And here is the rub. We use these lights because of Global Warming. Whether or not GW is natural or man made is still debated (regardless of what Al Gore tells you) and largely unknown.
The threat from mercury is 100% real. Don't believe me? Ask you baby's doctor how much tuna your baby can have.
So, can someone tell me why we use these bulbs, which cause a REAL problem to combat something that is still unknown?
But still are human muscles that efficient? I don't know what the exact numbers are, but when this thing can work all day on a bowl of rice, we'll call it more efficient.
They aren't? How many man-seconds alone with the ballots does it take to change the result of a paper election by editing the ballots? You mean to print ballots that are pre-filled out? I could print about one a second. Not that this matters as I could do it at my leisure.
How many cubic meters of stuff do you need to carry to swap in forged ballots? If I pre-stuff the box with my pre-printed ballots before the polls even open... Zero. If you swap the ballot box out after the polling and dispose of the original, then you need a replica of the box.
Now how about electronically stored ballots? Well, since you need physical access to the machines since they are not on the network, this could take a while. Once you get access, how long to upload whatever changes you want to make could take a while. Of course, you also have to make sure to clear all logs of your access and try to make sure that any changes you made are not detected by something as simple as MD5SUM on pre-polling files.
Sorry to say it but any retard can stuff a paper ballot box. It takes an experienced hacker to hack an electronic election.
Personally, I feel that an electronic voting machine should print out a serial numbered, easy to read paper ballot that you have to drop into the box before you leave. Now you have the best of both worlds. If the electronic numbers do not match what is in the paper ballot box, investigate. Each serial numbered ballot should have a corresponding electric vote. Now to steal this kind of election, you'd need to stuff the ballot box with votes that are actually in the machines memory. Not impossible to hack, but much more difficult that hacking either a paper or electronic system alone.
This "BAT" research is a good thing. So is the cure for cancer. And given the choice, I know where I'd want my taxes to be spent. So are you saying that all renewable energy research dollars should go to cancer research? So we should forget about the global warming thing that will flood our coastlines and cause an ice age or heat age or whatever and concentrate on cancer?
Sorry, but in the real world, the military has no interest in curing cancer. While a grand goal, it is worthless from a military perspective. I think you should give credit where credit is due. The military could have just as easily spent this money on a couple of tanks or half a Raptor. So, rather than bitching about the money not being spent on cancer, you should give credit to the military for supporting MIT and researching technology with dual roles. You want cancer research? You are free to donate to the American Cancer Society. Bonus because it's tax deductible and you can rest easy knowing that your money went to cancer research and not efficient vehicle research. Also, it makes you part of the solution instead of someone bitching about the problem.
**NOTE: I personally believe cancer research is better than GW research. I've seen people die from cancer, never from GW.
not just those that happen to agree with your (presumably) pro-military opinions. In an attempt to get this back on topic...
This "BAT" research is a good thing. Sure, it's intended for the military, but the technology that is being gained from this will find its way into the civilian sector soon enough, and it's all paid for from our military budget. Maybe this will help those that feel guilty that their tax dollars are being spent to kill people and break things. In this case, they are looking to make a zero emissions vehicle that otherwise, might not be being worked on.
'Time claims that "nobody cares" about the Government's increased spying powers and that "polling consistently supports that conclusion." They don't cite a single poll because that assertion is blatantly false. Just this weekend, a new poll released by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University proves that exactly the opposite is true. That poll shows that the percentage of Americans who believe the Federal Government is "very secretive" has doubled in the last two years alone (to 44%)'" I have no idea what the truth is on this matter, but the fact that "nobody cares" is not refuted by "the percentage of Americans who believe the Federal Government is 'very secretive' has doubled... to 44%." Simply put, it's entirely possible more people believe the government is more secretive--but they simply don't care.
It's not in any way shocking to learn that people are apathetic. If you ask them whether they want a secretive government, most people will say no. But if you use an objective metric it's very easy to conclude that those same people really don't care that strongly one way or the other. I'm glad I'm not the only one to pick that up. Would that qualify as a strawman argument?
rape the ground of it's resources without putting anything back You mean like locusts? Hell, for that matter, just about any creature eats what is available and moves on. That's what nature does! Man is the first species to set aside a plot of land for the purpose of growing food. If that land is "raped" to the point of no longer being viable, that farmer goes out of business. So, farmers take care of their land and invest in the soil so that he can make a living next year.
BTW, that is a new thing that man has come up with. Native Americans were nomads for a reason. They would settle an area until they used up its recourses and moved on to the next area. Only recently (last 600 years or so) have we learned how to replenish a land so we can keep living off it.
You don't give man enough credit and nature way too much!
are moaning about wheat production and asia sucking up production capacity at the moment as well. How ironic would it be after all the billions spent on security if we suffer catastrophic population denudation due to the simple fact we can't feed ourselves. Go mother nature, lets have some balance restored. Really? You are hoping for famine that could cause billions of innocent people to starve just to teach us a lesson? Seriously?
i'm so sick of being told of what i need to be afraid of. no wonder the world is full of pill popping zombies, i just wish these people would fuck off with their end of the world nonesense. Well, you are doomed either way. 1) Either this fungus will destroy all wheat because the anti-GM-Foods hippies will demand that it's better to let people starve than to let them eat GM-foods. 2) We tell those hippies to wank it and use the GM wheat that is immune to this fungus only to have it kill everyone right as we realize that cyanide is what was making it immune.
You can't win. It really doesn't matter as the shrinking Ozone layer... I mean Global Warming will kill us all anyway.
No, I seem to think that GWB, rarely if ever used anything other than WMDs as a pretense to invade iraq. But, as I've already said, and provided links for, WMD's were found in Iraq. That kinds of makes the rest of your arguments null and void, doesn't it. So it was not GWB who lied about WMD's, but all the people who keeps saying that none were ever found.
Also, when you use numbers, you really need to provide a link.
So, are you willing to tell a 70 year old woman that there's no way the US Government can afford to pay--or even subsidize--the medication she needs to stay alive because we spent all the money that we were going to use for this to save Iraqi women and children from the gas chamber? That, as she ends up eating dog food because that's all she can afford after buying the medication she needs to stay alive, she should be proud of what her country has accomplished in Iraq? YES! I will gladly ask a 70 year old woman if she wouldn't mind eating dog food so that women and children in a foreign country won't be lead to the gas chamber. Hell, I'd have a heapin' helpin' of Alpo right along with her!
You asked a loaded question, I asked a loaded question. You answered with the same response your loaded question deserves. My question came from a political cartoon I read. You seem to think that the only reason we needed to go into Iraq was WMD's. No matter what we found there, you will not be happy until we find WMD's. It's as if you are saying that if WMD's were found in Iraq, suddenly you'd support the war there and sing the praises of GWB. We know that's not true as WMD's have been found in Iraq, just not in the numbers that we thought we'd find. HERE is the actual NGIC report (PDF warning) stating that over 500 weapons have been found. That's not really the point. I assume you have hated GWB since the election in 2000 that you think he stole from the honorable Al Gore. No matter what Bush does, you are going to oppose him. You sit here and say that GWB lied and should be impeached and arrested for treason or whatever because there were no WMD's found in Iraq.
Personally, I don't care about WMD's. I care about the people that were filling up those mass graves. Which brings me back to that political cartoon. Soldiers are digging up the skeletal remains of women and children in a mass grave. Toys and bones litter the ground. Standing next to where this work is going on is a guy in a shirt with a peace symbol on it saying, "Where are the WMD's?" That was my point. YOU are that guy. No matter what atrocities are found in Iraq, no matter how terrible the horrors we rescued those people from, you will be the guy standing there screaming "Where are the WMD's!??!"
I asked you if you cared about the people of Iraq. You asked me when I stopped beating my wife. My question was valid. Your's was bullshit.
So, I ask again. Do you or do you not care about the people in Iraq? With all that was found over there, you still do not support the war. Is there anything, ANYTHING at all that could be found over there that would make you say, "maybe going into Iraq wasn't such a bad thing after all"? It's evidently not mass graves. It's not rape rooms or torture chambers. It's not actual weapons of mass destruction. So what could possibly change your mind? Anything?
So, these are valid questions, you should honestly answer them or prove to people like me that your opposition to the war is based on petty politics, not facts and not humanity.
This was a violation of the law and the Constitution by the Executive branch and therefore the President is directly responsible for the violation even if he didn't give a direct order to do so. Very well said! Exactly! Go after whoever is responsible. Which in this case is NOT the telecoms, but the President.
Except the Bush Administration lied 935 times to the People of the USA and got us to support a war on false pretenses? Lying is not an impeachable offense now? Ha! Tell that to the Republican Congress that impeached Bill Clinton. Lying under oath, which is what Clinton did, is 100% impeachable. Lying in general, not so much. Otherwise Clinton could have easily been impeached for his "I did not have sexual relations..." speech. Back to the current admin, I don't buy that any lying took place at all. Overestimation of our intelligence ability maybe, probably some cherry picking and exaggeration, but not lying. If they were truly lying, then they would have simply planted a bunch (more... some were actually found) of WMD's and said, "look what we just found". That didn't happen.
So if what you (and you link) are saying were correct, then WMD's would have been found all over Iraq, with "Made in USA" scratched out and "Made in France" penciled in.
Also, I'm curious. Do you really not care about all the mass graves and rape rooms found all over Iraq? Why does a true tyrant who really did fill mass graves and gas women and children not bother nearly half as much you as much as Bush?
If someone is suing the shit out of the telecoms, and the telecoms lose, doesn't that mean that the telecoms shouldn't have done what they did?
Rule of law ALWAYS applies to everyone. People need to learn that even the president cannot make them perform illegal acts. First, if they are sued, it will more than likely be in a civil court. IANAL, but it seems to me that there is a difference between being prosecuted and being sued. If you break the law, you are prosecuted (not going to happen here). If you cause someone harm, you are sued. The immunity was being sued.
People will sue the telecoms saying that their privacy had been violated and then it will be up to them to prove it. Of course, they can't unless they can prove that the government listened to their conversation. They can't do that without the government releasing all the conversations that were listened to. And here is the crux of the problem. That will be a HUGE breach of national security if the Gov't has to release all the conversations that were listened in on to the public.
The other problem is what if "The People" win against the telecoms and receive a judgment of let's say 100 Billion dollars. This will do one of two things. One would be that the "telecoms" go out of business and their assets are liquidated to pay the judgment. Now who do I call because my phone/Internet/cell is not working... better yet, HOW do I contact them without a Cell/Phone/Internet connection? The other thing that can happen is the telecoms pay the fines by raising rates on their customers, which is EVERYONE.
In other words, I don't see how you can win by going after the telecoms. Even if you do win, WE ALL end up paying for it. If you don't win, WE ALL still end up paying for it. It's a no-win situation. If you have a problem, go after the President.
At that time, it wasn't unreasonable to believe the Bush Administration. Of course, now that we know they were wrong, they should be tried and convicted of treason. Sorry, but being wrong is not an impeachable offense, much less treason.
This type of government-funded, classified-budget project, plus all the other recent revelations about warrant-less wiretapping (demanded by the Bush administration officials on account of their terrorist-finding programs) amounts to a huge case against the Bush administration itself. If the administration had not demanded the info, which is illegal itself thanks to the Constitution, the ISPs would not have had to give up info... not that they had to, and doing so was also illegal IMHO. Anyways you can't possibly say it was only the ISP's fault without acknowledging the government was giving them hell in the meantime. Right, then go after the President, not the ISPs or the telecoms. If the telecoms were "given hell" from the administration if they didn't cooperate, then they should gladly testify against the administration.
By not giving immunity to the telecoms, you are going to have a bunch of people suing the shit out of them (which we all end up paying for) because they are mad at the president. If you mad at the Prez, go after the Prez!
Then go after the President There aren't enough votes to make that happen (especially since he'll be out of office 10 months from now anyway). So you go after the telecoms? It's not their fault that Congress can not muster balls to get the votes to go after the Prez.
Becasue the telcom immunity would have protected the office of then president as well. How is that?
Plus, it's politics. DING DING DING... we have a winner!
It is very clear that todays republican party is about being in control of your life. I disagree. It seems to me that the Republicans want to know what you doing. The Democrats want to tell you what to do. It's not Republicans telling what kind of car I should drive, what kind of food I can eat and if, when, and where I want to have a cigarette. It's not Republicans telling me what kind of health care I should have and it's not Republicans trying to take away my money to give it to someone else. It's not Republicans who are trying to use taxes to affect my behavior (carbon and gas taxes) and it's not Republicans who want to put a remote control on my thermostat so they can turn my AC down if THEY think I'm using too much electricity.
Being in the miority during those years might ahve ahd something to do with it, as well as trusting what our intelligence community had said about WMDs.
At that time, it wasn't unreasonable to believe our intelligence data. Of course, now that we know they were wrong, they should given the resources to do a better job next time, preferably a better budget more power to operate without the ACLU breathing down their necks demanding to know every single operation that is ongoing. There, made it true for ya and removed the political rhetoric.
That someone with a D after their name grows a package and stands up for something. If only it had happened several years prior as well... Sounds to me like they just gave a bunch of pretty speeches.
I haven't read the bill that was passed, but it seems like it's a bunch of the same, minus the telecom immunity. Maybe I'm reading this wrong.. well, take a look. From HERE
The surveillance law is intended to help the government pursue suspected terrorists by making it easier to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails between foreigners abroad and Americans in the U.S, and remove barriers to collecting purely foreign communications that pass through the United States- for instance, foreign e-mails stored on a server.
One Democrat after the next -- of all stripes -- delivered impassioned, defiant speeches in defense of the rule of law, oversight on presidential eavesdropping, and safeguards on government spying. All that's well and good, but what does it have to do with telecom immunity? I'm not defending it either way, but when you are debating to decide whether or not to give immunity to telecoms, why bring up congressional oversite of the President? Shouldn't they be debating "oversite of the telecomes"? If your problem is with the Prez, wait until you are debating a bill that limits immunity of the President, not the telecoms. Sorry, but bringing your desire to reign in the Prez during a telecoms debate is just as bad as the GOP bringing up national security during a debate on ethanol. It's a weak link.
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And here is the rub. We use these lights because of Global Warming. Whether or not GW is natural or man made is still debated (regardless of what Al Gore tells you) and largely unknown.
The threat from mercury is 100% real. Don't believe me? Ask you baby's doctor how much tuna your baby can have.
So, can someone tell me why we use these bulbs, which cause a REAL problem to combat something that is still unknown?
Sorry to say it but any retard can stuff a paper ballot box. It takes an experienced hacker to hack an electronic election.
Personally, I feel that an electronic voting machine should print out a serial numbered, easy to read paper ballot that you have to drop into the box before you leave. Now you have the best of both worlds. If the electronic numbers do not match what is in the paper ballot box, investigate. Each serial numbered ballot should have a corresponding electric vote. Now to steal this kind of election, you'd need to stuff the ballot box with votes that are actually in the machines memory. Not impossible to hack, but much more difficult that hacking either a paper or electronic system alone.
Sorry, but in the real world, the military has no interest in curing cancer. While a grand goal, it is worthless from a military perspective. I think you should give credit where credit is due. The military could have just as easily spent this money on a couple of tanks or half a Raptor. So, rather than bitching about the money not being spent on cancer, you should give credit to the military for supporting MIT and researching technology with dual roles. You want cancer research? You are free to donate to the American Cancer Society. Bonus because it's tax deductible and you can rest easy knowing that your money went to cancer research and not efficient vehicle research. Also, it makes you part of the solution instead of someone bitching about the problem.
**NOTE: I personally believe cancer research is better than GW research. I've seen people die from cancer, never from GW.
This "BAT" research is a good thing. Sure, it's intended for the military, but the technology that is being gained from this will find its way into the civilian sector soon enough, and it's all paid for from our military budget. Maybe this will help those that feel guilty that their tax dollars are being spent to kill people and break things. In this case, they are looking to make a zero emissions vehicle that otherwise, might not be being worked on.
It's not in any way shocking to learn that people are apathetic. If you ask them whether they want a secretive government, most people will say no. But if you use an objective metric it's very easy to conclude that those same people really don't care that strongly one way or the other. I'm glad I'm not the only one to pick that up. Would that qualify as a strawman argument?
BTW, that is a new thing that man has come up with. Native Americans were nomads for a reason. They would settle an area until they used up its recourses and moved on to the next area. Only recently (last 600 years or so) have we learned how to replenish a land so we can keep living off it.
You don't give man enough credit and nature way too much!
1) Either this fungus will destroy all wheat because the anti-GM-Foods hippies will demand that it's better to let people starve than to let them eat GM-foods.
2) We tell those hippies to wank it and use the GM wheat that is immune to this fungus only to have it kill everyone right as we realize that cyanide is what was making it immune.
You can't win. It really doesn't matter as the shrinking Ozone layer... I mean Global Warming will kill us all anyway.
Also, when you use numbers, you really need to provide a link.
You asked a loaded question, I asked a loaded question.
You answered with the same response your loaded question deserves. My question came from a political cartoon I read. You seem to think that the only reason we needed to go into Iraq was WMD's. No matter what we found there, you will not be happy until we find WMD's. It's as if you are saying that if WMD's were found in Iraq, suddenly you'd support the war there and sing the praises of GWB. We know that's not true as WMD's have been found in Iraq, just not in the numbers that we thought we'd find. HERE is the actual NGIC report (PDF warning) stating that over 500 weapons have been found. That's not really the point. I assume you have hated GWB since the election in 2000 that you think he stole from the honorable Al Gore. No matter what Bush does, you are going to oppose him. You sit here and say that GWB lied and should be impeached and arrested for treason or whatever because there were no WMD's found in Iraq.
Personally, I don't care about WMD's. I care about the people that were filling up those mass graves. Which brings me back to that political cartoon. Soldiers are digging up the skeletal remains of women and children in a mass grave. Toys and bones litter the ground. Standing next to where this work is going on is a guy in a shirt with a peace symbol on it saying, "Where are the WMD's?" That was my point. YOU are that guy. No matter what atrocities are found in Iraq, no matter how terrible the horrors we rescued those people from, you will be the guy standing there screaming "Where are the WMD's!??!"
I asked you if you cared about the people of Iraq. You asked me when I stopped beating my wife. My question was valid. Your's was bullshit.
So, I ask again. Do you or do you not care about the people in Iraq? With all that was found over there, you still do not support the war. Is there anything, ANYTHING at all that could be found over there that would make you say, "maybe going into Iraq wasn't such a bad thing after all"? It's evidently not mass graves. It's not rape rooms or torture chambers. It's not actual weapons of mass destruction. So what could possibly change your mind? Anything?
So, these are valid questions, you should honestly answer them or prove to people like me that your opposition to the war is based on petty politics, not facts and not humanity.
So if what you (and you link) are saying were correct, then WMD's would have been found all over Iraq, with "Made in USA" scratched out and "Made in France" penciled in.
Also, I'm curious. Do you really not care about all the mass graves and rape rooms found all over Iraq? Why does a true tyrant who really did fill mass graves and gas women and children not bother nearly half as much you as much as Bush?
Forgive the OT, but I am responding to a post...
Rule of law ALWAYS applies to everyone. People need to learn that even the president cannot make them perform illegal acts. First, if they are sued, it will more than likely be in a civil court. IANAL, but it seems to me that there is a difference between being prosecuted and being sued. If you break the law, you are prosecuted (not going to happen here). If you cause someone harm, you are sued. The immunity was being sued.
People will sue the telecoms saying that their privacy had been violated and then it will be up to them to prove it. Of course, they can't unless they can prove that the government listened to their conversation. They can't do that without the government releasing all the conversations that were listened to. And here is the crux of the problem. That will be a HUGE breach of national security if the Gov't has to release all the conversations that were listened in on to the public.
The other problem is what if "The People" win against the telecoms and receive a judgment of let's say 100 Billion dollars. This will do one of two things. One would be that the "telecoms" go out of business and their assets are liquidated to pay the judgment. Now who do I call because my phone/Internet/cell is not working... better yet, HOW do I contact them without a Cell/Phone/Internet connection? The other thing that can happen is the telecoms pay the fines by raising rates on their customers, which is EVERYONE.
In other words, I don't see how you can win by going after the telecoms. Even if you do win, WE ALL end up paying for it. If you don't win, WE ALL still end up paying for it. It's a no-win situation. If you have a problem, go after the President.
By not giving immunity to the telecoms, you are going to have a bunch of people suing the shit out of them (which we all end up paying for) because they are mad at the president. If you mad at the Prez, go after the Prez!
At that time, it wasn't unreasonable to believe our intelligence data. Of course, now that we know they were wrong, they should given the resources to do a better job next time, preferably a better budget more power to operate without the ACLU breathing down their necks demanding to know every single operation that is ongoing. There, made it true for ya and removed the political rhetoric.
I haven't read the bill that was passed, but it seems like it's a bunch of the same, minus the telecom immunity. Maybe I'm reading this wrong.. well, take a look. From HERE The surveillance law is intended to help the government pursue suspected terrorists by making it easier to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails between foreigners abroad and Americans in the U.S, and remove barriers to collecting purely foreign communications that pass through the United States- for instance, foreign e-mails stored on a server.
(of course, such a cake should be round, unless you are just really REALLY into irony)