsCorp insists fortunate outcome: oldthinkers will learn goodthink speedwise or be sent to joycamps.
Praise BB!
The problem is that New Orleans is now almost completely destroyed and it's going to take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to bring it back. We as a nation don't have that kind of money to waste; we're already making sacrifices on things like education, public assistance, universal healthcare, social security -- and then there's the war, another money sink, but one that we can't fight effectively because we can't afford armor for troops or vehicles or death benefits for KIAs.
Rather than pouring money the U.S. doesn't really have into a location that's assuredly going to suffer another catastrophic inundation, why not move the port to higher ground, at the very least? The problem is the rebuilding effort is focusing on where everything used to be instead of looking for new locations. By insisting we must rebuild exactly where everything used to be, we are effectively thumbing our nose at Mother Nature.
*shrug*
If you feel it necessary to ignore the salient points of my argument, grab a few sentences out of context so you can then insult me, you do more to support my argument than your own. I'm sure you won't care, but when you have to resort to insults and argumentum ad hominem to back up your position then you have already conceded.
You may notice the rich white folks aren't the ones who are camped out on rooftops or swimming through sewage and corpses, but that's okay - you can go on blaming the victims if you feel you must. Developers play the odds, but you've ignored the point I made about how they rig the game in their favor. I suppose it's about "playing the odds" to build Colorado's Rocky Flats developments in plutonium slurry fields, and hence it must be the buyer's responsibility to investigate the kick-backs involved in the cover-up of the existence of that toxic waste dump -- or maybe it's their responsibility to own a geiger counter before they move into a home.
I'm not saying that living anywhere in the country isn't risky, either. But you also totally disregarded my point about it being possibly more efficient to invest in moving from a destroyed city to a more hospitable and less dangerous place rather than dump money into the pockets of people who will repeat ad infinitum the cycle of corruption.
The question still stands: if we as a nation are are already making budgetary sacrifices when it comes to proper schools, firefighters, police, health care coverage, and other war-related things like veterans' benefits, funeral costs for KIAs, armor for troops & vehicles, etc., it makes no sense to spend tens of billions rebuilding and maintaining a city that's already pretty much destroyed and stands a good chance of being destroyed again in the near future. Why not just relocate people into existing cities? Or if you must move to a location - preferably above sea level - and start from scratch?
I remember both those floods pretty well. '97 was a vicious flood year, not just in Sacramento County, but in other surrounding counties as well.
From my memory, a lot of the major problems in the surrounding counties came from the token efforts at infrastructure (if they even existed), the cover-ups relating to historical flood records and the general philosophy of "throw enough money at the problem and it'll go away". When the floods came and demolished the homes of people who had been enticed to come live there, the developers got off scot-free -- better than scot-free in fact, because they got government funding to rebuild on exactly the same spot. The developers' evasion was mainly built upon the caveat emptor argument, never mind that prior to the disaster they had done their best to make sure that historical records, environmental reports and other data were unattainable to buyers. The weather patterns were not unforseen, but rather were disregarded or obfuscated in the quest for profit, and such criminal disregard went completely unpunished.
Caveat emptor is an empty argument because there should be layers of protection when it comes to land ownership, some of the big ones being planning commissions, county boards of supervisors and city councils. Hazardous locations such as flood plains, active volcanoes, tailings fields and settling ponds should never be zoned for development in the first place, and to evade prosecution by claiming "let the buyer beware" is in effect, blaming the victim.
But I digress...
Every hundred years? How many hurricanes have happened in central Atlantic the past 18 months? How many more are projected to occur in the next 18 months? What's the likelihood that New Orleans will be hit by a hurricane during the rebuilding effort? How much more damage will it cause? How much will it cost the national economy?
Many coastal cities are sinking into the sea, but the point of my "pedantic, infantile rant" was that there are major differences between cities like Venice or Rotterdam and New Orleans -- not simply environment and location, but primarily economic. For example, Italy isn't carrying the world's largest national debt. Venice hasn't had the national government cut funding to its system of protection & maintenance by 80%. Developers aren't undercutting regulations in order to build suburbs in the flood plains outside the city despite the danger in doing so. That's not to say Venice doesn't have its problems, but simply because it's a coastal city below sea level doesn't mean its problems are comparable to New Orleans, nor does it mean the solution to those problems can be applied to all cities in the same situation.
Did you actually read anything in the parent post? What I said has to do with developers ignoring danger and then exploiting disaster -- and asked the question whether the U.S. would be better served by spending money it can't really afford to spend relocating the victims of the disaster or set itself up for failure & subject people to more hardship by pouring it into the pockets of people who cut and run at the first sign of trouble?
How does Venice have anything to do with that?
Especially because of all those hurricanes that happen in the Adriatic. Tragic, indeed.
The Italian government spends a tremendous amount every year to keep Venice above water and much of that money comes from tourism. There also isn't a whole lot of development occurring within the city either. However, should that funding be cut and an equally destructive event occurs a few years down the line that inundates & destroys Venice, it would be equally pointless to try and rebuild it.
Hey, why not bring back Alexandria while you're at it? The lighthouse has been found in the Mediterranean, so the city's got to be around there somewhere. People would love to live there-- think of the amount you could make on tourism!
What's the point in rebuilding? The city's already been destroyed and the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the central Atlantic & Gulf of Mexico means that we're just asking for another disaster. Whether or not you subscribe to global warming being human-induced is beside the point; the temperature of the Earth is increasing, as is the destructiveness of the weather.
The Netherlands argument just doesn't hold water (no pun intended) because that part of the world isn't subject to the same type of weather conditions - in other words, there ain't no hurricanes in the North Sea. There are also the economic factors to consider. The United States is in debt over its head and frankly doesn't have the financial resources to waste on rebuilding a city which would then require greater and greater expenditures of capital to keep from being inundated as the ocean level rises.
Rebuilding New Orleans shows stubbornness well beyond the border of idiocy and is a stunning example of the old axiom: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." It also shows the tremendous amount of greed involved; whether or not New Orleans is rebuilt, the impoverished who have borne the brunt of this disaster will be left out of the process, except maybe as a disposable work force to exploit in the building of new condos and upscale developments that the real estate markets in New Orleans have been looking for an excuse to install -- especially since builders can use such low-wage exploitation as a tax write-off.
Then there's also the fact that developers were allowed to build in hazardous locations to begin with -- what with the Bush Administration doing away with the Federal land easements (wetlands) that existed as a storm surge buffer and turning it over to developers.
Sacramento, California is an example of just such short-sightedness. The Sacramento River flood plains are catastrophically inundated every ten to fifteen years or so. Despite this fact, developers have been allowed to build there because they've bought and/or sued the city & county into letting them do whatever in the hell they want. The developers have also stifled the environmental and news reports as well as done their best to obscure the historical record because such information conflicts with their immediate profit interests. The result? Houses get flooded, families are ruined and the taxpayers are left with the responsibility.
Frankly, developers don't give a shit whether five or ten years down the line those houses are flooded out and destroyed, incidentally sending into financial ruin the families gullible, desperate, uninformed and/or stupid enough to be living there. They've made their profits and get to hide comfortably behind the lawsuit protection laws established to prevent consumers from holding developers responsible for faulty and/or dangerous housing. Besides, the government will pay for disaster relief and subsidize the rebuilding efforts for a new generation of suckers -- because once those houses have been built, by God they've got to stay there.
With the the Bush Administration doing the best it can to aid unscrupulous businesspeople by circumventing legal measures set up to prevent people from putting themselves into harm's way, is it any wonder there's such a cry to rebuild New Orleans? You've got people who stand to make a killing by exploiting this very preventable disaster. But then again, I guess caveat emptor is the ultimate answer and anything else is heresy to the religion of the Free Market.
Let this also serve as a reminder those who believe overpopulation is a myth that not every square mile of the Earth's surface is inhabitable or arable.
At least here in the good ol' You-Ess-of-Ay it's not so much the government-funded disaster relief that's responsible for so much disaster, it's the fact that people were allowed to build in hazardous locations to begin with.
Let's take Sacramento, California as an example...
Land prices in California have skyrocketed, especially around Sacramento County. Recently, housing developers have been allowed to build in the Sacramento River flood plains - plains that flood catastrophically every ten to fifteen years or so. These developers have either bought or sued the city & county into allowing them to build in the flood plains and have stifled any environmental and news reports on the historical record that conflict with their immediate profit interests. Frankly, developers don't give a shit whether five or ten years down the line those houses are flooded out and destroyed and incidentally sending into financial ruin the families gullible, desperate, uninformed and/or stupid enough to be living there. They've made their profits and are hiding comfortably behind the recent lawsuit protection laws established to prevent consumers from holding developers responsible for faulty and/or dangerous housing.
Magnify this problem by several factors of ten and you see the scope of the issue. Yeah, the planet's dangerous all right, but it doesn't help that unscrupulous people are taking advantage of the situation -- and with the help of the Bush Administration circumventing legal measures set up to prevent people from putting themselves into harm's way. But I guess caveat emptor is the ultimate answer and anything else is heresy to the religion of the Free Market.
Let this remind those believe overpopulation is a myth that not every square mile of the Earth's surface is inhabitable or arable.
This has been going on for the past half-century. It's not just the anti-piracy software copyright zealots who've accelerated the problem, though they're some of the worst in a long time.
Well before computer piracy was a problem, Di$ney spearheaded the anti-public domain/copyright-extension lobby in order to maintain its copyright on Mickey Mou$e. Each time the Hydrocephalic Mouse God is threatened with falling into the unwashed mitts of public domain, Di$ney tosses some cash around, pulls its Congressional strings and gets the copyright public domain clause extended for another 25 years. Now copyrights last for over a century and Di$ney maintains its comfortable deathgrip on all that's spherical and mousy.
I work in computer forensics and it isn't that goddamned hard to develop tools to process different kinds of databases, encrypted or otherwise. Besides, I'm certain that if it were in the interests of "National Security", Federal investigators could get ensure cooperation between developers of FireFox or Opera and the contractors who actually do the forensics work.
All you have to do is play "follow the money" and it quickly sounds like Micro$oft is using the God-and-Country argument to win by default the Second Browser War. Considering how invested Micro$oft has been in the US Justice Dep't. (one of former USAG John Ashcroft's biggest campaign contributors and still heavily involved to this date) it would be unsurprising if they were the ones pulling the strings on the issuance of a statement like this.
What ought to happen is for the Dep't. of Homeland Security to proclaim Internet Explorer as the single largest cause of "electronic terrorism" because of Micro$oft's half-assed security measures.
That'd shut them up real quick...
I for one find that the insistent harping by the oil industry and their political puppets that "global warming isn't real" to be a pretty good indicator that the science warning about human-induced global warming is real. If we look at the number of instances when industries swore up and down that "alarmist scientists are wrong, our corporate-funded scientists are right" in regards to the addictive qualities of nicotine, the carcinogenic properties of dioxins, DDT or Agent Orange as well as other industrial chemicals -- all these were deemed as "safe" by the scientists funded by industries manufacturing these products, and it's taken decades of work and a political seachange to disprove the industry science. Not to say this "guilt by association" is conclusive proof of global warning in and of itself, but the increasingly shrill denouncements of global warming science in this manner are reminiscent of the arguments I describe.
The really aggravating part of the global warming debate is the review process established by the Bush Administration - which is really a system of discrediting scientists with whom they don't agree. While few of us are surprised that the Bush Administration would in this instance employ its classic tactic of discrediting those against whom they can't form a solid defense, the systematic manner with which this is done against environmental scientists is quite shocking. Those scientists who are called in to present their evidence to Congress and the Bush Administration are subjected to a level of inquiry that is both unfair and unprecedented. The scientist in question must present his/her entire career's worth of work for review, and it must be done within a few weeks. If the scientist is unable to come up with the paperwork for review, then he/she is dismissed out of hand and his/her work is discredited by the Administration-- and claims of "stalling" or "obfuscation" or "obstruction are leveled against the researcher.
Now at first blush presenting a career's worth of evidence may not sound difficult, considering the prevalence of digital data in the scientific fields, but think again. To do so involves collating decades' worth of data, both digital and paper, over a variety of computer systems (many now obsolete) and putting them into a court-admissable format (e.g., one that avoids spoliation). The preparation of that material involves literally months of processing by an army of paralegals, which can run into the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if the unrealistic time deadlines set by the Bush Administration are met (which is nearly impossible), the cost of processing all that data is the scientist's responsibility.
To further complicate matters, the scientists representing the oil industry aren't subjected to that same standard. Ergo, the review process is unfairly biased toward the oil industry's "science". This unfair standard, when combined with the degree of obfuscation and smokescreening on the part of the Bush Administration (on this and other topics) leads me to believe that the global warming science "alarmists" are the ones closer to the truth.
Not that I'm comparing the Washowski Bros. to George Orwell, but this is equivalent to releasing 1984 in 1985. It's a matter of course that the 'anonymous spokeperson' denied any political implications -- just like people under scrutiny in Washington D.C. resign "to spend more time with their families". It's a bullshit excuse but they can't admit it as such.
*sigh* I guess we should just be happy the movie's being released at all. However, I wonder how heavily it will have been edited for content?
Oh, but don't you see?
According to the U.S. Dep't. of Justice, terrorists are now using intellectual property piracy to fund their global jihad against the western infidel, along with dope-smuggling, baby-selling and white slavery. Don't download MP3s - the next thing you see might be a mushroom cloud!
Hence the priorities are straight, now the world's boiled down to G.I. Joe vs. Cobra. At least that's what FOX News tells me.
Durk-durka allah, mohammed jihad! Sherpa sherpa!
What is the law?
No spill blood!
No eat flesh!
Walk on two legs, not on four!
ARE WE NOT MEN?!