This is not even hidden yet the majority blindly accept that the poor and middle class are routinely abused while the wealthy are left alone shoes on, never touched, carry on assault rifles, all the fluids they want on private or charter flights.
Not only are these wealthy people allowed to carry these assault rifles on aircraft but they are allowed to carry them loaded. Not only are these rifles loaded they are fired while on board. One famous example is Ted Nugent going on feral hog hunts from a helicopter. His preferred weapon is a mil-spec M4, as in truly military specification all the way down to the three shot burst capability.
I will also point out that there is a distinction between an assault rifle and an assault weapon. An assault rifle is usually defined as a rifle chambered in an intermediate cartridge (bigger than a common handgun, smaller than a common rifle), with a detachable magazine, and can selectively fire either semi-automatically or in a three shot burst. An assault weapon is defined as whatever the person using the term views as "dangerous" and therefore should be banned from use or possession by people other than themselves.
I wish I had mod points right now. You make a good point but I'm not sure if you took it far enough. People were always concerned about the environment and that is a good thing. At some level we all need to have some concern that our air, food, and water is clean. We should make sure that we don't deplete the natural resources available to us. It's just good stewardship of our planet to make sure the human species survives.
While you make a good point I think you need to take it a step further and realize why the public is not as concerned about species extinction and air pollution like it was. I believe its because we now have regulations prohibiting the hunting of threatened and endangered species. We now have air pollution regulations. We didn't have those fifty years ago. With those issues largely addressed there really isn't much to get upset about any more. Sure, we need to make sure this regulations aren't doing enough, or have gone too far, but that is a matter of minor tweaks to existing law. We have those mechanisms in the law so we make the tweaks as needed.
Looking at the concerns over the environment there is not really much left to get upset about any more. All that is left right now for these people to rally behind is global warming. Those people that still worry about polar bears going extinct, or the air getting too polluted to breathe, wrap it up in a global warming message so they can get noticed. They hop on the bandwagon so they too can get their pet bill passed into law.
I recall that the air is the cleanest it's been in a very long time. We have more forest now than we've had in a very long time. Species that were once threatened, or even thought extinct, are now thriving. We can certainly strive to do better but we've gone so far in the last fifteen years that there is just not much to get upset about any more. Global warming and carbon output is all that is really left and, personally, I believe this concern is way out of proportion of the problem.
They're cows. Can cattle consent? They don't have the mental capacity of even a cat or a dog. They can be trained but they aren't that intelligent. They feel fear, pain, hunger, and more. They are smart enough to figure out certain things, like how to open an improperly secured gate to get into the feed pen. But once inside they don't know enough to not eat themselves to death. That steer that bruised up my mom's arm figured out they he could escape through the sorting gate by hitting it just so with his head. We'd let it go several times until it was the last one to get on the truck. At that point we tied down the gate so it could not do that any more. It pushed and pushed and pushed. When it got tired and frustrated it backed up, and for lack of a better word, yelled at the gate. It was quite the sight. Yes, it became resigned to its circumstances and walked up the ramp and onto the truck.
If we are talking about consent let's consider my own circumstances. I did not consent to having neighbors that can't keep their dogs from barking at me. I did not consent to living in this dumpy old house. I did not consent to raccoons turning my crawlspace into their nest. I didn't consent to rain this weekend and sunshine while I'm stuck in front of this computer. This is what I got. It's what I have to do to live. This might suck but it's better than no house, it's the best I can afford. Rain is better than snow. You could say that I've become resigned to my circumstances.
Left to their own devices the cattle would be left to the elements. Every winter probably half of them would either freeze or starve to death. Spring would come and they'd calve with probably half of the calves dying from disease, dehydration (from death of the dam or drought), or eaten by canines. (Wolves, coyotes, and feral dogs are common around here. Got so many coyotes that the hunting season on them is open all year.) The cows would produce milk only so long as the calf desired it. I don't know how long that would be in the wild, could be anywhere from 3 to 6 months.
I didn't really know how long we'd milk the cows before they'd be allowed to go dry, my dad kept track of that. Once allowed to go dry the cow would be bred again for a calf and more milk. This cycle would repeat so long as the cow produced enough milk to be worth its salt. Once too old to produce it'd be retired to the butcher. We'd have rare cases of cattle not going to butcher. The rule is that cattle cannot be used for human food if it could not walk under its own power before slaughter. I recall seeing a cow die from cancer. We had quite a few get put down for injuries. This was usually from slipping on ice in winter. For sanitary reasons the barn was surrounded by a concrete pad that sloped away. This kept the manure from collecting around the milking area. It also meant that the cattle had to walk up hill on slippery concrete after an ice storm came through. Ice could get so thick that even the tractors couldn't break it up. We'd have the tractors slide down the hill. It wasn't a steep slope, not like a roof top, more like a driveway to a garage. We'd take sledgehammers and axes to rough up the ice so the cattle could get enough traction to walk into the barn. That was hard work, done in an ice storm, so the cows could get to a warm barn to be fed and milked.
We generally treated the cattle well. We also realized that the cattle were there to make money. As my dad put it to an animal rights person asking for donations, "If I can't ride it, eat it, or wear it then it don't do me any good." The cattle were healthy, fed, warm, and had no predators other than ourselves. They lived long lives, much longer than the wild. Instead of death by starvation, disease, or being eaten alive by animals they'd usually see a quick death by a rifle bullet to the forehead. In rare cases, like that cancerous cow we had, they will likely die lying in their own feces laboring for breath. It died before we could get to the rifle so it didn't have to suffer like that. Not a pretty picture and I know that. That's life, even cows get cancer. This would have been no different than a cow in the wild, except that in the wild a cow rarely lives long enough to die from cancer. They'd usually be eaten, starved, or frozen before then.
I know a lot of people will claim these animals are tortured by the farmers and ranchers. One thing I learned is that a happy animal is a productive animal. Cows that are cold, starved, or thirsty won't produce milk. Steers and pigs that are stressed won't put on weight. Left to their own devices these animals face a brutal, stressful, and often short life.
I've met people that chose not to eat meat because of a dislike for the taste of it. That's fine. I've met people that won't eat meat because of the philosophy that they will not participate in the killing of another animal. That's fine too. I believe that those that think they are somehow saving the life of an animal by choosing to not eat meat are living in a fantasy.
You will claim you will not participate in the patronage of my former occupation. I assure you, by submitting the post above you did participate since the people that wrote the software you use, made the keyboard to typed on, produced the electricity you use, constructed the roof you live under, laid the streets you walk on, and brought you the food you eat were able to do so because they ate meat.
Out of curiosity, why would you shift milking time to match the clock then? Were you milking before having to go to school or something that din't allow you to ignore the time change?
That's pretty much it. We had to milk the cows, get breakfast, showered, and dressed before the bus came. In the afternoon we got off the bus, had an afternoon snack (we needed a lot of calories), changed into our working clothes and milked them again. Did this from grade school until I went to college. I was very glad to not have to get up at 5:30 any more. I wasn't actually milking the cows in grade school, the cattle could have crushed me, but I had to get up to help with feeding the cattle.
Having grown up on a dairy farm I can tell you that the cows will wait patiently outside the barn door for it to be opened for their morning and evening milking. They'd file in without coaxing almost every time. They had a daily routine and they got to know it very quickly.
Daylight savings time really messes with them. I remember walking out to the barn an hour earlier than normal because of the time change and the cows just stared at me as I walked to the barn, seemingly confused over my presence. I'd open the door and they would not walk in. It took quite the convincing to get them inside. When the clock was set back the cows would, I assume since I was asleep, have been standing and waiting by the door as they let their milk down allowing it to run on the ground. In this case what would normally be a rather sedate filing in would be a mad dash. I can only assume that they were either hungry (as we fed them while they were milked) or their udders were hurting from the extra hour wait.
I will tell you that a cow or steer can object. It might not be vocal but they will put up a fight if they don't want to go where you want them to. I was spared much of the bruising that others in my family got. Mom had her arm pinned between a steer and a wall. She saw we were having trouble loading the steers and came out to help. She didn't have to do that and she got bruised up loading the last steer we sent to market before my parents retired from farming. Two of my brothers got beat up by the bull in separate instances, bruised up their ribs pretty good. A steer got loose while loading them up for market. I chased that stupid thing for at least a mile before it got too tired to keep moving. When I caught up with it that steer ran at me with its last breath and I had to leap out of the way. It collapsed and practically passed out. Dad brought the stock trailer out to the steer and it was much more willing to get in by that time. It was cooler in there than out in the sun.
The cows rarely objected to being milked. The only ones that objected were those that had their first calf. The herd mentality kept them from objecting too much. They did not like being separate from the herd so when they saw the others file into the barn they'd reluctantly follow. They might jump and kick the first few times being milked but they got into the routine after a couple days.
When they objected to something it usually resulted in mending fencing, lots of foot work, and sometimes bruises. My dad told stories of when the cattle were wilder and would kick out windows and light bulbs in the barn when they objected. The light bulbs were over our heads and the windows set high enough that they would rarely try to use them as an escape, not that they'd even fit through but that didn't stop them from trying. We were fortunate, I can recall hearing about people that were killed from cattle that objected to something.
The article did not mention what was used to feed the bees before the beekeepers switched over to HFCS. Did they feed them honey?
I'm also a bit concerned about these pesticides showing up in my food. I'm not so naive as to think that all my food was free from pesticides before HFCS was put into everything, but I'm a bit concerned that the same pesticide is in just about every food I eat.
If the bees are feeding on pesticide laced food then how much of that pesticide is showing up in my honey?
Minor nit to pick, since this was a F-18 it would be running on the Navy's JP-5 and not on the Army's JP-8. A quick Google search tells me that all Navy equipment, which generally have unmodified diesel cycle engines, will run on JP-5.
I was playing along with the author until I saw this:
However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
We've seen what happens when the government invests in "green" technologies. We see solar power companies that produce no product but the executives get paid. We see electric cars that can't go more than 200 miles before the battery self destructs and has to be towed. We see $400,000 wind farms that saves less than $100 in electricity over a year. (I suppose that might pay off in 5000 years or so.) In all these cases the government pays *MY* money to people that have provided me nothing. It's theft by proxy.
Another problem is the government setting policies that drive adoption of these "green" technologies. People don't like to be told what to do. People will do what they believe is best for themselves in spite of government mandate. We saw this with Prohibition. People wanted alcohol so they made it themselves, paid people to smuggle it for them, and so on. We see it now with the current prohibitions on other intoxicating substances. We see it with the hoarding of 100 watt light bulbs.
If someone wants me to act in a certain way they need to convince me that doing so is in my best interest. By having the heavy hand of government remove that choice from me I get the feeling that the government is no longer acting in my best interest. I get upset. I find ways around the government mandates.
A government governs with the permission of the governed. The government cannot impose a mandate upon me. I must be convinced of the need for something to happen for it to happen. I will live with small transgressions upon my life but there comes a point at which these transgressions become unbearable. I am but one of many and everyone has their breaking point. If this goes too far there will be a change in government. I just hope it will be a peaceful transition.
These people do not need to convince the government of the need for a change in economic polices, they need to convince *ME* and all the other people that make up the governed of the need. Doing otherwise will not end well.
I am upset about the great bulk of tax expenditures. I just did not mention them since they are not the subject at hand. What is being discussed is the flawed energy policy, or the lack of an energy policy, from the federal government. I could write all kinds of stuff on the misguided expenditures coming from the federal government. I just felt that most of those tax expenditures were not nearly as relevant to the current topic as the subsidies for wind power and ethanol fuel. I could talk about the misguided drug laws and how much that is costing us in money and lives if you like.
I agree that there is not a shortage of food. What ethanol subsidies do is encourage the transfer of food from the market and turn it into a substandard fuel. This raises the prices of both food and fuel for no real economic or environmental benefit. Because of the numerous variables involved in computing the energy derived from corn ethanol, and the lack of an obvious benefit, no one can say for sure that we are getting more energy out of the ethanol than what we put in. We are certainly getting more energy out of oil than what we put in, it's just that some will argue over whether it's a 100x gain or a 10x gain.
And no, that oil pipeline won't help, it'd just lead to more oil flowing out of North America, nor is there a ban on new oil or gas drilling (actual production is up).
Could you define "help" for me? That oil will be sold. It will reach the market. It will get burned. What happens without the pipeline is that it will get sold to other nations. It will be transported by truck, rail, and ships, instead of the much cheaper pipeline. This means increased costs for everyone. It will NOT lead to a NET flow of oil outside of North America. Sure, more oil will leave but it will be replaced by oil from South America, Africa, or Asia.
Perhaps my claim on a ban on oil drilling was a bit of hyperbole. The federal government has not banned the drilling for oil on private lands. Whether production has gone up or not is not something I have verified for myself. I doubt anyone will dispute my claim that new drilling on public lands has essentially stopped. There may have been a few permits issued here and there but the rate of the issuance is not near what it used to be and likely does not make up for lost production on public land.
But don't let reality get in your way. Believe what the GOP schmucks are lying to you about.
So I should believe the lies the Democrats are telling me? They both lie. I don't like either party. It's just that as of today the GOP is the lesser evil. With so much misinformation coming from both major political parties, and a media empire willing to lie to sell more eyeballs (the Zimmerman-Martin recording from NBC being a recent example), it has become exceedingly difficult to find out what is reality any more.
You are correct. I misspoke. I don't wish the GOP gets into power as much as the Democrats lose power. I despise the two party system that has developed in this federation since it inevitably leads to voting for the lesser evil. I don't like the GOP, i just like the Democrats even less.
I also agree that the GOP is improving. At the same time I see the Democrats getting worse. Recent events have lead me to believe that socialists have taken over the Democrat party. At the same time I've seen a shift toward smaller government and increased civil liberties from the GOP. Don't get me wrong, the GOP still has plenty of big government RINOs. Those RINOs are starting to die off, lose in primaries, "retire" (as in see the writing on the wall and quit while they are ahead), and usually get replaced by someone more sensible. We are still a long way from having a sensible majority in either party.
That would be great if the federal government would actually let us build more wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal power plants.
A company wanted to build a solar power plant in the desert but was stopped by the EPA because of concerns over the migration of the turtles out there. A company wanted to build a windmill farm out in the middle of nowhere but the military stopped them because it would interfere with the radar. Someone might use the windmills as cover for an air assault to deny us the purity of our essence or something.
Power lines to wind and solar farms can't be run because it might destroy the view on some national park, disturb some rare butterfly, or some other nonsense. We can't drill holes into a geothermally active area because someone will inevitably claim it will cause earthquakes, prevent earthworm migration, pollute the water table, or whatever.
Nuclear power? Do I even need to say anything?
Sure, I'd love to be able to burn less fossil fuels but the government needs to give us an option besides freezing to death. I'll change my tune, and get rid of my dinosaur powered truck and furnace, when the government gets a clue. Until the government allows someone to build a new nuclear power plant, one that does not just replace one built in the 1960s, we will continue to burn coal and do so at an increasing rate.
Yes, we can't have the GOP schmucks kill the tax rebate on "green" cars, can we? I mean the federal government has just loads of cash sitting in piles doing nothing. No, wait, the government doesn't have piles of cash sitting around. The federal government has a debt that is somewhere around the annual wealth production of the entire nation.
This tax rebate comes from somewhere. I'll give you a minute to figure out where.
...
That's right, it comes from taxes. The government is giving these people money that they already gave them in the first place. Not only that but they are giving money to people that can afford a new car but they are doing so by taking it from people that cannot.
All these tax rebates for "green" technologies is destroying the economy, bankrupting the federal government, and doing very little to actually improve the environment. We've seen all kinds of money pits and environmental disasters like "cash for clunkers", windmill subsidies, and corn ethanol requirements. Cash for clunkers scrapped fully functional vehicles meaning considerable wasted energy in producing replacement vehicles. Windmills produce unreliable power meaning that to keep the lights on the coal power plants will run idle when the wind blows. When coal plants "idle" they still burn fuel since they can't be turned on and off like a light bulb. This raises the price of electricity and does nothing to the "carbon footprint" that is ultimately produced.
With corn ethanol... WE ARE BURNING OUR FOOD!
I sure hope the GOP schmucks are voted into office this November. Without an oil pipeline, with a ban on new oil and gas drilling, continued subsidies into failed "green" businesses, and burning more of our food I suspect we will see some very cold and dark winters ahead.
If we're going to add up these costs for coal then we need consider the incidental costs for wind as well. First thing that comes to mind is the 5MW natural gas turbines needed for when the wind does not blow.
Hand resting on my knee, thumb and forefinger holding the steering wheel at about 5 o'clock. I got power steering, I don't need two hands on the wheel, I need only two fingers.
I saw another correlation in the numbers. As domestic oil production went down the global temperatures increased. Therefore we must increase domestic oil production to lower global temperature.
I agree. Dig a big hole on site. Take all the stuff you don't need any more but is too radioactive to move and drop it in the hole. Pour a thick, flat, massive, hunk of concrete on top of it. Use that sturdy base for your next new replacement reactor. With the large amounts of land that surround these nuclear power plants for security this process could probably be repeated several times before you'd have to go around and dig up one of those concrete slabs to make another hole to dump in the radioactive junk from a previous reactor. By that time a century or more would have passed and the radioactivity will be a small fraction of what it was when it was buried and therefore no longer a hazard.
If for some reason the material is still radioactive after sitting in concrete for a century then what you have is not "waste" but is fuel for your next reactor.
I believe it's more a matter of land than money. The USA and the UK have more of it than Japan. A site the size of a nuclear power plant will not be missed in the USA for the next 100 years. The UK does have a bit of a land shortage but not near as much as the mountainous islands of Japan.
When it comes to the highly radioactive "waste" you speak of I've found that if it's radioactive then it is fuel. The more radioactive the more valuable it becomes. If it cannot be used in a traditional fission reactor then it's valuable in a radio thermal reactor. If for some reason it's not suitable for either then there tends to be a medical, industrial, or scientific use for it. Because of the stupid radioactive materials laws we have the processing of this stuff has become very expensive. It's cheaper to dig the rarefied stuff out of the ground and concentrate it than go through all the paperwork to get the already concentrated stuff out of spent fuel rods.
The government expects these companies to take this extremely valuable material and pay to drop it in a hole in the ground. With so much recycling going on for other materials, and the increasing costs of mining, there is rarely anything any more that is truly "waste". We got people digging through trash for discarded aluminum foil, cans, and cookware. This is for one of the most common elements on this planet. We do this because there is a lot of value in a material that has already been refined.
Another aspect of this issue is the laws that have prevented the building of new nuclear power reactors. The land may be unsuitable for a school yard or playground but it is certainly suitable for another nuclear power plant. A lot of the issues of radioactivity should be moot at that point since the area would continue to be maintained by those knowledgeable of the proper handling of radioactive materials.
I believe your faith in fingerprinting is misplaced.
After doing some reading on how fingerprints are taken, stored, matched, etc. I have lost much faith in the process. The example you gave, matching prints on scene in a controlled environment, would be a very accurate means to verify identity. Outside of that the error rate in fingerprinting rises quickly.
I agree. Taking the DNA of two known relatives is generally enough to make a statistical match close enough to rule out a large portion of the population. It might not be enough to separate a person from their sibling or first cousin but it should be enough to narrow the possibilities to a dozen or so people in the world.
While I generally like the idea of criminals getting just punishment I do not believe the ends justify the means. Search of a DNA database is a search of the person. Search of this database without warrant is an unconstitutional search.
An over simplification for certain. Impossible to actually work unless there is a large proportion of the populace willing to go along with the plan. I do see another way out.
I've long held the belief that we will have many of our rights restored only when the government bankrupts itself, or becomes dangerously close to doing so. Governments cannot create wealth, only consume it. For a government to oppress the people there must be a large number of people that are on the payroll of the government. A government can only grow to a size that the economy will sustain. A collapse of the economy means a collapse of income from taxes, no income from taxes means the government cannot pay their employees.
We've seen governments attempt to keep paying employees by printing more fiat currency. That only works for so long as inflation of prices will soon make the currency worthless. Government employees will not remain government employees if they are not paid enough money to feed themselves. Their loyalties will shift. This means leaving government employment, or turning to corruption.
Unlike other nations the people of the USA still enjoy public trials by a jury. Americans still have elections every two years. Americans are also the most well armed people on this planet.
The governments in America will shrink. I see this happening in one of three ways. First, near complete collapse of the economy. Government employees will leave their jobs en masse to turn to more profitable pursuits. Those that remain will have to fight desperately to keep law and order. Order will return but only after large portions of the government disappear.
Second, armed revolt. People will tire of the tax burden they will have to bear and the increasing limits on their freedoms. I see this happening only if there is some unbearable act by the government. Think of the riots after the Rodney King trials only on a national scale. An example going farther back in history would be the shot heard around the world.
The third possible way I see the shrinking of the governments in the USA is by voting the tyrants out of office. This is obviously the preferred method but it is also the least "complete" means to remove government excess. The government will shrink if the people make it known that they will no longer tolerate tyrants in government office. Why I say this is a less "complete" solution is that the government will only shrink to a level that people will again tolerate, as opposed to a rebuilding of the government from the other options.
Only after typing the above did I realize I essentially made a restatement of the four boxes of liberty.
Another interpretation of your scenario is the failure of the government to recognize the benefits of allowing people to have access to codeine (one of the effective ingredients in Tylenol 3) without prescription. Millions of people are dealing with pain unnecessarily because the DEA would rather you die of liver damage from overdosing on Tylenol than getting enough codeine to stop pain.
Physicians, dentists, and other health care providers love to prescribe Tylenol 3 only because the DEA tends to not look too close when and where its prescribed. They do this because one is more likely to die from it than get high. Problem is that the people that abuse the stuff will cook off the Tylenol and get high as a kite from the codeine but the people using it legitimately for pain will have to run the risk of liver damage. I suppose the people that are taking Tylenol 3 for legitimate pain control could cook off the Tylenol to avoid the risk of liver damage just like the junkies do but doing so means they run the risk of getting busted for a federal felony.
People are dying from Tylenol overdose but the DEA does not seem to care. They'd rather see you dead than high. Returning codeine to OTC status would mean fewer people to arrest, fewer prescriptions to regulate, and therefore fewer agents, less funding, and generally smaller government.
If we're going to talk about how fucked up modern medicine is today we're going to have to talk about how fucked up our drug laws are now. Perhaps people would be less interested in seeking "alternative" medicine if medicines known to be effective by human civilization for thousands of years were widely available instead of locked up by government fiat.
Along with opiates I'll toss marijuana in there too. Of course if we legalized those two classes of drugs the DEA would be making only about 10% of the arrests they are now. Can't have that, can we?
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This is not even hidden yet the majority blindly accept that the poor and middle class are routinely abused while the wealthy are left alone shoes on, never touched, carry on assault rifles, all the fluids they want on private or charter flights.
Not only are these wealthy people allowed to carry these assault rifles on aircraft but they are allowed to carry them loaded. Not only are these rifles loaded they are fired while on board. One famous example is Ted Nugent going on feral hog hunts from a helicopter. His preferred weapon is a mil-spec M4, as in truly military specification all the way down to the three shot burst capability.
I will also point out that there is a distinction between an assault rifle and an assault weapon. An assault rifle is usually defined as a rifle chambered in an intermediate cartridge (bigger than a common handgun, smaller than a common rifle), with a detachable magazine, and can selectively fire either semi-automatically or in a three shot burst. An assault weapon is defined as whatever the person using the term views as "dangerous" and therefore should be banned from use or possession by people other than themselves.
Also, if you didn't know...cocaine was originally a pharmaceutical drug made by a corporation.
I hear that this corporation now makes soft drinks which are sold in uniquely shaped bottles and sells well among the polar bear population.
I wish I had mod points right now. You make a good point but I'm not sure if you took it far enough. People were always concerned about the environment and that is a good thing. At some level we all need to have some concern that our air, food, and water is clean. We should make sure that we don't deplete the natural resources available to us. It's just good stewardship of our planet to make sure the human species survives.
While you make a good point I think you need to take it a step further and realize why the public is not as concerned about species extinction and air pollution like it was. I believe its because we now have regulations prohibiting the hunting of threatened and endangered species. We now have air pollution regulations. We didn't have those fifty years ago. With those issues largely addressed there really isn't much to get upset about any more. Sure, we need to make sure this regulations aren't doing enough, or have gone too far, but that is a matter of minor tweaks to existing law. We have those mechanisms in the law so we make the tweaks as needed.
Looking at the concerns over the environment there is not really much left to get upset about any more. All that is left right now for these people to rally behind is global warming. Those people that still worry about polar bears going extinct, or the air getting too polluted to breathe, wrap it up in a global warming message so they can get noticed. They hop on the bandwagon so they too can get their pet bill passed into law.
I recall that the air is the cleanest it's been in a very long time. We have more forest now than we've had in a very long time. Species that were once threatened, or even thought extinct, are now thriving. We can certainly strive to do better but we've gone so far in the last fifteen years that there is just not much to get upset about any more. Global warming and carbon output is all that is really left and, personally, I believe this concern is way out of proportion of the problem.
They're cows. Can cattle consent? They don't have the mental capacity of even a cat or a dog. They can be trained but they aren't that intelligent. They feel fear, pain, hunger, and more. They are smart enough to figure out certain things, like how to open an improperly secured gate to get into the feed pen. But once inside they don't know enough to not eat themselves to death. That steer that bruised up my mom's arm figured out they he could escape through the sorting gate by hitting it just so with his head. We'd let it go several times until it was the last one to get on the truck. At that point we tied down the gate so it could not do that any more. It pushed and pushed and pushed. When it got tired and frustrated it backed up, and for lack of a better word, yelled at the gate. It was quite the sight. Yes, it became resigned to its circumstances and walked up the ramp and onto the truck.
If we are talking about consent let's consider my own circumstances. I did not consent to having neighbors that can't keep their dogs from barking at me. I did not consent to living in this dumpy old house. I did not consent to raccoons turning my crawlspace into their nest. I didn't consent to rain this weekend and sunshine while I'm stuck in front of this computer. This is what I got. It's what I have to do to live. This might suck but it's better than no house, it's the best I can afford. Rain is better than snow. You could say that I've become resigned to my circumstances.
Left to their own devices the cattle would be left to the elements. Every winter probably half of them would either freeze or starve to death. Spring would come and they'd calve with probably half of the calves dying from disease, dehydration (from death of the dam or drought), or eaten by canines. (Wolves, coyotes, and feral dogs are common around here. Got so many coyotes that the hunting season on them is open all year.) The cows would produce milk only so long as the calf desired it. I don't know how long that would be in the wild, could be anywhere from 3 to 6 months.
I didn't really know how long we'd milk the cows before they'd be allowed to go dry, my dad kept track of that. Once allowed to go dry the cow would be bred again for a calf and more milk. This cycle would repeat so long as the cow produced enough milk to be worth its salt. Once too old to produce it'd be retired to the butcher. We'd have rare cases of cattle not going to butcher. The rule is that cattle cannot be used for human food if it could not walk under its own power before slaughter. I recall seeing a cow die from cancer. We had quite a few get put down for injuries. This was usually from slipping on ice in winter. For sanitary reasons the barn was surrounded by a concrete pad that sloped away. This kept the manure from collecting around the milking area. It also meant that the cattle had to walk up hill on slippery concrete after an ice storm came through. Ice could get so thick that even the tractors couldn't break it up. We'd have the tractors slide down the hill. It wasn't a steep slope, not like a roof top, more like a driveway to a garage. We'd take sledgehammers and axes to rough up the ice so the cattle could get enough traction to walk into the barn. That was hard work, done in an ice storm, so the cows could get to a warm barn to be fed and milked.
We generally treated the cattle well. We also realized that the cattle were there to make money. As my dad put it to an animal rights person asking for donations, "If I can't ride it, eat it, or wear it then it don't do me any good." The cattle were healthy, fed, warm, and had no predators other than ourselves. They lived long lives, much longer than the wild. Instead of death by starvation, disease, or being eaten alive by animals they'd usually see a quick death by a rifle bullet to the forehead. In rare cases, like that cancerous cow we had, they will likely die lying in their own feces laboring for breath. It died before we could get to the rifle so it didn't have to suffer like that. Not a pretty picture and I know that. That's life, even cows get cancer. This would have been no different than a cow in the wild, except that in the wild a cow rarely lives long enough to die from cancer. They'd usually be eaten, starved, or frozen before then.
I know a lot of people will claim these animals are tortured by the farmers and ranchers. One thing I learned is that a happy animal is a productive animal. Cows that are cold, starved, or thirsty won't produce milk. Steers and pigs that are stressed won't put on weight. Left to their own devices these animals face a brutal, stressful, and often short life.
I've met people that chose not to eat meat because of a dislike for the taste of it. That's fine. I've met people that won't eat meat because of the philosophy that they will not participate in the killing of another animal. That's fine too. I believe that those that think they are somehow saving the life of an animal by choosing to not eat meat are living in a fantasy.
You will claim you will not participate in the patronage of my former occupation. I assure you, by submitting the post above you did participate since the people that wrote the software you use, made the keyboard to typed on, produced the electricity you use, constructed the roof you live under, laid the streets you walk on, and brought you the food you eat were able to do so because they ate meat.
Out of curiosity, why would you shift milking time to match the clock then? Were you milking before having to go to school or something that din't allow you to ignore the time change?
That's pretty much it. We had to milk the cows, get breakfast, showered, and dressed before the bus came. In the afternoon we got off the bus, had an afternoon snack (we needed a lot of calories), changed into our working clothes and milked them again. Did this from grade school until I went to college. I was very glad to not have to get up at 5:30 any more. I wasn't actually milking the cows in grade school, the cattle could have crushed me, but I had to get up to help with feeding the cattle.
Silly me, I thought it was the wine that went with the meal.
Having grown up on a dairy farm I can tell you that the cows will wait patiently outside the barn door for it to be opened for their morning and evening milking. They'd file in without coaxing almost every time. They had a daily routine and they got to know it very quickly.
Daylight savings time really messes with them. I remember walking out to the barn an hour earlier than normal because of the time change and the cows just stared at me as I walked to the barn, seemingly confused over my presence. I'd open the door and they would not walk in. It took quite the convincing to get them inside. When the clock was set back the cows would, I assume since I was asleep, have been standing and waiting by the door as they let their milk down allowing it to run on the ground. In this case what would normally be a rather sedate filing in would be a mad dash. I can only assume that they were either hungry (as we fed them while they were milked) or their udders were hurting from the extra hour wait.
I will tell you that a cow or steer can object. It might not be vocal but they will put up a fight if they don't want to go where you want them to. I was spared much of the bruising that others in my family got. Mom had her arm pinned between a steer and a wall. She saw we were having trouble loading the steers and came out to help. She didn't have to do that and she got bruised up loading the last steer we sent to market before my parents retired from farming. Two of my brothers got beat up by the bull in separate instances, bruised up their ribs pretty good. A steer got loose while loading them up for market. I chased that stupid thing for at least a mile before it got too tired to keep moving. When I caught up with it that steer ran at me with its last breath and I had to leap out of the way. It collapsed and practically passed out. Dad brought the stock trailer out to the steer and it was much more willing to get in by that time. It was cooler in there than out in the sun.
The cows rarely objected to being milked. The only ones that objected were those that had their first calf. The herd mentality kept them from objecting too much. They did not like being separate from the herd so when they saw the others file into the barn they'd reluctantly follow. They might jump and kick the first few times being milked but they got into the routine after a couple days.
When they objected to something it usually resulted in mending fencing, lots of foot work, and sometimes bruises. My dad told stories of when the cattle were wilder and would kick out windows and light bulbs in the barn when they objected. The light bulbs were over our heads and the windows set high enough that they would rarely try to use them as an escape, not that they'd even fit through but that didn't stop them from trying. We were fortunate, I can recall hearing about people that were killed from cattle that objected to something.
The article did not mention what was used to feed the bees before the beekeepers switched over to HFCS. Did they feed them honey?
I'm also a bit concerned about these pesticides showing up in my food. I'm not so naive as to think that all my food was free from pesticides before HFCS was put into everything, but I'm a bit concerned that the same pesticide is in just about every food I eat.
If the bees are feeding on pesticide laced food then how much of that pesticide is showing up in my honey?
Minor nit to pick, since this was a F-18 it would be running on the Navy's JP-5 and not on the Army's JP-8. A quick Google search tells me that all Navy equipment, which generally have unmodified diesel cycle engines, will run on JP-5.
I was playing along with the author until I saw this:
However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
We've seen what happens when the government invests in "green" technologies. We see solar power companies that produce no product but the executives get paid. We see electric cars that can't go more than 200 miles before the battery self destructs and has to be towed. We see $400,000 wind farms that saves less than $100 in electricity over a year. (I suppose that might pay off in 5000 years or so.) In all these cases the government pays *MY* money to people that have provided me nothing. It's theft by proxy.
Another problem is the government setting policies that drive adoption of these "green" technologies. People don't like to be told what to do. People will do what they believe is best for themselves in spite of government mandate. We saw this with Prohibition. People wanted alcohol so they made it themselves, paid people to smuggle it for them, and so on. We see it now with the current prohibitions on other intoxicating substances. We see it with the hoarding of 100 watt light bulbs.
If someone wants me to act in a certain way they need to convince me that doing so is in my best interest. By having the heavy hand of government remove that choice from me I get the feeling that the government is no longer acting in my best interest. I get upset. I find ways around the government mandates.
A government governs with the permission of the governed. The government cannot impose a mandate upon me. I must be convinced of the need for something to happen for it to happen. I will live with small transgressions upon my life but there comes a point at which these transgressions become unbearable. I am but one of many and everyone has their breaking point. If this goes too far there will be a change in government. I just hope it will be a peaceful transition.
These people do not need to convince the government of the need for a change in economic polices, they need to convince *ME* and all the other people that make up the governed of the need. Doing otherwise will not end well.
I am upset about the great bulk of tax expenditures. I just did not mention them since they are not the subject at hand. What is being discussed is the flawed energy policy, or the lack of an energy policy, from the federal government. I could write all kinds of stuff on the misguided expenditures coming from the federal government. I just felt that most of those tax expenditures were not nearly as relevant to the current topic as the subsidies for wind power and ethanol fuel. I could talk about the misguided drug laws and how much that is costing us in money and lives if you like.
I agree that there is not a shortage of food. What ethanol subsidies do is encourage the transfer of food from the market and turn it into a substandard fuel. This raises the prices of both food and fuel for no real economic or environmental benefit. Because of the numerous variables involved in computing the energy derived from corn ethanol, and the lack of an obvious benefit, no one can say for sure that we are getting more energy out of the ethanol than what we put in. We are certainly getting more energy out of oil than what we put in, it's just that some will argue over whether it's a 100x gain or a 10x gain.
And no, that oil pipeline won't help, it'd just lead to more oil flowing out of North America, nor is there a ban on new oil or gas drilling (actual production is up).
Could you define "help" for me? That oil will be sold. It will reach the market. It will get burned. What happens without the pipeline is that it will get sold to other nations. It will be transported by truck, rail, and ships, instead of the much cheaper pipeline. This means increased costs for everyone. It will NOT lead to a NET flow of oil outside of North America. Sure, more oil will leave but it will be replaced by oil from South America, Africa, or Asia.
Perhaps my claim on a ban on oil drilling was a bit of hyperbole. The federal government has not banned the drilling for oil on private lands. Whether production has gone up or not is not something I have verified for myself. I doubt anyone will dispute my claim that new drilling on public lands has essentially stopped. There may have been a few permits issued here and there but the rate of the issuance is not near what it used to be and likely does not make up for lost production on public land.
But don't let reality get in your way. Believe what the GOP schmucks are lying to you about.
So I should believe the lies the Democrats are telling me? They both lie. I don't like either party. It's just that as of today the GOP is the lesser evil. With so much misinformation coming from both major political parties, and a media empire willing to lie to sell more eyeballs (the Zimmerman-Martin recording from NBC being a recent example), it has become exceedingly difficult to find out what is reality any more.
You are correct. I misspoke. I don't wish the GOP gets into power as much as the Democrats lose power. I despise the two party system that has developed in this federation since it inevitably leads to voting for the lesser evil. I don't like the GOP, i just like the Democrats even less.
I also agree that the GOP is improving. At the same time I see the Democrats getting worse. Recent events have lead me to believe that socialists have taken over the Democrat party. At the same time I've seen a shift toward smaller government and increased civil liberties from the GOP. Don't get me wrong, the GOP still has plenty of big government RINOs. Those RINOs are starting to die off, lose in primaries, "retire" (as in see the writing on the wall and quit while they are ahead), and usually get replaced by someone more sensible. We are still a long way from having a sensible majority in either party.
That would be great if the federal government would actually let us build more wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal power plants.
A company wanted to build a solar power plant in the desert but was stopped by the EPA because of concerns over the migration of the turtles out there. A company wanted to build a windmill farm out in the middle of nowhere but the military stopped them because it would interfere with the radar. Someone might use the windmills as cover for an air assault to deny us the purity of our essence or something.
Power lines to wind and solar farms can't be run because it might destroy the view on some national park, disturb some rare butterfly, or some other nonsense. We can't drill holes into a geothermally active area because someone will inevitably claim it will cause earthquakes, prevent earthworm migration, pollute the water table, or whatever.
Nuclear power? Do I even need to say anything?
Sure, I'd love to be able to burn less fossil fuels but the government needs to give us an option besides freezing to death. I'll change my tune, and get rid of my dinosaur powered truck and furnace, when the government gets a clue. Until the government allows someone to build a new nuclear power plant, one that does not just replace one built in the 1960s, we will continue to burn coal and do so at an increasing rate.
Yes, we can't have the GOP schmucks kill the tax rebate on "green" cars, can we? I mean the federal government has just loads of cash sitting in piles doing nothing. No, wait, the government doesn't have piles of cash sitting around. The federal government has a debt that is somewhere around the annual wealth production of the entire nation.
This tax rebate comes from somewhere. I'll give you a minute to figure out where.
That's right, it comes from taxes. The government is giving these people money that they already gave them in the first place. Not only that but they are giving money to people that can afford a new car but they are doing so by taking it from people that cannot.
All these tax rebates for "green" technologies is destroying the economy, bankrupting the federal government, and doing very little to actually improve the environment. We've seen all kinds of money pits and environmental disasters like "cash for clunkers", windmill subsidies, and corn ethanol requirements. Cash for clunkers scrapped fully functional vehicles meaning considerable wasted energy in producing replacement vehicles. Windmills produce unreliable power meaning that to keep the lights on the coal power plants will run idle when the wind blows. When coal plants "idle" they still burn fuel since they can't be turned on and off like a light bulb. This raises the price of electricity and does nothing to the "carbon footprint" that is ultimately produced.
With corn ethanol... WE ARE BURNING OUR FOOD!
I sure hope the GOP schmucks are voted into office this November. Without an oil pipeline, with a ban on new oil and gas drilling, continued subsidies into failed "green" businesses, and burning more of our food I suspect we will see some very cold and dark winters ahead.
If we're going to add up these costs for coal then we need consider the incidental costs for wind as well. First thing that comes to mind is the 5MW natural gas turbines needed for when the wind does not blow.
Hand resting on my knee, thumb and forefinger holding the steering wheel at about 5 o'clock. I got power steering, I don't need two hands on the wheel, I need only two fingers.
I saw another correlation in the numbers. As domestic oil production went down the global temperatures increased. Therefore we must increase domestic oil production to lower global temperature.
It's for the children.
I agree. Dig a big hole on site. Take all the stuff you don't need any more but is too radioactive to move and drop it in the hole. Pour a thick, flat, massive, hunk of concrete on top of it. Use that sturdy base for your next new replacement reactor. With the large amounts of land that surround these nuclear power plants for security this process could probably be repeated several times before you'd have to go around and dig up one of those concrete slabs to make another hole to dump in the radioactive junk from a previous reactor. By that time a century or more would have passed and the radioactivity will be a small fraction of what it was when it was buried and therefore no longer a hazard.
If for some reason the material is still radioactive after sitting in concrete for a century then what you have is not "waste" but is fuel for your next reactor.
I believe it's more a matter of land than money. The USA and the UK have more of it than Japan. A site the size of a nuclear power plant will not be missed in the USA for the next 100 years. The UK does have a bit of a land shortage but not near as much as the mountainous islands of Japan.
When it comes to the highly radioactive "waste" you speak of I've found that if it's radioactive then it is fuel. The more radioactive the more valuable it becomes. If it cannot be used in a traditional fission reactor then it's valuable in a radio thermal reactor. If for some reason it's not suitable for either then there tends to be a medical, industrial, or scientific use for it. Because of the stupid radioactive materials laws we have the processing of this stuff has become very expensive. It's cheaper to dig the rarefied stuff out of the ground and concentrate it than go through all the paperwork to get the already concentrated stuff out of spent fuel rods.
The government expects these companies to take this extremely valuable material and pay to drop it in a hole in the ground. With so much recycling going on for other materials, and the increasing costs of mining, there is rarely anything any more that is truly "waste". We got people digging through trash for discarded aluminum foil, cans, and cookware. This is for one of the most common elements on this planet. We do this because there is a lot of value in a material that has already been refined.
Another aspect of this issue is the laws that have prevented the building of new nuclear power reactors. The land may be unsuitable for a school yard or playground but it is certainly suitable for another nuclear power plant. A lot of the issues of radioactivity should be moot at that point since the area would continue to be maintained by those knowledgeable of the proper handling of radioactive materials.
I believe your faith in fingerprinting is misplaced.
After doing some reading on how fingerprints are taken, stored, matched, etc. I have lost much faith in the process. The example you gave, matching prints on scene in a controlled environment, would be a very accurate means to verify identity. Outside of that the error rate in fingerprinting rises quickly.
I agree. Taking the DNA of two known relatives is generally enough to make a statistical match close enough to rule out a large portion of the population. It might not be enough to separate a person from their sibling or first cousin but it should be enough to narrow the possibilities to a dozen or so people in the world.
While I generally like the idea of criminals getting just punishment I do not believe the ends justify the means. Search of a DNA database is a search of the person. Search of this database without warrant is an unconstitutional search.
Then don't pay your taxes.
An over simplification for certain. Impossible to actually work unless there is a large proportion of the populace willing to go along with the plan. I do see another way out.
I've long held the belief that we will have many of our rights restored only when the government bankrupts itself, or becomes dangerously close to doing so. Governments cannot create wealth, only consume it. For a government to oppress the people there must be a large number of people that are on the payroll of the government. A government can only grow to a size that the economy will sustain. A collapse of the economy means a collapse of income from taxes, no income from taxes means the government cannot pay their employees.
We've seen governments attempt to keep paying employees by printing more fiat currency. That only works for so long as inflation of prices will soon make the currency worthless. Government employees will not remain government employees if they are not paid enough money to feed themselves. Their loyalties will shift. This means leaving government employment, or turning to corruption.
Unlike other nations the people of the USA still enjoy public trials by a jury. Americans still have elections every two years. Americans are also the most well armed people on this planet.
The governments in America will shrink. I see this happening in one of three ways. First, near complete collapse of the economy. Government employees will leave their jobs en masse to turn to more profitable pursuits. Those that remain will have to fight desperately to keep law and order. Order will return but only after large portions of the government disappear.
Second, armed revolt. People will tire of the tax burden they will have to bear and the increasing limits on their freedoms. I see this happening only if there is some unbearable act by the government. Think of the riots after the Rodney King trials only on a national scale. An example going farther back in history would be the shot heard around the world.
The third possible way I see the shrinking of the governments in the USA is by voting the tyrants out of office. This is obviously the preferred method but it is also the least "complete" means to remove government excess. The government will shrink if the people make it known that they will no longer tolerate tyrants in government office. Why I say this is a less "complete" solution is that the government will only shrink to a level that people will again tolerate, as opposed to a rebuilding of the government from the other options.
Only after typing the above did I realize I essentially made a restatement of the four boxes of liberty.
BTW, how did that ARPANET project turn out?
Another interpretation of your scenario is the failure of the government to recognize the benefits of allowing people to have access to codeine (one of the effective ingredients in Tylenol 3) without prescription. Millions of people are dealing with pain unnecessarily because the DEA would rather you die of liver damage from overdosing on Tylenol than getting enough codeine to stop pain.
Physicians, dentists, and other health care providers love to prescribe Tylenol 3 only because the DEA tends to not look too close when and where its prescribed. They do this because one is more likely to die from it than get high. Problem is that the people that abuse the stuff will cook off the Tylenol and get high as a kite from the codeine but the people using it legitimately for pain will have to run the risk of liver damage. I suppose the people that are taking Tylenol 3 for legitimate pain control could cook off the Tylenol to avoid the risk of liver damage just like the junkies do but doing so means they run the risk of getting busted for a federal felony.
People are dying from Tylenol overdose but the DEA does not seem to care. They'd rather see you dead than high. Returning codeine to OTC status would mean fewer people to arrest, fewer prescriptions to regulate, and therefore fewer agents, less funding, and generally smaller government.
If we're going to talk about how fucked up modern medicine is today we're going to have to talk about how fucked up our drug laws are now. Perhaps people would be less interested in seeking "alternative" medicine if medicines known to be effective by human civilization for thousands of years were widely available instead of locked up by government fiat.
Along with opiates I'll toss marijuana in there too. Of course if we legalized those two classes of drugs the DEA would be making only about 10% of the arrests they are now. Can't have that, can we?