I agree completely. Measuring things based on accomplishment is waaaay better.
BUT
That would require that the management of companies be actually capable of measuring accomplishment and they generally are NOT capable of this.
A great deal of the problems faced by modern society today comes from the fact that the concepts and theories on management (all that MBA crap) for the past 30 years are mostly useless and wrong.
Measuring hours worked is easy, measuring effectiveness is hard. Managers these days are incapable of doing things that are hard.
This is the rub. As long as recipients of Social Security and Medicare continue to receive benefits at the current rates, we're doomed.
If we don't eventually means test SS and Medicare, we will go completely bankrupt.
As to the rich, who would no longer receive benefits that they are entitled to, it wouldn't be called theft, it'd be called taxes.
Everyone gets all up in arms about Warren Buffet paying to little in taxes, but NO ONE gets up in arms with the Federal Government giving him money every month and paying for his health care.
I understand that it sucks that the money is gone that will be needed to pay the Social Security and Medicare benefits of the Baby Boomers. But they've been essentially in charge of the government since '92 (simplification, I know, based on the generation of the President).
Getting back on topic. No, we can't keep people getting entitlements from voting. Which is going to make solving the debt problem very very difficult.
There's also the possibility that we're the first to begin to approach a solution. I know its statistically unlikely, but its still a possibility that we're the first lifeforms that may be capable of doing this.
Of course we could even be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th,.... and haven't seen the first ones get here yet.
But you're right, its and interesting thought experiment.
What!? Population densities are not a law of nature?
To calculate population densities you take the number of people and divide it by the area they live in.
If you look at the US and Europe. Europe has more people (approximately 850 million) and an area of about 10 million square km. The US is actually close in size to Europe, coming in at 9.6 million square km, but has only 310 million people. Therefore, simple math, and not some devious plot by the auto companies, dictates that the US has a much lower population density than Europe.
This has a profound impact on the ability and the willingness of the US to adopt public transportation.
I live in South Dakota, and while my town has an admirable, although very small public bus system, the idea if building any light rail systems anywhere in the state is a non starter because there is no mass available to use the transit.
However, even in places like California, with higher, although still not European densities, the high speed rail project is floundering because it is just not competitive economically with cars, planes, and buses.
California would be better off abandoning high speed rail entirely and just mandating that Californians buy hybrids, electrics, or diesel vehicles. It would probably do more good with respect to climate change and the limits of supply of oil than any mass transit solutions they would try.
So basically I'm saying, what works in Europe will not work here because the US is substantially different from Europe.
There are things that vast numbers of US citizens can agree about. That's all I'm saying.
There are even a number of important political actions and efforts that a large majority of US citizens want to see happen.
There are plenty of people saying the same thing I am.
Why are you so stringently trying to keep having your labels stick?
And while I don't agree with you that we should limit donations to campaigns because donating to campaigns is an expression of free speech, I'll at least throw out another potential option.
Since the government regulates elections and regulates the airwaves (TV and Radio), I believe that the government should, in the interest of a better informed citizenry mandate that the broadcast TV and radio stations be required to provide X amount of advertising to registered political candidates for free. This would have to be a pretty good amount of time in order to mitigate the paid advertising that wouldn't be illegal. But if the free advertising to the candidates was a large enough amount, then every candidate would get their message out.
It always makes me scratch my head when the talking heads on the TV news complain about campaign finance, and then their network or station() rakes in the money on campaign advertising. The airwaves are regulated, the gov't should use that regulation as the level to fix campaign financing problems.
So there, see, I can even disagree with your premise on campaign financing, but propose a solution you might be able to live with. Now, I fully realize that you may respond to this derision and a reference to me needing to "read more", but if you're honest you should realize that I'm just trying to look at things based on working to tackle issues where there is consensus and not getting caught up in divisive rhetoric.
You are completely right. Things like gravity are well proven and yet we still don't know its true nature.
But, I'd wager that climate science still fits in the realm of NP-Hard and not well proven.
There is a lot of model work to be done before we call climate science well proven, heck I still think there are a lot of variables and feedback mechanisms that will need to be heavily studied and solved before we can even start on the well proven trail.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying global warming doesn't exist. I'm just defending the guy who was making a joke about "the science being settled" (no one should ever really say that).
Its one of the things OWS has right. I may disagree with their methods a bit, but 1% of the country is controlling a lot of what happens here.
The Tea Partiers have that same vibe.
Last year a paper was written by an academic that was sympathetic to the Tea Party where he broke down the class situation in the country to the Ruling Class and the Country Class. In his paper he pointed out that the Ruling Class contains both of the major political parties. This concept exactly matches the OWS 1% - 99% argument.
IMHO green issues and environmentalism are being used to keep the liberals in line and keep the Democrat party viable as a part of the ruling class.
On the conservative side, morality and social issues like gay marriage are the handwaving that is keeping the Republican party viable.
The Tea Partiers missed the boat so to speak. They should have been violently opposed to integrating any morality aspects into their midst. It allowed the triangulation of the old guard Republican apparatus to regain control. Just look at the candidates they're putting forth, only one could really be embraced by the Tea Partiers and he's the one constantly labeled as being "unable to win."
With OWS this process is only just beginning, but you can clearly see the moves being made to make OWS a fullyÂfunctioning arm of the Democrats. The green issues, environmentalism, and social justice are being used to pull OWS in as a Democrat organization. Woosh, there goes their ability to claim to represent 99%.
If OWS and the Tea Party could actually merge their core values and effectively fend off attacks by the established parties to marginalize them with, frankly, unimportant side issues. They could be a viable third party that would mop the floor with the other two parties. But as we have seen the establishment fights that HARD.
The key problems in the US right now are Debt, Entitlement Spending, and Defense Spending. The major parties are uniformly committed to basically doing absolutely nothing to really solve those issues. But they're more than willing to fight gay marriage, bailout failing industries, hand out largess to their political allies, continue policing the world, etc.
WE (the voters) need to make some hard and difficult choices to get rid of THEM (the ruling elites).
I have no confidence at all that either grass roots movement (OWS or Tea Party) will be able to really make that happen.
But I can't help noticing that you're flaming me for my comments about our rampant politization of everything in a discussion about global warming, but then you start talking about a killing spree? WTF?
The point I'm trying to make is that there should be some things where it shouldn't matter what party you are in.
I did say that both sides were hypocrites with respect to Obama's foreign policy.
If Bush did what Obama has done the right would have been just fine with it, but the Democrats would have rioted in the streets. This is for exactly the same actions!!
So YES I am saying that both sides are the same!!
People are just letting the labels behind the names govern their reactions.
Learn something. Yes I agree, people should learn what our representatives are doing and they should be appalled. They should also allow no passes for their rep having the same initial behind their name as you have on your voter registration card.
Your historical "Republicans are all evil" bullshit is just more rationalization that your side is the "good" side.
I love how Liberals all refuse to see the world in anything but shades of grey (which is true), until they talk about those "black" republicans.
Does everyone need to go learn something until they think just like you? I just love how open minded you are.
BTW: I happen to agree with you that OWS and the Tea Party have many things in common. But again the labeling of members of each group as misguided others keeps them separated. And what forces are backing that? The old guard political apparatus is.
WE and OUR could easily cover both the TEA PARTY and OWS, but that is the last thing the parties want to see happen.
Right wing shillery RELIES on two things: the echo chamber and the chilling effect. Ever noticed how a Fox News viewer screams about the "liberal media" nonstop? It's because if they ever listened to both sides, they'd realize their side's argument is more full of holes than a loaf of aged swiss cheese.
And Left wing shillery relies on two things: vilification of your enemies and the chilling effect.
I have almost no hope that our system will survive.
As a point of proof I'd ask you to try this.
List all the foreign policy items that Obama has accomplished in his first term:
Killing Osama, Bombing Libya, Assassinating Terrorists, Withdrawing from Iraq, Expanding the troops in Afghanistan.
Now, just imagine that instead Bush had done those things. If Bush had done them (apart from killing Bin Laden) he would have faced IMHO HUGE protests from the left, Obama saw nothing. In reverse, the republicans ridiculed and questioned Obamas actions, yet would have been 100% behind Bush if he were doing them.
Politics has become a @#$%$#% sporting event with teams people root for. They're using play books with very similar plays and they've agreed to the rules of the game and how the playing field is laid out.
Yet every is cheering for their team with total zeal.
Comments like yours talking about THEY and THEM and how bad THEY are, make me sick.
Forget going backed to the gold standard for money, we should have all our money backed by pennies, with them being twice the cost of their face value, we'd double the value of everyone's money overnight!!!
As far as Natural gas goes, it is at least better than oil.
Tar sands are more expensive than regular oil, too.
And you got a good point on coal.
But. There are other sides of this equation at play.
I would love to own an electric car. In fact if I owned an electric car I'd be in really good shape from a Carbon footprint perspective because more than half my electricity is supplied by hydro an wind. But they've got to get a whole lot cheaper.
If the next time I needed a new car I had a choice between a $20,000 gas car or a $20,000 electric car I would buy the electric one. Of course this means that the market for electric vehicles needs to expand, the materials cost for the cars needs to go down. Car companies need to put efforts there to improve the technology. When they do, then you can make the case that we should buy electric cars to "save the planet" and a lot of us will. Marketing is a valid aspect to use to get people to do things differently.
Another technological gauntlet out there is that we should switch from coal to nuclear. This is a harder economic sell, and is also the part where regulation _may_ have some impact (coal is dirty stuff and does require regulations, although I still think cap and trade is dumb). Nuclear is always zero emissions. If you are for government regulations to solve global warming and you don't want the government to fully back building nuclear plants, you are just and anti-global warming cheerleader and aren't willing to look at the hard choices.
Neither of these two technology aspects require much in the way of draconian government regulation, but could have big gains. More work needs to be done here. I'm really just saying that I favor research over regulation. And yes, I even favor gov't sponsored research. Government sponsored research doesn't restrict personal freedom beyond the taxes paid to support it. But if you try pass a law to hook a meter to the back of my house to ration my electricity use, yes I'm very much against that.
Ah, but if you follow along with the AGW crowd and implement all the regulations and laws they require to "solve" global warming (which incidentally are exactly what one side of the political spectrum wants, but are anathema to the other side) then you must be a patriot right?
I've come to realize recently that I really agree with most of the arguments of AGW.
But
I think they are wildly optimistic at how effective their regulations will be at changing the situation and are oblivious to the fact that regulations with enough impact to make a change will have severely adverse consequences of the economy and personal freedom.
Recently, it was posited on line that it was more likely that the free market and the decreasing supply of fossil fuels (leading to cost increases) will naturally spur on innovations that achieve the goals many environmentalists have, but that many laws proposed have serious negative and draconian impacts on the economy and the people.
An opportune question is, if you're paying people to not emit CO2, then how do you effectively stop rampant corruption in the market from people who say that they'll generate less CO2, but just want you to pay them money to do nothing? Cap and Trade is a false market that is incapable of avoiding both fraud and regulatory capture.
Someone needs to develop energy solutions that can replace fossil fuels that deliver the same amount of energy for nearly the same cost. That's where the bar is. If you can do that you'll end up rich and will save the planet, if you can't, taxing people for CO2 emissions isn't going to make it happen.
And before anyone brings it up, yes, subsidies for the fossil fuel industry have to go to keep the marketplace fair and encourage development of new technology.
Alternate energy technology is our only hope. I'm sorry, governmental worldwide restrictions and regulations are too dangerous and too prone to misuse.
Patent trolls don't make a first copy. They sketch out a vague diagram and then say that anyone doom what they diagramed needs to pay.
I would love to see software patent suits require a demo of functioning software. But I have a suspicion that that woul make it too easy for juries to say "these aren't the same things."
Heck if I had my way anyone entering a courtroom for a software parent suit without being able to present a working software example of their parent should be shot.
I know you're joking, but your post hits on a point.
The internet was created and thrived as a free and open environment. That the jury could see this lawsuit as a threat to that is commendable.
Now the next thing that needs to be explained is how something set up by congress to "Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," is currently being wielded as a weapon of technological mass destruction.
It is obvious to anyone paying any attention at all that software patents are evil and do not promote progress in any way.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree completely. Measuring things based on accomplishment is waaaay better.
BUT
That would require that the management of companies be actually capable of measuring accomplishment and they generally are NOT capable of this.
A great deal of the problems faced by modern society today comes from the fact that the concepts and theories on management (all that MBA crap) for the past 30 years are mostly useless and wrong.
Measuring hours worked is easy, measuring effectiveness is hard. Managers these days are incapable of doing things that are hard.
No. Why would they want to give you what they want?
why spend free time fiddling about with all of this when you could pay somebody else a few dollars to do it for you?
Three letters D. R. M.
They can take their digital conversion service and stick it where the Sun don't shine.
If I can't play the file you get from this on any device I want whenever I want, connected to the internet or not connected, then no thanks.
Thats too true.
Where C = Cost.
This is the rub. As long as recipients of Social Security and Medicare continue to receive benefits at the current rates, we're doomed.
If we don't eventually means test SS and Medicare, we will go completely bankrupt.
As to the rich, who would no longer receive benefits that they are entitled to, it wouldn't be called theft, it'd be called taxes.
Everyone gets all up in arms about Warren Buffet paying to little in taxes, but NO ONE gets up in arms with the Federal Government giving him money every month and paying for his health care.
I understand that it sucks that the money is gone that will be needed to pay the Social Security and Medicare benefits of the Baby Boomers. But they've been essentially in charge of the government since '92 (simplification, I know, based on the generation of the President).
Getting back on topic. No, we can't keep people getting entitlements from voting. Which is going to make solving the debt problem very very difficult.
There's also the possibility that we're the first to begin to approach a solution. I know its statistically unlikely, but its still a possibility that we're the first lifeforms that may be capable of doing this.
Of course we could even be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, .... and haven't seen the first ones get here yet.
But you're right, its and interesting thought experiment.
What!? Population densities are not a law of nature?
To calculate population densities you take the number of people and divide it by the area they live in.
If you look at the US and Europe. Europe has more people (approximately 850 million) and an area of about 10 million square km. The US is actually close in size to Europe, coming in at 9.6 million square km, but has only 310 million people. Therefore, simple math, and not some devious plot by the auto companies, dictates that the US has a much lower population density than Europe.
This has a profound impact on the ability and the willingness of the US to adopt public transportation.
I live in South Dakota, and while my town has an admirable, although very small public bus system, the idea if building any light rail systems anywhere in the state is a non starter because there is no mass available to use the transit.
However, even in places like California, with higher, although still not European densities, the high speed rail project is floundering because it is just not competitive economically with cars, planes, and buses.
California would be better off abandoning high speed rail entirely and just mandating that Californians buy hybrids, electrics, or diesel vehicles. It would probably do more good with respect to climate change and the limits of supply of oil than any mass transit solutions they would try.
So basically I'm saying, what works in Europe will not work here because the US is substantially different from Europe.
All you have to do it look at the makeup of the UN's Human Rights Council to realize it would be worse.
Plus China and Russia are pushing for this. As bad is ICE is, they're rank amateurs at blocking the net compared to the Chinese.
Eric is right the idea of the UN governing the Internet is a very very bad idea.
Dude, I just completely don't get you.
There are things that vast numbers of US citizens can agree about. That's all I'm saying.
There are even a number of important political actions and efforts that a large majority of US citizens want to see happen.
There are plenty of people saying the same thing I am.
Why are you so stringently trying to keep having your labels stick?
And while I don't agree with you that we should limit donations to campaigns because donating to campaigns is an expression of free speech, I'll at least throw out another potential option.
Since the government regulates elections and regulates the airwaves (TV and Radio), I believe that the government should, in the interest of a better informed citizenry mandate that the broadcast TV and radio stations be required to provide X amount of advertising to registered political candidates for free. This would have to be a pretty good amount of time in order to mitigate the paid advertising that wouldn't be illegal. But if the free advertising to the candidates was a large enough amount, then every candidate would get their message out.
It always makes me scratch my head when the talking heads on the TV news complain about campaign finance, and then their network or station() rakes in the money on campaign advertising. The airwaves are regulated, the gov't should use that regulation as the level to fix campaign financing problems.
So there, see, I can even disagree with your premise on campaign financing, but propose a solution you might be able to live with. Now, I fully realize that you may respond to this derision and a reference to me needing to "read more", but if you're honest you should realize that I'm just trying to look at things based on working to tackle issues where there is consensus and not getting caught up in divisive rhetoric.
You are completely right. Things like gravity are well proven and yet we still don't know its true nature.
But, I'd wager that climate science still fits in the realm of NP-Hard and not well proven.
There is a lot of model work to be done before we call climate science well proven, heck I still think there are a lot of variables and feedback mechanisms that will need to be heavily studied and solved before we can even start on the well proven trail.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying global warming doesn't exist. I'm just defending the guy who was making a joke about "the science being settled" (no one should ever really say that).
I don't agree.
You're assuming that the penalty for not cooperating is less than the penalty for the crime.
This is of course why the penalty for not cooperating is, most of the time, being held in jail indefinitely without the chance for bail.
WE is, quite literally, the 99%.
Its one of the things OWS has right. I may disagree with their methods a bit, but 1% of the country is controlling a lot of what happens here.
The Tea Partiers have that same vibe.
Last year a paper was written by an academic that was sympathetic to the Tea Party where he broke down the class situation in the country to the Ruling Class and the Country Class. In his paper he pointed out that the Ruling Class contains both of the major political parties. This concept exactly matches the OWS 1% - 99% argument.
IMHO green issues and environmentalism are being used to keep the liberals in line and keep the Democrat party viable as a part of the ruling class.
On the conservative side, morality and social issues like gay marriage are the handwaving that is keeping the Republican party viable.
The Tea Partiers missed the boat so to speak. They should have been violently opposed to integrating any morality aspects into their midst. It allowed the triangulation of the old guard Republican apparatus to regain control. Just look at the candidates they're putting forth, only one could really be embraced by the Tea Partiers and he's the one constantly labeled as being "unable to win."
With OWS this process is only just beginning, but you can clearly see the moves being made to make OWS a fullyÂfunctioning arm of the Democrats. The green issues, environmentalism, and social justice are being used to pull OWS in as a Democrat organization. Woosh, there goes their ability to claim to represent 99%.
If OWS and the Tea Party could actually merge their core values and effectively fend off attacks by the established parties to marginalize them with, frankly, unimportant side issues. They could be a viable third party that would mop the floor with the other two parties. But as we have seen the establishment fights that HARD.
The key problems in the US right now are Debt, Entitlement Spending, and Defense Spending. The major parties are uniformly committed to basically doing absolutely nothing to really solve those issues. But they're more than willing to fight gay marriage, bailout failing industries, hand out largess to their political allies, continue policing the world, etc.
WE (the voters) need to make some hard and difficult choices to get rid of THEM (the ruling elites).
I have no confidence at all that either grass roots movement (OWS or Tea Party) will be able to really make that happen.
Yep, I've come to realize that I really like all the crossovers out there and that they're all actually just station wagons.
So that means I like Station Wagons, too. The utility is just so great with them.
So sorry I screwed up the quoting.
But I can't help noticing that you're flaming me for my comments about our rampant politization of everything in a discussion about global warming, but then you start talking about a killing spree? WTF?
The point I'm trying to make is that there should be some things where it shouldn't matter what party you are in.
I did say that both sides were hypocrites with respect to Obama's foreign policy.
If Bush did what Obama has done the right would have been just fine with it, but the Democrats would have rioted in the streets. This is for exactly the same actions!!
So YES I am saying that both sides are the same!!
People are just letting the labels behind the names govern their reactions.
Learn something. Yes I agree, people should learn what our representatives are doing and they should be appalled. They should also allow no passes for their rep having the same initial behind their name as you have on your voter registration card.
Your historical "Republicans are all evil" bullshit is just more rationalization that your side is the "good" side.
I love how Liberals all refuse to see the world in anything but shades of grey (which is true), until they talk about those "black" republicans.
Does everyone need to go learn something until they think just like you? I just love how open minded you are.
BTW: I happen to agree with you that OWS and the Tea Party have many things in common. But again the labeling of members of each group as misguided others keeps them separated. And what forces are backing that? The old guard political apparatus is.
WE and OUR could easily cover both the TEA PARTY and OWS, but that is the last thing the parties want to see happen.
Right wing shillery RELIES on two things: the echo chamber and the chilling effect. Ever noticed how a Fox News viewer screams about the "liberal media" nonstop? It's because if they ever listened to both sides, they'd realize their side's argument is more full of holes than a loaf of aged swiss cheese.
And Left wing shillery relies on two things: vilification of your enemies and the chilling effect.
I have almost no hope that our system will survive.
As a point of proof I'd ask you to try this.
List all the foreign policy items that Obama has accomplished in his first term:
Killing Osama, Bombing Libya, Assassinating Terrorists, Withdrawing from Iraq, Expanding the troops in Afghanistan.
Now, just imagine that instead Bush had done those things. If Bush had done them (apart from killing Bin Laden) he would have faced IMHO HUGE protests from the left, Obama saw nothing. In reverse, the republicans ridiculed and questioned Obamas actions, yet would have been 100% behind Bush if he were doing them.
Politics has become a @#$%$#% sporting event with teams people root for. They're using play books with very similar plays and they've agreed to the rules of the game and how the playing field is laid out.
Yet every is cheering for their team with total zeal.
Comments like yours talking about THEY and THEM and how bad THEY are, make me sick.
We're losing OUR country.
We should use this as an opportunity.
Forget going backed to the gold standard for money, we should have all our money backed by pennies, with them being twice the cost of their face value, we'd double the value of everyone's money overnight!!!
Plugging in my car to charge vs. pumping gas isn't really a huge change to my lifestyle.
I'd just need a big change in my income to be able to afford an electric car.
My basic point was about technology changes. I never said I'd be unwilling to utilize newer technology. In fact I inferred that I would.
Did you just propose killing 6 billion people?
Sorry I'm willing to try almost ANY other option.
I didn't say it was going to be easy.
As far as Natural gas goes, it is at least better than oil.
Tar sands are more expensive than regular oil, too.
And you got a good point on coal.
But. There are other sides of this equation at play.
I would love to own an electric car. In fact if I owned an electric car I'd be in really good shape from a Carbon footprint perspective because more than half my electricity is supplied by hydro an wind. But they've got to get a whole lot cheaper.
If the next time I needed a new car I had a choice between a $20,000 gas car or a $20,000 electric car I would buy the electric one. Of course this means that the market for electric vehicles needs to expand, the materials cost for the cars needs to go down. Car companies need to put efforts there to improve the technology. When they do, then you can make the case that we should buy electric cars to "save the planet" and a lot of us will. Marketing is a valid aspect to use to get people to do things differently.
Another technological gauntlet out there is that we should switch from coal to nuclear. This is a harder economic sell, and is also the part where regulation _may_ have some impact (coal is dirty stuff and does require regulations, although I still think cap and trade is dumb). Nuclear is always zero emissions. If you are for government regulations to solve global warming and you don't want the government to fully back building nuclear plants, you are just and anti-global warming cheerleader and aren't willing to look at the hard choices.
Neither of these two technology aspects require much in the way of draconian government regulation, but could have big gains. More work needs to be done here. I'm really just saying that I favor research over regulation. And yes, I even favor gov't sponsored research. Government sponsored research doesn't restrict personal freedom beyond the taxes paid to support it. But if you try pass a law to hook a meter to the back of my house to ration my electricity use, yes I'm very much against that.
You better have some damn FUCKING GOOD PROOF of the bad outcomes to justify taking away ANY of anyones freedoms.
What happens when you get all the freedom constraining policies you want and it either
a. Doesn't fix the problem.
or
b. Has no affect.
The government will just say "oops, sorry" right.
We already have dire predictions from over 20 years ago that HAVE NOT HAPPENED.
All I am saying is that I think technology has the potential to save us from global warming and I think government regulation does not.
In fact I think new technology is the only solution to the global warming problem.
With all due respect, you are a tool.
Ah, but if you follow along with the AGW crowd and implement all the regulations and laws they require to "solve" global warming (which incidentally are exactly what one side of the political spectrum wants, but are anathema to the other side) then you must be a patriot right?
I've come to realize recently that I really agree with most of the arguments of AGW.
But
I think they are wildly optimistic at how effective their regulations will be at changing the situation and are oblivious to the fact that regulations with enough impact to make a change will have severely adverse consequences of the economy and personal freedom.
Recently, it was posited on line that it was more likely that the free market and the decreasing supply of fossil fuels (leading to cost increases) will naturally spur on innovations that achieve the goals many environmentalists have, but that many laws proposed have serious negative and draconian impacts on the economy and the people.
An opportune question is, if you're paying people to not emit CO2, then how do you effectively stop rampant corruption in the market from people who say that they'll generate less CO2, but just want you to pay them money to do nothing? Cap and Trade is a false market that is incapable of avoiding both fraud and regulatory capture.
Someone needs to develop energy solutions that can replace fossil fuels that deliver the same amount of energy for nearly the same cost. That's where the bar is. If you can do that you'll end up rich and will save the planet, if you can't, taxing people for CO2 emissions isn't going to make it happen.
And before anyone brings it up, yes, subsidies for the fossil fuel industry have to go to keep the marketplace fair and encourage development of new technology.
Alternate energy technology is our only hope. I'm sorry, governmental worldwide restrictions and regulations are too dangerous and too prone to misuse.
You know, I might actually pay good money to see skate-boxing....
It would be nice to see an investigative journalism piece where they wear a dosimeter through the scanner and measure the actual dose.
But for some reason, I think anyone trying that would probably get their dosimeter taken by the TSA and likely end up on the watch list.
Patent trolls don't make a first copy. They sketch out a vague diagram and then say that anyone doom what they diagramed needs to pay.
I would love to see software patent suits require a demo of functioning software. But I have a suspicion that that woul make it too easy for juries to say "these aren't the same things."
Heck if I had my way anyone entering a courtroom for a software parent suit without being able to present a working software example of their parent should be shot.
I know you're joking, but your post hits on a point.
The internet was created and thrived as a free and open environment. That the jury could see this lawsuit as a threat to that is commendable.
Now the next thing that needs to be explained is how something set up by congress to "Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," is currently being wielded as a weapon of technological mass destruction.
It is obvious to anyone paying any attention at all that software patents are evil and do not promote progress in any way.