I didn't mod you down, but I can guess you were modded down for needlessly bringing politics into a tech thread. And not only politics, but ME politics that results in flamewars every time. Mods probably did the right thing by putting out the firestarter before it could catch and ruin a discussion about technology and engineering. We'll talk about Iran, Israel, nukes, and ME politics when the topic is about Iran, Israel, nukes, and ME politics -- its not as if we don't get plenty of that around here.
Thank you for replying.
But honestly, how could a story about Iran reverse engineering American military helicopters possibly not generate politics-related comments?
And no one had to moderate me down twice and hurt my Karma. They could simply have ignored me and moded up something else, so my post would be smothered.
Fortunately, I have plenty of Karma to burn, and the dishonest moderators are just wasting their mod points and taking the risk of being caught by metamoderation.
I think you'd like to see everyone agree with you that Iran would not kill "countless innocent Muslim civilians" and that we should somehow take comfort in the fact that Ahmadinejad "is no Hitler and no Stalin". I'm sure that late neighboring buffoon, Saddam Hussein, was "no Hitler and no Stalin" but he had no compunctions about killing "countless innocent Muslim civilians". In fact, just about every time I look at the news I see muslims killing "countless innocent Muslim civilians", and more often than not, it's thanks to some "buffoon" who's "no Hitler and no Stalin". So pardon me if your assurances about Ahmadinejad do not really convince.
I did want the debate, I'm honestly curious. I have no strong opinion here. How could I? Middle Eastern politics is insanely complex. People provided me with tons of new information, including links, and after reading them I will be much better informed.
Take it to North Korea communist freak. America is built on free markets. If those free markets are a problem for Israel: too fucking bad.
Even if we forget our compassion to the Jews, don't you think that economically smothering Israel's enemies would make the region safer, thus allowing the US Armed Forces to be shrunk, thus decreasing the tax burden? The US spends a ridiculous percentage of its GDP on the military.
Read about Antonio Gramsci's works, and also those of Herbert Marcuse - specially his concept of "repressive tolerance".
Long story short, Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse are the fathers of the New Left, which is the Marxist Left that works within the framework of democracy (instead of attempting to take power through a violent revolution and then institute a one-party dictatorship) and has decreased a little the focus on poverty and vastly increased the focus on feminism, homosexual militancy, racial militancy (such as affirmative action), immigration and so on. The Democratic Party in the USA is strongly influenced by the New Left.
And Herbert Marcuse developed a theory that, if leftists were open to all ideas, they would allow the Right to win. Therefore, leftists should be "radically intolerant to everything from the Right, and radically tolerant to everything from the left" a.k.a. Political Correctness.
This is why you see Anarchists (who support the immediate overthrow of government) marching side by side with Socialists (who support a vast increase of government power and size) marching side by side in Occupy Wall Street protests. They are very different, but they tolerate each other because they are leftists.
This is also why leftists demonize the Tea Party, as if it was a huge threat to democracy and the USA was on the verge of becoming Iran, except with the Bible instead of the Koran. Since the Tea Party is right wing, leftists are radically intolerant towards it.
And the press is significantly influenced by the New Left. It is true that few journalists support Stalin or Fidel Castro (old Left), but a vast majority of journalists support free abortion, same-sex marriage,and so on - the tenets of the New Left.
One of the tenets of the New Left is multiculturalism and cultural relativism - so they refrain from criticising other cultures, but concentrate all their criticism on the Western Civilisation and specially America.
See how the press treats Muslims and Christians.
When some asshole artist creates some extremely offensive blasphemous piece of "art", and angry Christians organise a boycott to the museum, the media says the Christians are intolerant, have no sense of humour, etc.
But when some foolish pastor burns the Koran, and Muslims start _rioting. vandalising and murdering innocent people_, the media says the pastor is intolerant and should not have offended Muslim sensitivities.
Do you see the double standard?
I know this all sounds far-fetched, even crazy, but do read the works of Gramsci and Marcuse - it will radically change your worldview.
The moderators apparently know no honour. The post above is a bit inane, but it is not Flamebait, nor does it deserves to be moderated down twice into -1. Please mod it up to recover the guy's Karma. Shame on you, moderator.
Some moderator keeps moderating down as "Troll" everything I post regarding politics, even though my posts are respectful and reflect my honest political views. This has happened some 5 times.
I hope this idiot is caught by the metamoderators.
I'm sorry for being slightly off topic, but this is important:
Do you know of any studies/argumentations about the likelihood of Iran using atom bombs against Israel? There are 1,573,000 Israeli Arabs and 1,240,000 Israeli Muslims (many, but not all, of the Arabs are Muslims) - not counting the people in the Palestinian territories that are not Israel citizens. Would Iran really kill countless innocent Muslim civilians, including women and children? I mean, Ahmadinejad may be a buffoon, but AFAIK he is no Hitler and no Stalin. I would like to see this debated.
I have seen news that Israel is about to perform a preemptive strike against Iran, and this is horrible. Not only because of the direct loss of life, but because it fosters anti-semitism, anti-Christianism and anti-Americanism among the Muslim population, and countless people are being killed because of this hatred.
Someone moderated the above comment "Troll". This is clearly dishonest. The above comment is respectful, and it is my honest opinion about freedom. I hope the guy is caught by the meta-moderators.
I'm sorry for being slightly off topic, but this is important:
Do you know of any studies/argumentations about the likelihood of Iran using atom bombs against Israel? There are 1,573,000 Israeli Arabs and 1,240,000 Israeli Muslims (many, but not all, of the Arabs are Muslims) - not counting the people in the Palestinian territories that are not Israel citizens. Would Iran really kill countless innocent Muslim civilians, including women and children? I mean, Ahmadinejad may be a buffoon, but AFAIK he is no Hitler and no Stalin. I would like to see this debated.
I have seen news that Israel is about to perform a preemptive strike against Iran, and this is horrible. Not only because of the direct loss of life, but because it fosters anti-semitism, anti-Christianism and anti-Americanism among the Muslim population, and countless people are being killed because of this hatred.
Supposing (which is an absurdity) that every good other than food has greater supply than demand (which will probably never happen, not even in 5000 A.D.), then people don't have to work in producing housing, cars, etc. Only on food. This means that there is a huge supply of workers to produce food. So people can simply produce food, specialising in the product they make best, and trading with each other.
lower average lifespan than a number of the more socialist places.
If you compare the USA with individual, tiny countries. Which is unfair. Countries with similar population should be compared. If you compare, for example, the USA with the entire European Union, then the USA has 78.37 and the EU 78.82, which are pretty much equal.
Please, mod parent underrated. It is actually an informative post. And it is currently at +2 Flamebait. I have never seen a +5 Flamebait. So please do.
Oil comes from very oppressive and aggressive places - Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran. By buying oil we fund a future Jewish genocide. We engage Israel's enemies militarily (thus enlarging the already excessive US military, and feeding anti-Americanism) with our right hand and throw bags of money at them with our left hand. This is *extremely* counter-productive; it would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic. The government should overtax gas-guzzlers (including SUVs!), subsidise economic/flex-fuel cars and lift the barriers on Brazilian ethanol. All the money for solar subsidies should instead go to biofuel.
(posting again because some dishonest moderator modded me down).
Brazilian ethanol is carbon-efficient. And the international tension you mention would not exist if the American federal government wasn't subsidising inefficient corn ethanol and overtaxing efficient sugarcane-ethanol.
As opposed to US politics, there is a consensus in German politics. Namely that politics is for the benefit of the people and society. Business is a part of that society, not the other way around.
No, it is not that. It is just that Americans have a strong commitment to freedom, while certain European countries sacrifice freedom in order to reach a higher (by material standards and measured by HDI) standard of living. That is why homeschooling is generally legal in America, while in Germany there is a Nazi-era law that persecutes homeschoolers as if they were rapists. In Germany, the freedom to teach one's own child is less important than the benefit of having ideological uniformity in the nation, making for a stronger society. Another example is "hate speech" legislation that makes politically incorrect ideas verboten. Yet another example is the excessive tax burden of Scandinavian countries, which amounts to a violation of property rights.
Even if the USA didn't have the world's fourth highest HDI (behind only the Netherlands, Australia and Norway), and the world's most advanced science/technology, it would still be the best place to live due to political decentralisation (state's rights) and a strong liberty-protecting Constitution (specially the First Amendment).
Freedom trumps all. (posting again because some dishonest moderator moded my original post down)
I'd rather say, Americans have got a strong commitment to the appearance of freedom, and thus, to implement most real world policies they have to jump through so many hoops that the resulting freedom is actually less than with a straight forward solution and costs more. And people are actually proud of that. I'd call it the "freedom theatre", akin to "security theatre".
I think you are being excessively cynical/pessimistic. Americans *do* have greater freedom. They have *much* greater freedom of expression than many other countries (for example, "hate speech" legislation is unconstitutional in the USA, as it should be everywhere), have greater freedom of religion (which is good), freedom to homeschool (which is a very important freedom), freedom to bear arms (I have no strong opinion on this one), and their tax burden is quite smaller than in Scandinavian countries. And American politics is much more decentralised (not as much as it should be, but still better than elsewhere). This means that each state's laws reflect the values of the people of that state. It also means that you can easily change states if you don't like the laws of your state. Depending on your beliefs, you can live with rugged tea partiers in Texas, or you can live with more-leftist-than-Herbert-Marcuse-himself Massachusetts/California. This freedom to choose the laws that will govern you is absolutely awesome.
"Ra ra" is not an argument, by the way, because by this logic USSR was certainly the best place to live (hint: it wasn't, even though there were some good things).
I did not get that. Maybe because English is my second language. Could you rephrase it for me please?
"Free Market" capitalism requires massive government regulation.
No it doesn't. Much of the government regulation is a response to problems created by other government regulation. The government often causes more problems than it solves, because it tries to legislate against the laws of economics. For example, a moronic Marxist presidential candidate here in Brazil wanted to multiply the minimum wage by 5. What would happen if the government did that? The vast majority of workers, whose productivity would be below the minimum wage, would become a net loss for their employer and then be fired. The result would be either massive unemployment and economic recession, or massive breakage of the law, or massive inflation, or a combination of the three.
Back to the USA: economists argue that a major cause of unemployment is excessive minimum wage.
My point is: the current size of the government is exaggerated.
Oh, and you mentioned public education. I see the merit in the idea that poor people should have guaranteed education, but the way to do it is not through public schools. It is through education vouchers, which could be spent in any private school (giving the parents freedom to choose the education of their children) or in homeschooling. Those who oppose education vouchers are either leftists (who want everyone to study in public schools in order to learn government-approved ideology), and members of teacher unions, who have an obvious conflict of interest.
Regarding my sig, I have reworded it. The original sig was a response to some cases of moderation abuse that I suffered. I think the new sig captures my idea with greater precision.
As opposed to US politics, there is a consensus in German politics. Namely that politics is for the benefit of the people and society. Business is a part of that society, not the other way around.
No, it is not that. It is just that Americans have a strong commitment to freedom, while certain European countries sacrifice freedom in order to reach a higher (by material standards and measured by HDI) standard of living. That is why homeschooling is generally legal in America, while in Germany there is a Nazi-era law that persecutes homeschoolers as if they were rapists. In Germany, the freedom to teach one's own child is less important than the benefit of having ideological uniformity in the nation, making for a stronger society. Another example is "hate speech" legislation that makes politically incorrect ideas verboten.
Even if the USA didn't have the world's fourth highest HDI (behind only the Netherlands, Australia and Norway), and the world's most advanced science/technology, it would still be the best place to live due to political decentralisation (state's rights) and a strong liberty-protecting Constitution (specially the First Amendment).
Oil comes from very oppressive and aggressive places - Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran. By buying oil we fund a future Jewish genocide. We engage Israel's enemies militarily (thus enlarging the already excessive US military, and feeding anti-Americanism) with our right hand and throw bags of money at them with our left hand. This is *extremely* counter-productive; it would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic. The government should overtax gas-guzzlers (including SUVs!), subsidise economic/flex-fuel cars and lift the barriers on Brazilian ethanol. All the money for solar subsidies should instead go to biofuel.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't mod you down, but I can guess you were modded down for needlessly bringing politics into a tech thread. And not only politics, but ME politics that results in flamewars every time. Mods probably did the right thing by putting out the firestarter before it could catch and ruin a discussion about technology and engineering. We'll talk about Iran, Israel, nukes, and ME politics when the topic is about Iran, Israel, nukes, and ME politics -- its not as if we don't get plenty of that around here.
Thank you for replying.
But honestly, how could a story about Iran reverse engineering American military helicopters possibly not generate
politics-related comments?
And no one had to moderate me down twice and hurt my Karma. They could simply have ignored me and moded up
something else, so my post would be smothered.
Fortunately, I have plenty of Karma to burn, and the dishonest moderators are just wasting their mod points
and taking the risk of being caught by metamoderation.
Regards
No, I don't really believe you would.
I think you'd like to see everyone agree with you that Iran would not kill "countless innocent Muslim civilians" and that we should somehow take comfort in the fact that Ahmadinejad "is no Hitler and no Stalin". I'm sure that late neighboring buffoon, Saddam Hussein, was "no Hitler and no Stalin" but he had no compunctions about killing "countless innocent Muslim civilians". In fact, just about every time I look at the news I see muslims killing "countless innocent Muslim civilians", and more often than not, it's thanks to some "buffoon" who's "no Hitler and no Stalin". So pardon me if your assurances about Ahmadinejad do not really convince.
I did want the debate, I'm honestly curious. I have no strong opinion here. How could I? Middle Eastern politics is insanely complex.
People provided me with tons of new information, including links, and after reading them I will be much better informed.
Regards
There is more freedom in Germany than in the US of A. Like drinking beer in public
I am not actually American. Is drinking beer in public illegal? I have never heard of that.
Having sex at 14
Doesn't compare. The freedom to express one's ideas is far more important than the claimed right of young teens to have sex.
, saying "shit" in public
Perfectly legal in the US.
being naked in public
Again, doesn't compare. The freedom to express one's ideas is far more important than the claimed right of showing off one's genitals.
being free of religion.
By which you mean, having the government restrict religious freedom.
Oh please, it does not even begin to compare.
Take it to North Korea communist freak. America is built on free markets. If those free markets are a problem for Israel: too fucking bad.
Even if we forget our compassion to the Jews, don't you think that economically smothering Israel's enemies would make the region safer,
thus allowing the US Armed Forces to be shrunk, thus decreasing the tax burden?
The US spends a ridiculous percentage of its GDP on the military.
Read about Antonio Gramsci's works, and also those of
Herbert Marcuse - specially his concept of "repressive tolerance".
Long story short, Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse are the fathers of the New Left,
which is the Marxist Left that works within the framework of democracy (instead of
attempting to take power through a violent revolution and then institute
a one-party dictatorship) and has decreased a little the focus on poverty
and vastly increased the focus on feminism, homosexual militancy,
racial militancy (such as affirmative action), immigration and so on. The Democratic
Party in the USA is strongly influenced by the New Left.
And Herbert Marcuse developed a theory that, if leftists were open to all ideas,
they would allow the Right to win. Therefore, leftists should be
"radically intolerant to everything from the Right, and radically tolerant
to everything from the left" a.k.a. Political Correctness.
This is why you see Anarchists (who support the immediate overthrow of
government) marching side by side with Socialists (who support a vast increase
of government power and size) marching side by side in Occupy Wall Street protests.
They are very different, but they tolerate each other because they are leftists.
This is also why leftists demonize the Tea Party, as if it was a huge threat to democracy
and the USA was on the verge of becoming Iran, except with the Bible instead of the Koran.
Since the Tea Party is right wing, leftists are radically intolerant towards it.
And the press is significantly influenced by the New Left. It is true that few journalists support
Stalin or Fidel Castro (old Left), but a vast majority of journalists support free abortion,
same-sex marriage,and so on - the tenets of the New Left.
One of the tenets of the New Left is multiculturalism and cultural relativism - so
they refrain from criticising other cultures, but concentrate all their criticism on the
Western Civilisation and specially America.
See how the press treats Muslims and Christians.
When some asshole artist creates some extremely offensive blasphemous
piece of "art", and angry Christians organise a boycott to the museum, the media
says the Christians are intolerant, have no sense of humour, etc.
But when some foolish pastor burns the Koran, and Muslims start _rioting. vandalising
and murdering innocent people_, the media says the pastor is intolerant and should
not have offended Muslim sensitivities.
Do you see the double standard?
I know this all sounds far-fetched, even crazy, but do read the works of Gramsci and
Marcuse - it will radically change your worldview.
The moderators apparently know no honour.
The post above is a bit inane, but it is not Flamebait,
nor does it deserves to be moderated down twice into
-1.
Please mod it up to recover the guy's Karma.
Shame on you, moderator.
Some moderator keeps moderating down as "Troll" everything I post
regarding politics, even though my posts are respectful and reflect
my honest political views. This has happened some 5 times.
I hope this idiot is caught by the metamoderators.
I'm sorry for being slightly off topic, but this is important:
Do you know of any studies/argumentations about the likelihood of
Iran using atom bombs against Israel? There are 1,573,000 Israeli Arabs and 1,240,000 Israeli Muslims (many, but not all, of the Arabs are Muslims) - not counting the people in the Palestinian territories that are not Israel citizens.
Would Iran really kill countless innocent Muslim civilians, including women and children?
I mean, Ahmadinejad may be a buffoon, but AFAIK he is no Hitler and no Stalin.
I would like to see this debated.
I have seen news that Israel is about to perform a preemptive strike against Iran, and this is horrible. Not only because of the direct loss of life, but because it fosters anti-semitism, anti-Christianism and anti-Americanism among the Muslim population, and countless people are being killed because of this hatred.
(Posting again because some dishonest a**hole moderated me down - see http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2876637&cid=40124517)
Someone moderated the above comment "Troll". This is clearly dishonest.
The above comment is respectful, and it is my honest opinion about
freedom.
I hope the guy is caught by the meta-moderators.
Someone moderated me "Troll". This is dishonest. The above post is intellectually honest, fact-based and respectful.
I'm sorry for being slightly off topic, but this is important:
Do you know of any studies/argumentations about the likelihood of
Iran using atom bombs against Israel? There are 1,573,000 Israeli Arabs and 1,240,000 Israeli Muslims (many, but not all, of the Arabs are Muslims) - not counting the people in the Palestinian territories that are not Israel citizens.
Would Iran really kill countless innocent Muslim civilians, including women and children?
I mean, Ahmadinejad may be a buffoon, but AFAIK he is no Hitler and no Stalin.
I would like to see this debated.
I have seen news that Israel is about to perform a preemptive strike against Iran, and this is horrible. Not only because of the direct loss of life, but because it fosters anti-semitism, anti-Christianism and anti-Americanism among the Muslim population, and countless people are being killed because of this hatred.
Supposing (which is an absurdity) that every good other than food has greater supply than demand (which will probably never happen, not even in 5000 A.D.), then
people don't have to work in producing housing, cars, etc. Only on food. This means that there is a huge supply of workers to produce food. So people can simply produce food, specialising in the product they make best, and trading with each other.
lower average lifespan than a number of the more socialist places.
If you compare the USA with individual, tiny countries. Which is unfair. Countries with similar population should be compared.
If you compare, for example, the USA with the entire European Union, then the USA has 78.37 and the EU 78.82, which
are pretty much equal.
If people were willing to pay more for goods we wouldn't have destroyed our domestic manufacturing industry in the first place.
Americans destroyed their domestic manufacturing industry? That is a gross exaggeration. The USA has 1/5 of the world's
manufacturing output.
Please, mod parent underrated.
It is actually an informative post.
And it is currently at +2 Flamebait.
I have never seen a +5 Flamebait.
So please do.
Reducing *oil* consumption is the key.
Oil comes from very oppressive and aggressive places - Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran. By buying oil we fund a future Jewish genocide. We engage Israel's enemies militarily (thus enlarging the already excessive US military, and feeding anti-Americanism) with our right hand and throw bags of money at them with our left hand. This is *extremely* counter-productive; it would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic. The government should overtax gas-guzzlers (including SUVs!), subsidise economic/flex-fuel cars and lift the barriers on Brazilian ethanol. All the money for solar subsidies should instead go to biofuel.
(posting again because some dishonest moderator modded me down).
Brazilian ethanol is carbon-efficient.
And the international tension you mention would not exist if the American federal government wasn't subsidising inefficient corn ethanol and overtaxing efficient sugarcane-ethanol.
As opposed to US politics, there is a consensus in German politics. Namely that politics is for the benefit of the people and society. Business is a part of that society, not the other way around.
No, it is not that. It is just that Americans have a strong commitment to freedom, while certain European countries
sacrifice freedom in order to reach a higher (by material standards and measured by HDI) standard of living.
That is why homeschooling is generally legal in America, while in Germany there is a Nazi-era law
that persecutes homeschoolers as if they were rapists. In Germany, the freedom to teach one's own
child is less important than the benefit of having ideological uniformity in the nation, making for a stronger
society. Another example is "hate speech" legislation that makes politically incorrect ideas verboten.
Yet another example is the excessive tax burden of Scandinavian countries, which amounts to
a violation of property rights.
Even if the USA didn't have the world's fourth highest HDI (behind only the Netherlands, Australia and Norway),
and the world's most advanced science/technology, it would still be the best place to live due to political decentralisation
(state's rights) and a strong liberty-protecting Constitution (specially the First Amendment).
Freedom trumps all.
(posting again because some dishonest moderator moded my original post down)
I'd rather say, Americans have got a strong commitment to the appearance of freedom, and thus, to implement most real world policies they have to jump through so many hoops that the resulting freedom is actually less than with a straight forward solution and costs more. And people are actually proud of that. I'd call it the "freedom theatre", akin to "security theatre".
I think you are being excessively cynical/pessimistic. Americans *do* have greater freedom. They have *much* greater freedom of expression than many other countries (for example, "hate speech" legislation is unconstitutional in the USA, as it should be everywhere), have greater freedom of religion (which is good), freedom to homeschool (which is a very important freedom), freedom to bear arms (I have no strong opinion on this one), and their tax burden is quite smaller than in Scandinavian countries. And American politics is much more decentralised (not as much as it should be, but still better than elsewhere). This means that each state's laws reflect the values of the people of that state. It also means that you can easily change states if you don't like the laws of your state. Depending on your beliefs, you can live with rugged tea partiers in Texas, or you can live with more-leftist-than-Herbert-Marcuse-himself Massachusetts/California. This freedom to choose the laws that will govern you is absolutely awesome.
"Ra ra" is not an argument, by the way, because by this logic USSR was certainly the best place to live (hint: it wasn't, even though there were some good things).
I did not get that. Maybe because English is my second language. Could you rephrase it for me please?
Regards,
"Free Market" capitalism requires massive government regulation.
No it doesn't. Much of the government regulation is a response to problems created by
other government regulation.
The government often causes more problems than it solves, because it tries to legislate against
the laws of economics.
For example, a moronic Marxist presidential candidate here in Brazil wanted to multiply the minimum wage by 5.
What would happen if the government did that? The vast majority of workers, whose productivity
would be below the minimum wage, would become a net loss for their employer and then be fired.
The result would be either massive unemployment and economic recession, or massive breakage
of the law, or massive inflation, or a combination of the three.
Back to the USA: economists argue that a major cause of unemployment is excessive minimum
wage.
My point is: the current size of the government is exaggerated.
Oh, and you mentioned public education. I see the merit in the idea that poor people should
have guaranteed education, but the way to do it is not through public schools. It is through
education vouchers, which could be spent in any private school (giving the parents freedom
to choose the education of their children) or in homeschooling. Those who oppose education
vouchers are either leftists (who want everyone to study in public schools in order to learn
government-approved ideology), and members of teacher unions, who have an obvious conflict
of interest.
Regarding my sig, I have reworded it.
The original sig was a response to some cases of moderation abuse that I suffered.
I think the new sig captures my idea with greater precision.
As opposed to US politics, there is a consensus in German politics. Namely that politics is for the benefit of the people and society. Business is a part of that society, not the other way around.
No, it is not that. It is just that Americans have a strong commitment to freedom, while certain European countries
sacrifice freedom in order to reach a higher (by material standards and measured by HDI) standard of living.
That is why homeschooling is generally legal in America, while in Germany there is a Nazi-era law
that persecutes homeschoolers as if they were rapists. In Germany, the freedom to teach one's own
child is less important than the benefit of having ideological uniformity in the nation, making for a stronger
society. Another example is "hate speech" legislation that makes politically incorrect ideas verboten.
Even if the USA didn't have the world's fourth highest HDI (behind only the Netherlands, Australia and Norway),
and the world's most advanced science/technology, it would still be the best place to live due to political decentralisation
(state's rights) and a strong liberty-protecting Constitution (specially the First Amendment).
Freedom trumps all.
Subsidising biofuels reduces carbon emissions, and add international peace
on top of that.
Reducing *oil* consumption is the key.
Oil comes from very oppressive and aggressive places - Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran. By buying oil we fund a future Jewish genocide. We engage Israel's enemies militarily (thus enlarging the already excessive US military, and feeding anti-Americanism) with our right hand and throw bags of money at them with our left hand. This is *extremely* counter-productive; it would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic. The government should overtax gas-guzzlers (including SUVs!), subsidise economic/flex-fuel cars and lift the barriers on Brazilian ethanol. All the money for solar subsidies should instead go to biofuel.
Surely I am not the only person who noticed the journalist
measured energy in kw/h.