"10% have more than 4 kids" Wow! That statistic totally reenforces the stereotype. I'm a father of 4, and people go bug-eyed when I tell them how many I have. I know of no one with 5. That 10% of welfare mothers have 5 or more is amazing and disturbing.
Highly reliable birth control for men and women, and education as to why one should use it. Duh. Pretty simple in an technologically advanced society. "Not giving it away" smacks of an outdated paradigm that hasn't worked for decades, if not longer.
Actually it works great and has for millennia. The only places it doesn't work is where it isn't done. Controlling people's behavior by "educating them" is an outdated paradigm that has never worked for sustained periods, but always regresses into controlling people by violence. Especially today, information is too easily spread to think you can limit behavior by limiting ideas.
Maybe you can survive, but that's all you're doing. You're not going to have a fun time in 120+ (and I mean without AC, in Vagas everyone has AC)
I don't think there's anywhere on earth other than in deserts (which is what Las Vegas is), where it gets near 120F. The hotest places on earth that have water (please correct me if I'm wrong) (and not including underwater volcanos -- don't be an ass;-)) are jungles or rainforests. And those are loads of fun (if you're into that sort of thing).
Rising ocean levels are the only downside? Desertification,
...alleviated by global warming, which produces more precipiation. (People who have never taken an earth-science course think that deserts are deserts because they are hot. They are deserts because they are dry.)
dying coral reefs,
...can be caused by natural factors or by over-fishing, or pollution.
water shortages,
...are alleviated by global warming, which produces more precipiation and more fresh water.
permanently altered ecosystems,
...are what always have and always will constitute the Earth.
halting of thermohaline circulation,
I saw that movie too. I liked the part where the guy falls through the snow into the skylight of a shopping mall. Good stuff. But how come when they finally get to the New York Library, they see no smoke coming up, although there's a fire in the fireplace??? Answer me that!
ozone depletion..
...is only related to global warming by people who get their science from the local TV news.
70% of all vertebrate species died in under a million years, leaving fungi dominant. Something of a mass extinction event, eh? (In fact, Earth's worst mass extinction event.) Observe the big temperature spike at PETM. (Top right corner)
I was (obviously, I thought) referring to extinction events tied to climate change, not other causes.
It's lovely that you have it all figured out and seem to know every consequence of a warming event.... not. Desertification comes to mind... http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/
World-wide desertification is inversely proportional to world-wide precipitation. It therefore decreases with global warming and increases with global cooling. As for people who rely on melting glaciers for their fresh water supply... You certainly must understand that that is not a sustainable practice, regardless of if the climate warms, cools, or stays the same! Sustainable fresh water supply comes only from precipitation, which requires a warm climate.
Considering how many people actually live close to the water that is really an ass of a comment, especially when you keep repeating it.
When the next ice age comes, there will not be enough fresh water on the planet to keep any significant portion of 6 billion people alive. Even if there were, there would not be enough food.
I live near the water. Given the choice between mobs breaking into my house to kill my for my water reserves and eat my children, and having to move, I'll pick moving.
Europe might be gripped by an ice age (despite the global warming).
And monkeys might fly out of my ass. Either way, it's a better fate than a global ice age.
Warmer temperatures elsewhere can accelerate the release of methane into the atmosphere and that could push global temperatures to increase dramatically. Think Venus.
I'm thinking Venus, and Venus has no methane. (Or plant life to convert its CO2 into oxygen, or a lot of other things.) It defies logic that by releasing the methane that was previously trapped in the arctic, you would expect temperatures to get massively higher than when it was trapped there in the first place.
For a million years, hominids have been moving their dwellings away from the oceanfront as it rises with global warming and towards it as it falls with global cooling. It's not that difficult -- unless of course you live in a mansion. If you're talking about people who live in plywood shacks, nothing could be easier. Either way, it's better than dying of the dehydration or starvation, which comes with global cooling.
All single-monitor setups are for dweebs! I have a single 19" panel at work, and three 20" (1600x1200) Panels at home (soon to be my place of work): "trio20x" I have 5.7 million pixels ever before me, and yes, the productivity boost is worth it. The only disappointment is that my fish screen saver will only work on one monitor at a time.:-(
Yes, but if someone starts looking at actual science like this, they might notice that ALL the actual mass extinction events in earth's history are cooling events, not warming events. The warming (and increased CO2) means more food availability, more fresh water availablility, and more survivable habitats. The only downside is rising ocean levels, and that is only a downside if you either 1) own ocean-front property, or 2) are planning a trip from Russia to the Americas on foot.
But what real use is this warrantless surveillance program to fighting terrorists? If you evidence, get a warrant. If you have a shred of something resembling evidence, go to FISA and you have about a 99.8% chance of getting a warrant.
Oh yeah? I read it was 99.99% in another post. Now I'm all confused.;-) Exactly what kind of evidence do you think is going to get you a FISA warrant??? Evidence that the person on the phone belongs to Al Qaeda? There's no law against belonging to Al Qaeda. Seriously, what sort of evidence are you suggesting that there should be before the court allows a military spy mission to proceed??? And what does that have to do with a warrant???
The Fourth Amendment forbids any unreasonable search and any search not affirmed by a judge.
It does nothing of the sort. It protects the security of people in the persons, their houses, their papers, and their effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and it requires probable cause for a judge to issue a warrant. I don't think it has ever been interpreted by any court in the history of the U.S. to require the affirmation of a judge for any search.
The Bush administration refuses to provide evidence that the wiretaps are reasonable
If a person feels that their possessions have been searched or seized unreasonably, then they have recourse to the courts to bring suit against the Administration for their damages. At that point it becomes incumbent upon the Administration to provide evidence of the reasonability of the searches. It's an absurdity to suggest that they need to broadcast that evidence for every search they conduct, and I can't imagine why anyone would even suggest it, unless they were intentionally hoping to undermine the ability of the country to protect itself.
the fact that they are not affirmed by a judge is the whole point of the program. Therefore, this program is inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment
If the 4th amendment said what you thought it said, you'd have a point. Sort of.
and any program or law contravening the Constitution, it's Amendments, or Treaties is illegal. End of debate, national security be damned.
So we agree. The FISA law is illegal and void insofar as it appropriates to the courts powers given in the Constitution to the President.
This is a nation of law, no matter what might be convenient, useful, or even life-saving. No one with even the foggiest clue what America is about petitions to destroy the 4th Amendment because it would be a great help to other criminal investigations (and hell yes it would be more convenient and efficient to not have to deal with judges and evidence beforehand), yet when "terrorists" come up, certain people who have all rules and regulations disappear. That is wrong, and history provides abundant evidence why.
Well, I hope it will be a nation of law again one day. It hasn't been that for a very long time. The justices this president has appointed are the best shot at moving back in that direction. But the point about terrorists vs. criminals needs more careful scrutiny. We have never applied the 4th amendment in the same way to battlefield searches and seizures, or to spying on our enemies. I'm sure that they thought of that when writing it, which is a big part of why it is stated so vaguely... the test is simply if the search or seizure is "reasonable". Warrants have always been about criminal prosecutions, and they kept that part separate. So the question is, is it reasonable to listen to Osama's phone call to his grandma in Florida. Well, of course it's bloody reasonable.
So why don't they just get a warrant under the FISA provision? It's exactly what FISA is supposed to be for, why don't they just use it? Cause they don't want to?
Because FISA is only for warrants, and warrants are only for formalizing probable cause of a crime. And spying on Al Qaeda has nothing to do with prosecuting crime, it has do to with national security. If Joe Al Qaeda (sorry, Muhammad Al Qaeda) is on the phone, and the CIA doesn't have probable cause of him having committed a crime, that should have nothing to do with whether or not they can try to intercept his communications.
If someone who is not a citizen can expect to be protected by our constitution when not on our soil, can we enforce our constitution on them as well?
Absolutely, we enforce the Constitution against foreigners all the time. E.g., we don't let them become President, and we make them become citizens and live in the country 7 years (or something like that) before becoming Senators. Not sure what else in the Constitution you can enforce on an individual, though.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.
Does it specifically mention any specific "people"? No, because it applies to all people.
You're right. However, note that it specifically applies itself to tangible property that can be messed with or taken. There was no less spying or eavesdropping when the amendment was written, but the amendment is carefully addressing a distinct issue. Now I relize that the supreme court has decided that this amendment means everything up to and including that babies are fair game for dismemberment until their head clears the birth canal... however, the Constitution requires the president to take an oath of loyalty to what the Constitution actually says.
>The U.S. Constitution is actually pretty gray in this area Not really. It says the Executive has to enforce laws passed by Congress, including the 1978 law that regulates eavesdropping on foreign communications.
I agree it's not gray, but it says the opposite of what you say it says. It says the president is in charge of national defense, and the Congress has no right to usurp that power. It further says that any application of an act of Congress (including that 1978 law) to shift Constitutional responsibilities from one branch (e.g. the President) to another (e.g. the Courts) is automatically void, and that the President has an independent responsibility to honor the Constitution, even if the Congress and the Courts disagree.
Within the law, they can (and do) wake a judge up at three in the morning, or even get approval after the fact.
Sure, but so what? Aside from it being unconstitutional to legislate a requirement of approval from a judge before spying on an enemy force, its also absurd to suggest that there should be a requirement for probable cause of a crime before spying on an enemy force, which is the only basis for getting a warrant.
he said "This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communication used by terrorists".
Um... that quote was in reference to the Patriot Act.
And except for, um, the fact that gravity would start slowing you down after you pass the core, to the point that you only reach the other side before falling back? Ignoring parasitic forces (ie, friction), you'd set up one big harmonic oscillator.
Right, the gravity would cancel out, so you'd still need to use your magnetic accellorators or whatnot to build the escape velocity.
Unless....
You built a giant space-plunger, like so:
_ US _ _ _ __ _ Center of Eearth __ _ _ _ __ AU
| \\ Counter-Weight----------|Vehicle
|//
I would hope that they could build huge mirrors that could be placed over greenland and the artic areas so that we could stop the melting of the ice there.
Please don't stop melting the ice. Ice ages really really suck. We should be figuring out how we're going to stop the next one.
Right, so to do the human version of this, all you need is a straight-tube runway that runs straight through the center of the earth. That way you can let the vehicle just free-fall down to australia, getting a good (wild guess) couple hours to accelerate the vehicle up to speed, before shooting it shoots out some big 'ol hole in the outback. (whereupon, the vehicle's flight surfaces could convert some of that verticle energy into horizontal energy.) Would it be hard to build? Well, yeah, but think of all the money you could make selling near-zero-energy, super-fast transportation between the U.S. and Australia to pay for it! Hmmm, I think I may need a VC. Who's the dimwit who funded the segway?
Re:Did the usability guy sleep through this design
on
A GUI For Books
·
· Score: 1
2. Two fundamentally different navigation tools: press on paper and use mouse on screen
Some random tips:
1) Try lifting the page rather than pressing on it. 2) Try placing the mouse flat on the desk rather than on the screen.;-)
At least you don't agree with Bush, who claims the attacks were because they hate our freedom:
Actually, in a sense he's completely right. There are three reasons: 1) By the policies of all administrations, we support friendly countries that ask for help in defending against aggressors. This includes Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the one that really gulled Bin Laden, not because of the horror of dirty Christians existing in the same country as Mecca and Medina, but because the Saudis chose the U.S. instead of Bin Laden's "holy warriors" to defend them against Saddam Hussein. 2) By the policies of the Clinton Administration, namely the surrender of Somalia in response to a successful operation in which we nevertheless suffered some casualties, Al Qaeda became convinced that the American leadership was cowardly and could be made to surrender Saudi Arabia and Israel if made to take enough casualties. (And with practically any administration other than the current one, they would be right.) 3) Islamic Jihadists hold the world-view that all "man-made" government is bad, and that only a government enforcing Sharia law, outlawing non-Islamic public expression, with special extreme taxes non-Muslims, etc. is good, and that they are destined to ultimately, by violent means, replace all governments espousing things like democracy and freedom with one global Caliphate which despises those concepts. So yes, they do attack us because they despise freedom. However, because of who was in office at the time, the 9/11 attacks resulted in the world's only Sharia-based government (the Taliban) getting replaced by a freedom-respecting republic. Personally, I think that's a pretty good lesson for them to learn. (And if a Democrat is elected in 2008 we will probably end up abandoning Afghanistan before they have the strength to defend themselves, and the lesson will be undone.)
Does anyone feel as though your life is being controlled by government officials who do not give a damn about you?
If your life is being controlled by the government, that's your first problem. My advice is to vote Republican and/or quit your government job. If you're feeling like you need some lip-biting buffoon to convince you that the government really, really cares about you, that's your second, frankly bigger, problem.
Slashdot Mirror
"10% have more than 4 kids"
Wow! That statistic totally reenforces the stereotype. I'm a father of 4, and people go bug-eyed when I tell them how many I have. I know of no one with 5. That 10% of welfare mothers have 5 or more is amazing and disturbing.
Actually it works great and has for millennia. The only places it doesn't work is where it isn't done. Controlling people's behavior by "educating them" is an outdated paradigm that has never worked for sustained periods, but always regresses into controlling people by violence. Especially today, information is too easily spread to think you can limit behavior by limiting ideas.
Yeah, and the other half end in death. Pretty grim institution.
I don't think there's anywhere on earth other than in deserts (which is what Las Vegas is), where it gets near 120F. The hotest places on earth that have water (please correct me if I'm wrong) (and not including underwater volcanos -- don't be an ass
Amen, brother.
I saw that movie too. I liked the part where the guy falls through the snow into the skylight of a shopping mall. Good stuff. But how come when they finally get to the New York Library, they see no smoke coming up, although there's a fire in the fireplace??? Answer me that!
I was (obviously, I thought) referring to extinction events tied to climate change, not other causes.
World-wide desertification is inversely proportional to world-wide precipitation. It therefore decreases with global warming and increases with global cooling. As for people who rely on melting glaciers for their fresh water supply... You certainly must understand that that is not a sustainable practice, regardless of if the climate warms, cools, or stays the same! Sustainable fresh water supply comes only from precipitation, which requires a warm climate.
When the next ice age comes, there will not be enough fresh water on the planet to keep any significant portion of 6 billion people alive. Even if there were, there would not be enough food.
I live near the water. Given the choice between mobs breaking into my house to kill my for my water reserves and eat my children, and having to move, I'll pick moving.
And monkeys might fly out of my ass. Either way, it's a better fate than a global ice age.
I'm thinking Venus, and Venus has no methane. (Or plant life to convert its CO2 into oxygen, or a lot of other things.) It defies logic that by releasing the methane that was previously trapped in the arctic, you would expect temperatures to get massively higher than when it was trapped there in the first place.
For a million years, hominids have been moving their dwellings away from the oceanfront as it rises with global warming and towards it as it falls with global cooling. It's not that difficult -- unless of course you live in a mansion. If you're talking about people who live in plywood shacks, nothing could be easier. Either way, it's better than dying of the dehydration or starvation, which comes with global cooling.
All single-monitor setups are for dweebs! I have a single 19" panel at work, and three 20" (1600x1200) Panels at home (soon to be my place of work): "trio20x" I have 5.7 million pixels ever before me, and yes, the productivity boost is worth it. The only disappointment is that my fish screen saver will only work on one monitor at a time. :-(
Other interesting monstrocities from the same company:
"trio-ultraHD"
"powerscape-ultraHD"
"arena24s"
Yes, but if someone starts looking at actual science like this, they might notice that ALL the actual mass extinction events in earth's history are cooling events, not warming events. The warming (and increased CO2) means more food availability, more fresh water availablility, and more survivable habitats. The only downside is rising ocean levels, and that is only a downside if you either 1) own ocean-front property, or 2) are planning a trip from Russia to the Americas on foot.
Oh yeah? I read it was 99.99% in another post. Now I'm all confused.
It does nothing of the sort. It protects the security of people in the persons, their houses, their papers, and their effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and it requires probable cause for a judge to issue a warrant. I don't think it has ever been interpreted by any court in the history of the U.S. to require the affirmation of a judge for any search.
If a person feels that their possessions have been searched or seized unreasonably, then they have recourse to the courts to bring suit against the Administration for their damages. At that point it becomes incumbent upon the Administration to provide evidence of the reasonability of the searches. It's an absurdity to suggest that they need to broadcast that evidence for every search they conduct, and I can't imagine why anyone would even suggest it, unless they were intentionally hoping to undermine the ability of the country to protect itself.
If the 4th amendment said what you thought it said, you'd have a point. Sort of.
So we agree. The FISA law is illegal and void insofar as it appropriates to the courts powers given in the Constitution to the President.
Well, I hope it will be a nation of law again one day. It hasn't been that for a very long time. The justices this president has appointed are the best shot at moving back in that direction. But the point about terrorists vs. criminals needs more careful scrutiny. We have never applied the 4th amendment in the same way to battlefield searches and seizures, or to spying on our enemies. I'm sure that they thought of that when writing it, which is a big part of why it is stated so vaguely... the test is simply if the search or seizure is "reasonable". Warrants have always been about criminal prosecutions, and they kept that part separate. So the question is, is it reasonable to listen to Osama's phone call to his grandma in Florida. Well, of course it's bloody reasonable.
Because FISA is only for warrants, and warrants are only for formalizing probable cause of a crime. And spying on Al Qaeda has nothing to do with prosecuting crime, it has do to with national security. If Joe Al Qaeda (sorry, Muhammad Al Qaeda) is on the phone, and the CIA doesn't have probable cause of him having committed a crime, that should have nothing to do with whether or not they can try to intercept his communications.
Um... I think you're thinking of the 4 branches of the military. There are 3 branches of the government.
Absolutely, we enforce the Constitution against foreigners all the time. E.g., we don't let them become President, and we make them become citizens and live in the country 7 years (or something like that) before becoming Senators. Not sure what else in the Constitution you can enforce on an individual, though.
You're right. However, note that it specifically applies itself to tangible property that can be messed with or taken. There was no less spying or eavesdropping when the amendment was written, but the amendment is carefully addressing a distinct issue. Now I relize that the supreme court has decided that this amendment means everything up to and including that babies are fair game for dismemberment until their head clears the birth canal... however, the Constitution requires the president to take an oath of loyalty to what the Constitution actually says.
I agree it's not gray, but it says the opposite of what you say it says. It says the president is in charge of national defense, and the Congress has no right to usurp that power. It further says that any application of an act of Congress (including that 1978 law) to shift Constitutional responsibilities from one branch (e.g. the President) to another (e.g. the Courts) is automatically void, and that the President has an independent responsibility to honor the Constitution, even if the Congress and the Courts disagree.
Sure, but so what? Aside from it being unconstitutional to legislate a requirement of approval from a judge before spying on an enemy force, its also absurd to suggest that there should be a requirement for probable cause of a crime before spying on an enemy force, which is the only basis for getting a warrant.
Um... that quote was in reference to the Patriot Act.
Right, the gravity would cancel out, so you'd still need to use your magnetic accellorators or whatnot to build the escape velocity.
Unless....
You built a giant space-plunger, like so:
Please don't stop melting the ice. Ice ages really really suck. We should be figuring out how we're going to stop the next one.
Right, so to do the human version of this, all you need is a straight-tube runway that runs straight through the center of the earth. That way you can let the vehicle just free-fall down to australia, getting a good (wild guess) couple hours to accelerate the vehicle up to speed, before shooting it shoots out some big 'ol hole in the outback. (whereupon, the vehicle's flight surfaces could convert some of that verticle energy into horizontal energy.) Would it be hard to build? Well, yeah, but think of all the money you could make selling near-zero-energy, super-fast transportation between the U.S. and Australia to pay for it! Hmmm, I think I may need a VC. Who's the dimwit who funded the segway?
Some random tips:
1) Try lifting the page rather than pressing on it.
2) Try placing the mouse flat on the desk rather than on the screen.
Actually, in a sense he's completely right. There are three reasons:
1) By the policies of all administrations, we support friendly countries that ask for help in defending against aggressors. This includes Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the one that really gulled Bin Laden, not because of the horror of dirty Christians existing in the same country as Mecca and Medina, but because the Saudis chose the U.S. instead of Bin Laden's "holy warriors" to defend them against Saddam Hussein.
2) By the policies of the Clinton Administration, namely the surrender of Somalia in response to a successful operation in which we nevertheless suffered some casualties, Al Qaeda became convinced that the American leadership was cowardly and could be made to surrender Saudi Arabia and Israel if made to take enough casualties. (And with practically any administration other than the current one, they would be right.)
3) Islamic Jihadists hold the world-view that all "man-made" government is bad, and that only a government enforcing Sharia law, outlawing non-Islamic public expression, with special extreme taxes non-Muslims, etc. is good, and that they are destined to ultimately, by violent means, replace all governments espousing things like democracy and freedom with one global Caliphate which despises those concepts. So yes, they do attack us because they despise freedom. However, because of who was in office at the time, the 9/11 attacks resulted in the world's only Sharia-based government (the Taliban) getting replaced by a freedom-respecting republic. Personally, I think that's a pretty good lesson for them to learn. (And if a Democrat is elected in 2008 we will probably end up abandoning Afghanistan before they have the strength to defend themselves, and the lesson will be undone.)
If your life is being controlled by the government, that's your first problem. My advice is to vote Republican and/or quit your government job. If you're feeling like you need some lip-biting buffoon to convince you that the government really, really cares about you, that's your second, frankly bigger, problem.