We can keep talking about how much Earth is warming, and if it is warming at all, but what I want to know is what are we supposed to do about it?
Someone else came up with this so I can't take the credit. We need to pick one: A) Fossil fuels and any global warming it may or may not cause. B) Agrarian society. C) Nuclear power.
Some will say that there is a choice "D". I've had people tell me that we can choose some future energy technology or energy source. That's fine, we can keep searching for the perfect energy source but until then we have the three choices above. I've also had people that choice "D" is conservation. Conservation is just using the energy sources we have meagerly and wisely, it does not actually create energy. That energy will have to come from somewhere. Conservation taken to the extreme is approaching agrarian society.
I've also had people tell me that we don't have to revert to horse and buggy, and subsistence farming, we can use solar, wind, hydro, and bio-fuels. What do you think that people were using to power their daily lives a thousand years ago? They used wind, solar, hydro, and bio-fuels. They had windmills and watermills to pump water and grind grain. They burned wood and dung to heat their homes and cook their food. Without nuclear power or fossil fuels energy would be so expensive that we would slowly revert to the same level. Lacking the power that only nuclear and fossil sources provide we would not be able to perform the energy intensive tasks of mining, refining, and machining of metals. Any kind of aircraft would be novelties reserved for the extremely wealthy. Any nation that decided to shun both fossil fuels and nuclear power would be invaded by the nations that did not, and they'd be fighting off helicopters with soldiers on horseback swinging sabres.
Enough talk about how we are destroying Earth with fossil fuels. Let's talk about solutions. Let's build some nuclear power plants already. We should not see another coal fired power plant be built in this country ever again. I don't care if the world is getting warmer or not we need energy. I can understand those that don't want to fuck up the planet, what we need is an "out". If these people are standing in the way of both fossil fuels AND nuclear power then they are telling us we need to ride a horse to work. I don't like fossil fuels because we are shipping our wealth to nations that don't like us very much in exchange for something that we can produce ourselves if it wasn't for all the politics involved. We need energy or we will be living like "Little House on the Prairie".
To those of you that don't want people burning fossil fuels I'll just say I'm sold on the idea. I'm not sold because of the climate change theory but because of the realities of the economics. We just cannot continue to burn fossil fuels indefinitely, we must find another solution at some point. Unless or until we find something else we are left with nuclear power or horses and buggies.
If that's not good enough for you then fine, I'll admit that I am destroying Earth every time I turn on a light or drive my truck. Now, what do we do about it?
I doubt that Apple gives a damn about what you do with your data. I suspect your wiped iPod had more to do with the RIAA and/or record labels than Apple. I'm quite certain that lost data is a Bad Thingâ in the computer and consumer electronic world and Apple, living in that world, is not going to like dissatisfied customers due to lost data.
It's the RIAA that was teaching you this lesson, not Apple. It's because of this RIAA nonsense that I have not bought any music in years. I was at a local big box store shopping for CDs and noticed that none of the so called CDs had the CD standard label on them. In fact most of them had warnings that they would not play in some CD players. Why would I buy a CD with a label that stated quite plainly that it might not perform the task that I it is supposedly intended to perform?
Oh, and I did something similar with iTunes. I was able to move all my music from a backup to my new computer. iTunes just sucked up all the files and cataloged them for me. It even downloaded the album art for most of my CDs. All of my iTunes music is from CD, the real deal CD, not those shiny discs that pose as CDs in the stores today.
so where does the laser power sent to the drones come from ?
From coal fired generators. Afghanistan has plenty of coal. Another option is solar arrays. Afghanistan also has plenty of sunshine.
I was thinking more along the lines of a nuclear reactor. It's no secret that the military has been working on nuclear power plants that will fit inside a 40 foot ISO container. I don't know how much power one of these reactors can produce but it seems that the military has no shortage of trucks to keep bringing in fuel. Instead of bringing in fuel they can keep stacking up nuclear power plants until they have enough to meet their power needs.
I'm sure someone will consider these reactors a "proliferation" risk but they can be fueled with material that is worthless for nuclear weapons production. I believe there are thorium reactor designs that can be scaled down to where they can fit in a standard ISO container.
These reactors will be very expensive to build, at least at first, but there is considerable cost in fuel as well. I'm sure someone is working out the math right now in the DoD.
In many states there is a law that allows the police force a blood alcohol content test on a person. If a person has a license to drive the officer can force a blood sample from the driver. This also seems to be a trend for states that issue licenses to carry a firearm. Some states are so backward that the police are allowed to arrest people that "fake" drunkenness. You mouth off to the police then you are going with them for "public intoxication". I don't know if the police can take a blood sample then as a means to determine guilt but I would not be surprised if that is the case.
The point is that there may already be laws in California that allows for the taking of a blood sample, and therefore a DNA sample. Even though there may not be a formal database of DNA samples of those arrested on felonies there may already be laws that the police can exploit to build this database. Unless there is a law restricting the use of blood samples taken during a drunk driving stop I suspect someone in the government sees those samples as a way to prop up their career by (ab)using them and go fishing for DNA that might match up with a cold case.
This law being struck down is a nice start, we still have a long way to go in this country. Now lets see the courts strike down the licensing checkpoints in California. You know, those roadblocks where the police stop every car and ask the driver for their papers? Where if you cannot produce a valid license to drive they confiscate your car? The government has been getting away with way too much peeking into our lives.
All of this 3D printing is cool but I think the technology has a long way to go. This won't get much market share as the practical applications are minimal.
Let me know when these 3D printers can print me a Milla Jovovich then I'll go buy one.
The Obama administration is committed to "restarting the American nuclear industry," he said.
Bullshit!
If there was a commitment to restarting the American nuclear industry there would not be this overwhelming problem of disposing of nuclear waste. Spent fuel from the existing nuclear power plants could be used as fuel in next generation nuclear power plants. There are already applications for building these power plants that are three decades old! Let these people build their power plants and the waste problem would solve itself.
Oh, there is another source of nuclear waste, the federal ban on reprocessing the existing spent fuel. If this ban was lifted then even current nuclear power plants could burn the reprocessed spent fuel.
One thing I learned in my research of this nuclear waste "problem" is that if something is radioactive there is a very high probability that the stuff is either a valuable industrial, scientific, commercial, or medical commodity, or it is fuel for a nuclear reactor.
Sure, there is probably some radioactive stuff out there that just cannot be recycled into something useful. It seems to me that such items are quite rare and will be low level emitters of radiation. If they were highly radioactive then it would fall under the valuable commodity or nuclear fuel umbrellas. This low level radioactive junk will need to be disposed of properly but it should not require some massive salt mine to contain it. For that stuff I suggest bringing it to Detroit, there's nobody left there to complain.
Agreed. Hydrogen is difficult to produce, store, and transport safely and efficiently. I expect synthesized hydrocarbons to become viable first. Part of the synthetic fuel equation might be industrial hydrogen production but that will only be a feedstock for the synthetic fuel.
What many people have already realized is that the most efficient means to store and transport hydrogen is by combining it with carbon. This means we will continue to have vehicles running on hydrocarbons but the source will be production facilities powered by coal or nuclear reactors instead of digging it out of the ground.
It seems to me that the second most efficient means to transport hydrogen is by attaching it to nitrogen. This would mean an "ammonia economy". Ammonia can be stored, transported, and burned much like natural gas. We already see natural gas powered vehicles so conversion to ammonia would seem trivial.
Honda is working on a home hydrogen fuel station that connects to your water main and somehow generates hydrogen from the water mains. Not sure how that is accomplished.
It's called electrolysis, it's not difficult to do. I was able to electrolyze water into oxygen and hydrogen in high school with some wire, a lantern battery, a discarded jelly jar, and some other odd items. The hard part is making it efficient and safe. Storing hydrogen is difficult on it's own. Because of these issues I don't expect this to become a household item for a very long time, if ever.
Hasn't worked to date... How much more expensive would gas have to be before we stop seeing one-person-occupied SUVs? $5/gal? $10/gal?
Personally the price would have to get to about $20 or $25 per gallon. I don't drive much so my fuel costs are minimal. When it came time for me to get a new car I did some math on total cost of ownership comparing a used/inefficient vehicle with a new/efficient vehicle. I compared cheap used trucks and SUVs against more expensive new cars, trucks, and SUVs. My calculations included the hybrids, diesels, and natural gas cars along with the more common used gasoline burners. It was only when gasoline became more than somewhere between $20 to $25 per gallon that I'd be saving money on a more efficient vehicle.
I ended up buying a light SUV. Part of that choice was based on the issue that my garage could not hold a full sized SUV comfortably. I'm quite tall so finding a vehicle that "fits" is difficult and tends to go towards large vehicles. I don't expect this situation to change unless the average height of the car buying market approaches my own height.
If gasoline does begin to get that high I would likely not sell my SUV as I suspect I would get next to nothing for it and I'd still need the space and off road capability to go hunting, camping, and target shooting. I'd probably get a natural gas vehicle for my daily commute and keep my SUV for longer drives and trips to the shooting range.
I doubt gasoline would get that high any time soon. The economy would almost shutdown if it did. We'd start drilling for more domestic oil, digging up oil shale, we might even be hunting whales for whale oil if fuel got that high.
I once joked that I'd buy a Topkick if all the cars out there were mandated to be these tiny econo-boxes. I'm not joking about that any more.
And with no military left, what's left of our hegemony would be gone. Which means no deterrence against other nations doing naughty things like making nuclear and biological weapons, no deterrence against backing terrorist entities in inter-state disputes.
The states each have their own militia, or at least they should, to defend this federation against invasion. The states can, should, and most likely do, have the capability to defend themselves against all kinds of nasty people and their terrible weapons.
And the Arabs can gouge us as much as they want for oil, and the Saudi and Pakistani governments will collapse without support, resulting in takeovers by radical Islamists and a spike in oil prices to 200 dollars a barrel overnight.
Without the federal government telling the individual states that they cannot drill for the oil in their own lands the "Islamists" can charge whatever they want for the oil, we'll be fine. Oh, and the federal government has been holding up the building of new nuclear plants ever since the creation of the Department of (No) Energy.
But a $100M Federal government will never work.
I propose we try. It may come to be since, if the federal government cannot create a budget that the representatives from the states approve and the people can afford, then we just might have a federal government that can only afford to push papers in a handful of federal buildings in the District of Columbia.
What has been shown not to work is the central planning that so many people in our federal government have been pushing to create. They have burdened us with so much bureaucratic bullshit that, even though this federation is just overflowing with natural resources, that we can no longer feed, clothe, or even defend ourselves without bowing to tyrannical dictators in other countries.
We should be able to give a big middle finger to China, Iran, Venezuela, and all those other countries that take our money to fund a war against us. We should be able to deprive them of the funds they use against us and allow them to revert to the third world nothings of a nation before they sunk their teeth into our life blood. We have enough people, steel, coal, oil, and so on to build and operate a military capable of swatting down like an annoying bug any attempts to invade this country and steal our wealth.
Ronald Reagan once said, government is not the solution, it is the problem. To make the federal government get out of our way is, IMHO, to withhold the money it has taken from us to fund the bureaucratic bullshit that has held up things like breaking the shackles of oil dependence and reducing the size of the military.
I must ask... How else do we force the federal government to downsize the military, stop occupying countries, and providing funds to nations that use that money against us, other than by denying that same federal government the money it has been using to do all of this? There are too many in the federal government that see it as their duty to build new nations in far away lands, and create a military capable of doing so. If we hold the federal government to a $100 million per year "allowance" then they can't get us into so much trouble.
There is a very serious flaw in this plan. The TSA has been known to violate this policy. Even though they are required to open luggage containing a firearm only in the presence of the owner they have routinely violated this law. The reason is simple, the law is broken.
The TSA routinely cuts the locks off of luggage they wish to inspect. The law requires that there be no markings on luggage to indicate that they contain a firearm. Since the law does not allow the TSA to mark luggage that contains a firearm, and the TSA routinely cuts the locks off of luggage they wish to inspect, it is inevitable that some TSA agent, ignorant of the contents of the luggage, will cut the lock off a bag containing a firearm. That is precisely what has happened many times now.
The only way to fix this is to treat every bag as if it contains a firearm and not open them unless the owner is present. Another solution, marking the bags that contain firearms, is just asking for unscrupulous baggage handlers to steal them or cut them open. The current requirement that luggage containing firearms to not be marked exists precisely to deter potential theft. To better prevent theft of firearms, or any other property, all luggage should not be using TSA approved locks. No locks shall be cut. All luggage inspections need to be performed in the presence of the owner or his/her advocate.
(with whatever lock you choose, even if it's not a "TSA Approved" lock)
The law REQUIRES that one not use a "TSA approved" lock to secure luggage containing a firearm. Using a TSA approved lock would be, IIRC, a federal felony.
These scanners come in two varieties, one uses millimeter waves and the other uses x-rays. X-rays will pass through clothing, and people, but the detectors are placed and tuned in a way that only the X-rays that bounce off skin and solid objects is detected.
I am guessing the X-ray machines are cheaper which is why they are more popular.
I agree. These scanners will find nothing that a metal detector and those bomb sniffers don't already find. Sure, I suppose someone might be able to sneak one of those ceramic or high density plastic blades on board the plane that these back scatter scanners might find but that problem has already been addressed. Tactics like a bolted door to the pilots and a cabin filled with people (crew and passengers) that know that someone that wields such a weapon can kill everyone on board. These people will react with lethal force using their own fists, feet, and teeth if they must to take that person down.
Bomb sniffers and metal detectors are enough on the ground. Bolted doors and a "to the death" attitude in the air can handle what gets through the detectors. Pat downs should be reserved only for people that are placed under arrest for failure to comply with the safety rules. Anyone that has been patted down is automatically not going to fly, with rare exceptions.
Those bomb sniffers aren't even that great since they are often too sensitive and will pick up a variety of cosmetics, medicines, and just stuff people pick up from the environment and flag it as explosive. Common sense needs to prevail when screening for explosives. The sniffers are great in picking up potentially explosive compounds but really bad at finding an actual bomb. Turning people away only because the sniffer picked up something is stupid because the false positive rate is so high, and if the screeners truly felt the person did have a bomb then that person should not be allowed to walk free, that person needs to be arrested, investigated, and charged with attempted murder or something.
When it comes to the TSA screeners stealing there are two separate issues here. One is the unconstitutional search by an agent of the federal government without warrant or probable cause. No one can tell me that attempting to take a flight in an airplane is probable cause to a government search for explosives or weapons. Let the airline and/or airport staff take over control of the security. I recall that history shows that they are more effective at securing the airport anyway. Might have something to do with the fact that it is their own planes that are being protected, no airline wants to lose an airplane or the passengers within it.
The second issue with items disappearing in the handling of luggage is that the TSA is allowed to search bags in private where no one can see them steal stuff. There is also the plausible deniability on both the part of the TSA and the airline, both groups can point fingers at the other on who stole what. If it is only the airline that handles the luggage then they are solely responsible for any loss along the way. No luggage should be opened without the owner present, excepting some very rare instances. The policy of routinely cutting locks needs to go.
I have flown only once since this TSA nonsense began and that is only because I had a deal on some tickets. After the crap I went through to get on a plane I'm not sure I'd fly if the ticket was free.
someone will snap, someday. a citizen will be pushed too far and then he'll go terrorist on the local 'law enforcement'. its been long coming, too. how long will it take? this is boiling and ready to boil over.
This has happened before. It has happened in the USA. We have had on-duty police get held at gun point by people fed up with the corruption. Oh, and those people that held the LEO didn't end up dead or in jail. I've had similar feelings that this police state has gone on too long and taken too much of our rights. What mostly comes to mind is an outright violent tossing of the TSA from an airport. I envision a mob going through an airport that busts up the back scatter scanners, drags the x-ray machines away, tosses those stupid little trays that they make people put their shoes and keys into, and locks the TSA agents in a room (or just chases them away).
If a lone gunman tries to take out a local police department I suspect it won't go to far. What it would take is a community effort to dislodge the corrupt police. This has happened before in the USA. I suspect it will happen again.
There was a book, Unintended Consequences, that seems to go along these lines. I believe the premise is that a group of people feel that the federal law enforcement have become essentially an occupying force. Since these federal LEOs are no longer defending liberty, but instead are defending unconstitutional law, these people declare war on them and begin to kill them off. I should actually read the book sometime instead of just the WIkipedia summary.
If things continue down this road then I suspect that there will be a time when enough people get the idea that some government agency has failed them and is now worthy of being eliminated. I'm reminded of the four boxes of liberty. They are the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. Use them in that order, starting now. Resorting to the last of the four boxes to create change in the government without first exhausting the first three makes one no better then the government agents they seek to remove from power.
Someone mod parent up, I already made a comment. More people need to know about how the Department of Justice has been funding the drug war by buying guns for the drug smugglers. It's called "Project Fast and Furious", Google it.
People don't always do what is in their best interest. Taxation and government spending can get things done that people would not otherwise do of their own volition.
Who gets to decide what is in my best interest?
That kind of thinking makes me reach for my revolver. In this world where others get to decide what is best for me do I still get to choose what movies I watch? Will I get to choose what kind of work I do for a living or will I be assigned a job by the government? Do I still get to choose where I live? What I eat? When I go to bed?
OK, all of that is nonsense. Of course I can watch the movies I want, eat what I want, go to bed when I want. What really concerns me is that if we take this "we know what's best for you" to its logical conclusion, will I be able to vote for the person I wish to be in office? Think about that. If the government declares itself the arbiter of "what's best for me" and I disagree then the first thing I will do is seek to remove these tyrants from office.
There are elements in the government that felt they knew what was best for me and decided that some substances are bad for me. Therefore possessing them without their explicit permission is a felony. Now the government has thugs, and dogs, sniffing around the neighborhood looking for these substances. If they find them they will kick down doors and drag people away. Because the government "knows what's best for me" it's easier for me to get meth than it is to get effective cold medicine. Because the government knows what's best the education in this federation is the worst its been in decades.
Because the government knows best I had all kinds of papers to fill out when buying my revolver. I had to show government issued ID, and the dealer had to call the government to make sure I had permission to own that revolver. The government was kind enough to let me walk out of the store with that revolver. The government now has a record of where I live and what model of revolver I own. The government has been kind enough to allow me to keep my revolver. How long will that last if it is the government that gets to decide "what's best for me"?
No, the government does not have my best interests in mind. The government has what is in its own interests in mind. The government will take my money, my guns, and will even take my life, if that is what the government feels is "what's best for me" if allowed to do so. There are just some things that the government cannot do. That starts with no taxation without representation. If the people don't want the government to take their money and use it for something they do not approve of then they have the right to speak out against it. If people lose that ability then history can show us the result. It usually ends with the tree of liberty being refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
At any rate, cutting taxes for the wealthy hasn't exactly been working out so well. And we've got more than enough capital right now in the markets. What we don't have is consumer spending because all that money is going to the wealthiest.
Right. We don't have spending because those wealthy people are lighting their cigars with $100 bills.
I recall my history teacher talking about how "trickle down economics" was such a failure. He told the class about how these wealthy people took the money they saved in taxes and, instead of using it to invest in businesses, used it for cars, boats, vacations, etc. All of this money was WASTED on their own entertainment instead of providing jobs for the poor.
That made sense to my immature mind at the time. It took me probably a decade until I saw the folly in this. Where did that money go? Wasted? Well someone had to build those cars and boats. Someone had to serve these wealthy people their wine and cheese. Someone carried their clubs on the golf course, mowed the greens, parked their cars. They spend their money somehow, some way. Even if they put the money in a bank that bank now has more assets to make loans. Even if they use their money to buy gold bars to bury in their back yard that cash gets returned to the market. Even if they burn the cash to light their cigars that creates a scarcity of the dollar, thus improving the value of that dollar.
I no longer see the value in increasing taxes to the rich. I do see much value in reducing the burden the government has placed on us all. I see too much waste in government. Much of it has to do with the wars... I mean, kinetic military actions that are going on right now. Maybe the government could save a few bucks by not buying weapons for the drug cartels? I know, that government program wouldn't save a whole lot of money but, hey, it's a start.
Explain how efficiency requirements for bulbs are going to push manufacturing out of the U.S.
Not just efficiency but also pollution legislation. The manufacture of these CFL lamps requires the use of mercury. Because of the regulation on the handling of mercury in this country it is much cheaper to open up a factory in another country. I recall reading that the last light bulb factory in the USA closed down some time ago. Now we can't even make our own light bulbs in this country.
The regulations on pollution and efficiency in this country are reaching the absurd. Some of them have gone beyond absurd. Things like the regulations on lead content have gone to where, despite any evidence of this actually occurring, we can no longer hunt in certain places with lead projectiles in our shotgun shells. Lead occurs in nature. It lies there on the ground. When we go out in the woods to shoot we are only returning to the Earth what we dug up from it.
Another example of this absurdity was the oil sucking ship that was turned away from the Gulf of Mexico oil slick because the water it returned to the ocean could not meet the requirements of oil content in water expelled into the ocean, Good thing we did that because it just might make the oil slick worse or some shit.
There are all kinds of examples of this absurd level of concern over pollution not only being detrimental to our economy but actually being detrimental to our environment. Do you really think that China is all that concerned about the level of carbon, or mercury, it releases into the environment to make CFL light bulbs to be shipped to the USA? No, they don't care. What that means is that not only is the USA unable to make the light bulbs it needs but that China is now pumping all kinds of crap into the air.
You want to see less mercury in the air? I certainly do. Now tell me what China is doing right now to make sure that the mercury does not end up in the air on all of their coal fired plants that power their CFL factories. The wind that blows over China ends up in the USA. We can see their pollution end up in California. Perhaps we could scale back some of our pollution controls so we can make our own stuff here where we can have a real effect on the quality of the air we breathe. It may seem counter intuitive but loosening the air quality standards might actually make the air cleaner. It would also allow domestic manufacturing to be profitable. With unemployment so high here that would be a good thing right now.
I just saw an article pointing out an effort in Texas to go around this light bulb efficiency mandate by producing and selling the bulbs within the state.
I believe this has merit. This is the same argument to allow medicinal marijuana in California, and avoid firearm controls and taxes in Montana. The federal government is only empowered to regulate commerce among the states, not within them. If the lamps never enter or leave the state then the federal government has no jurisdiction.
yes it is. Incandescent bulbs are a seriously poor way to heat homes.
How are incandescent bulbs any different than any other form of resistive heating? Resistive heating is safe. (Well, it's safer since there is no chance of suffocation from burning wood or oil.) It's also easy to control. If it is such a poor way to heat homes then why is it so popular? If we just had more nuclear, hydro, and wind electricity generation this would not be an issue and perhaps most everyone would use electric heat.
Light bulbs reduce the need for central heating in cold areas.
And increase it in hot areas which is just about half the US at a minimum in the summer.
Then place the restrictions on the use of these lamps in warm areas of the country. Let the people in Alaska buy the cheap and inefficient lamps if they like.
They also provide a better light spectrum.
Technology issue that is being solved.
Let me know when that problem is solved. Until then I prefer the incandescent.
Funny, the article addresses this. *More* mercury is released by the coal plants to power the extra energy needs of incandescent bulbs than is in the CFL bulbs themselves. So the 'toxicity' issue is moot. 'Neither' would be a better option of course.
I'd rather we use nuclear power to reduce mercury in the environment than sitting in the dark.
Of course if you switch to all renewable energy sources the 'efficiency' issue also becomes just about moot since the 'fuel' would be free.
The price of the fuel is essentially irrelevant. Wind and solar are probably the most expensive ways to produce electricity. That is because of the labor and materials involved to construct and maintain the panels and mills. Just like the CFL bulbs don't add up for me since the cost of buying them do not cover the savings in electricity costs. The bulbs typically fail well before the stated expected life span. Much of this has to do with the fixtures I have in my home, they don't allow the bulbs to stay cool. Some of it might have to do with the low quality power I get, my house is near the end of a long overhead power line which picks up all kinds of noise. The large (100 watt equivalent) lamps seem to handle things well but they don't fit in most of my fixtures.
Technologies competing with incandescent just aren't mature enough yet. I'm confident that they will in time on their own. We don't need federal mandates and subsidies for the inevitable to happen. In some cases these mandates are counter productive since there is a social element to this. People don't like being told what to do and will resist as a matter of course. Let this take it's course naturally and we'll get there. Trying to force the issue only makes enemies.
You know what I'll do, I'll buy me some of them fancy new "heat balls" to, you know, "heat" my living room. They are cheap and fit nicely into my existing lamp holders.
Seriously though the ban has enough loop holes to drive a truck through. The ban does not affect special purpose lamps. A rough service bulb does not have to meet the efficiency standards, neither do appliance (cold and hot environment) lamps. I believe decorative lamps are also excepted, such as those globe lamps used on bathroom mirrors and the candle looking lamps used on chandeliers.
It will raise the price of these lamps but the incandescent lamps will still be available. What does bother me about all of these regulations on efficiency and pollution is that, first, this is driving much of the manufacturing out of the USA. This country can no longer manufacture things like light bulbs and solar panels because the environmental requirements are so strict. Second, much of these regulations on pollution is based on a still disputed claim over "climate change" caused by human activity.
It has become obvious to me that much of the regulations on "climate change" is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme. The USA is held to a different carbon output standard than China. There should be no surprise to anyone that doing so drives manufacturing from the USA to China. That is not only unsurprising but a desired outcome, because if these people were really concerned about pollution then all nations would be held to the same standard.
If the government wants to have this country reduce its carbon output the solution is simple, stop with this bureaucratic nonsense and let people build nuclear power plants. If we had a large portion of our power from nuclear power then it would not matter what kind of lighting we buy. It is quite possible that coal power would have been obsoleted by now if the government had not held up new construction of nuclear power for three decades. Add nuclear power along with hydro, wind, and maybe even solar* and we would not need coal. We'd probably still need to burn some natural gas and diesel for peak loads and emergency power but we should have had the dirty coal plants priced out of the market by now.
* Solar power is still, even after many decades of research, very expensive. It will likely remain as a special purpose power source for all time. Combine the expense with the inherent unreliability of solar power and it just does not make much sense for grid power.
I place a certain value on my privacy. I had one of those "loyalty cards" years ago at the nearby grocery. I'd use it to get the cheaper price on the stuff they sold me. In return I got a bunch of junk in the mail trying to sell me more stuff. When I stopped using the card I got less junk in the mail.
I had a credit card. In exchange for using the credit card the credit card company sent me stuff in the mail trying to sell me more stuff. They would also call me at home. How far and wide this information on my buying habits went hit me when I used my credit card at a gas station I don't normally visit and a couple weeks later I got a credit card advertisement in the mail from the gas station. I pay for my fuel and groceries with cash now excepting rare occasions when I forget to stop by the bank before my wallet gets too thin, then I pull out my debit card.
Not only does using cash prevent banks from selling my buying habits it also avoids the threat of my bank account information from being stolen with those hidden card readers that are popping up on gas pumps and the like. I don't even like to use ATMs any more. Not only is there a threat of my card getting copied by a hidden card reader the ATMs spit out only $20 bills. With a tank of gas costing over $60 and a grocery cart filled with food typically costing around $100 I prefer to see a real live teller so I can get $50 and $100 bills, that way my wallet doesn't get so fat and I can still buy what I need.
Now, I just wish those vending machines would take $2 and $5 bills. With a bottle of soda costing around $1.50 it makes sense to me to take the larger bills. This is also because I've had to not buy a drink because my wallet is full of $5, $20, and $100 bills.
All the crap in the mail, and the phone calls interrupting my supper, stopped for the most part once I got rid of my credit cards. Not using a debit or credit card for most purchases does mean a few more trips to the bank and having to pay for gas inside the station but that is a minor inconvenience. The bank is within walking distance of my house, and I'll often go into the gas station anyway when I travel to get a snack or use the restroom. It keeps the junk mail and cold calls down.
In my experience, the TSA guy has always slapped a sticker on my bag that says it has been searched (one of those shiny hologram TSA logo ones).
Yes, and an honest TSA agent will do so. The problem lies with opening the baggage in your absence if there is a firearm inside as this is a federal felony. The TSA does not always know which bags have a firearm in them since their own rules dictate that baggage is to not have any external marking to indicate a firearm is inside. All bags with a firearm in them must have a non-TSA approved lock. Not all bags with a non-TSA approved lock have a firearm in them. If there is a TSA approved lock on it then there is not a firearm inside.
If the TSA requires firearms to be locked with a non-TSA lock then they should assume that every bag with a non-TSA lock has a firearm and they should not cut open the bag. If the TSA requires a TSA approved lock for all baggage that does NOT contain a firearm then what they have done is create a de jure marking on the exterior of the baggage that a firearm is inside. Their own rules require that there be no such external markings.
What happens if a dishonest TSA agent opens a bag? Is there still a sticker applied with the TSA logo? Will all the contents still remain? What if a firearm happens to be inside? Will it still be there when the passenger gets it?
Logic dictates to me that there should be no usage of bolt cutters to open baggage excepting some very rare instances. This is precisely because a non-TSA lock is required to secure a firearm to transport on a plane. If there is a TSA lock on the bag then a key should be used, not a bolt cutters. Until the TSA requires that all baggage secured with a non-TSA approved lock be opened only in the presence of the owner we will continue to see the TSA violate their own policies that baggage that contains a firearm to NOT be opened unless the owner is present.
The very fact that TSA approved locks exist will give an indication to the presence or absence of a firearm in the luggage. If it has a TSA approved lock then it does not contain a firearm. Logic dictates that TSA approved lock should not even exist if strict following of their own rules are followed, that no external markings are to be present to indicate the presence of a firearm inside a bag.
I will NEVER EVER use a TSA approved lock on my luggage. This requires the TSA to either gain my permission to open the bag, or to use a bolt cutter. A TSA approved lock allows dishonest TSA agents to open the bag without providing indications it was opened. Honest TSA agents should know better to cut a lock they cannot open with the TSA master key since there might be a firearm inside. Dishonest ones will still cut the lock but then at least there will be a very visible indication of them doing so. If I also place a firearm inside, which I plan to do if I ever fly again, then not only will there be visible indications of it being opened that will also be evidence of a felony. This means that the FBI, ATF, FAA, and probably a few other alphabet agencies will get involved. This applies even if a sticker is placed on the bag with a TSA logo.
It seems quite logical to me on how the TSA fails in following their own rules. It seems quite logical on how they can fix the rules so that the rules no longer conflict. Just more proof that law and logic rarely meet,
That is true. However it's not a big deal. Most of crimes are occurring in two places - in private homes and in businesses (largely pharmacies.) Not too many people are mugged in the street, in part because nobody walks in CA - everyone drives.
I'm quite certain people still get mugged and molested on the street. "Most" is meaningless until it happens to you.
One area of conflict would be bars in bad parts of towns. But you don't want guys there to carry weapons, legal or not.
Many states allow concealed weapons into bars and there has not been a problem. It's the person, not the gun, that causes a problem. So long as the weapon is carried by a law abiding citizen there is not a problem, history proves that. The problem is that criminals do not obey the no weapons allowed policies of places that serve alcohol. When that happens a lot of people can end up dead precisely because the law disarmed them. Look up Suzanna Hupp and Nikki Goeser to find out what happens when an armed man enters a restaurant or bar filled with unarmed customers.
You are very vulnerable in the street, and a few guys (who you can't preemptively attack) can just grab you and take everything you have, including the weapon. Even one guy can throw a brick at you and take you out.
Concealed weapons law does not prevent every mugging, I will admit to that. What I do know is that there is a very real trend of concealed weapons reducing the frequency of violent crime, especially that of rape.
There are very, very few real CCW situations when having a weapon could make a positive difference. Your cell phone can be far more effective - instead of shooting at the car with escaping criminals (which is illegal and will surely land you in jail) you instead should tell the 911 call taker how the car looks like, the plate, the direction of travel, condition of the victim, etc. It's hard to outrun Motorola; you need to get more people on your side as fast as possible.
If the person hit you over the head with a brick then how are you going to have the mental capacity to operate a cell phone? If you did retain the capacity to operate a handheld device while someone was hitting you over the head with a brick which would you grab if available to you, a cell phone so the police can pick up your lifeless body in an hour, or grab a gun so you can end the attack before you end up dead?
I'm not suggesting that one does not call 911, I even stated that the police should be called in the examples I gave in my original post. In the mean time one will have to deal with the matter on their own.
There is also another old trick. You confront some criminal and draw on him to stop the crime. He stops and runs away. Then he calls 911 and reports you, the CCW holder, to the police - and the police will put you through the grinder for alleged "brandishing." Good luck with that - you may need a good lawyer and lots of luck. Criminals are good at lying, and they can deliver witnesses who actually haven't been there but say they were. If you have five witnesses against you your goose is cooked.
That is why instructors for concealed carry classes tell their students to call 911 whenever they pull their weapon. If that happens the crook cannot just call the police on the CCW holder, because the CCW holder has already called the police. I'll pay the legal bills if a crook runs away, because that means that I did not end up dead. It also means that the crook just got some negative reinforcement. If the crook keeps coming across armed citizens that crook is either going to find a different line of work, or end up dead from starvation, exposure, or a law abiding citizen's bullet.
I have permits to carry a concealed weapon from three different states. From what I can tell there are very few states that will give a "brandishing" charge to someone that pulls their weapon, and
(yes, you use NON-TSA compliant locks when transporting firearms, by law, and since they've already screened your luggage, they have a lot more restrictions on whether they can open it again).
Not only CAN you use a non-TSA lock when flying with a firearm but you MUST lock your firearm with a lock that only you have the key to open. The TSA does not trust their own handlers to not steal firearms. The airlines do not trust their baggage handlers to not steal firearms. Any attempt to open that luggage without your knowledge is a federal felony.
There is one problem with this plan. The rules require that there be no markings on the bag to indicate the presence of the firearm. The TSA routinely cuts the locks to baggage that they cannot open with a TSA master key. A bag with a firearm can be cut open despite the severe penalties for doing so. This has happened. This will continue to be a problem so long as bolt cutters are standard equipment for TSA baggage screeners.
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We can keep talking about how much Earth is warming, and if it is warming at all, but what I want to know is what are we supposed to do about it?
Someone else came up with this so I can't take the credit. We need to pick one:
A) Fossil fuels and any global warming it may or may not cause.
B) Agrarian society.
C) Nuclear power.
Some will say that there is a choice "D". I've had people tell me that we can choose some future energy technology or energy source. That's fine, we can keep searching for the perfect energy source but until then we have the three choices above. I've also had people that choice "D" is conservation. Conservation is just using the energy sources we have meagerly and wisely, it does not actually create energy. That energy will have to come from somewhere. Conservation taken to the extreme is approaching agrarian society.
I've also had people tell me that we don't have to revert to horse and buggy, and subsistence farming, we can use solar, wind, hydro, and bio-fuels. What do you think that people were using to power their daily lives a thousand years ago? They used wind, solar, hydro, and bio-fuels. They had windmills and watermills to pump water and grind grain. They burned wood and dung to heat their homes and cook their food. Without nuclear power or fossil fuels energy would be so expensive that we would slowly revert to the same level. Lacking the power that only nuclear and fossil sources provide we would not be able to perform the energy intensive tasks of mining, refining, and machining of metals. Any kind of aircraft would be novelties reserved for the extremely wealthy. Any nation that decided to shun both fossil fuels and nuclear power would be invaded by the nations that did not, and they'd be fighting off helicopters with soldiers on horseback swinging sabres.
Enough talk about how we are destroying Earth with fossil fuels. Let's talk about solutions. Let's build some nuclear power plants already. We should not see another coal fired power plant be built in this country ever again. I don't care if the world is getting warmer or not we need energy. I can understand those that don't want to fuck up the planet, what we need is an "out". If these people are standing in the way of both fossil fuels AND nuclear power then they are telling us we need to ride a horse to work. I don't like fossil fuels because we are shipping our wealth to nations that don't like us very much in exchange for something that we can produce ourselves if it wasn't for all the politics involved. We need energy or we will be living like "Little House on the Prairie".
To those of you that don't want people burning fossil fuels I'll just say I'm sold on the idea. I'm not sold because of the climate change theory but because of the realities of the economics. We just cannot continue to burn fossil fuels indefinitely, we must find another solution at some point. Unless or until we find something else we are left with nuclear power or horses and buggies.
If that's not good enough for you then fine, I'll admit that I am destroying Earth every time I turn on a light or drive my truck. Now, what do we do about it?
I doubt that Apple gives a damn about what you do with your data. I suspect your wiped iPod had more to do with the RIAA and/or record labels than Apple. I'm quite certain that lost data is a Bad Thingâ in the computer and consumer electronic world and Apple, living in that world, is not going to like dissatisfied customers due to lost data.
It's the RIAA that was teaching you this lesson, not Apple. It's because of this RIAA nonsense that I have not bought any music in years. I was at a local big box store shopping for CDs and noticed that none of the so called CDs had the CD standard label on them. In fact most of them had warnings that they would not play in some CD players. Why would I buy a CD with a label that stated quite plainly that it might not perform the task that I it is supposedly intended to perform?
Oh, and I did something similar with iTunes. I was able to move all my music from a backup to my new computer. iTunes just sucked up all the files and cataloged them for me. It even downloaded the album art for most of my CDs. All of my iTunes music is from CD, the real deal CD, not those shiny discs that pose as CDs in the stores today.
Now get off my lawn!
so where does the laser power sent to the drones come from ?
From coal fired generators. Afghanistan has plenty of coal. Another option is solar arrays. Afghanistan also has plenty of sunshine.
I was thinking more along the lines of a nuclear reactor. It's no secret that the military has been working on nuclear power plants that will fit inside a 40 foot ISO container. I don't know how much power one of these reactors can produce but it seems that the military has no shortage of trucks to keep bringing in fuel. Instead of bringing in fuel they can keep stacking up nuclear power plants until they have enough to meet their power needs.
I'm sure someone will consider these reactors a "proliferation" risk but they can be fueled with material that is worthless for nuclear weapons production. I believe there are thorium reactor designs that can be scaled down to where they can fit in a standard ISO container.
These reactors will be very expensive to build, at least at first, but there is considerable cost in fuel as well. I'm sure someone is working out the math right now in the DoD.
In many states there is a law that allows the police force a blood alcohol content test on a person. If a person has a license to drive the officer can force a blood sample from the driver. This also seems to be a trend for states that issue licenses to carry a firearm. Some states are so backward that the police are allowed to arrest people that "fake" drunkenness. You mouth off to the police then you are going with them for "public intoxication". I don't know if the police can take a blood sample then as a means to determine guilt but I would not be surprised if that is the case.
The point is that there may already be laws in California that allows for the taking of a blood sample, and therefore a DNA sample. Even though there may not be a formal database of DNA samples of those arrested on felonies there may already be laws that the police can exploit to build this database. Unless there is a law restricting the use of blood samples taken during a drunk driving stop I suspect someone in the government sees those samples as a way to prop up their career by (ab)using them and go fishing for DNA that might match up with a cold case.
This law being struck down is a nice start, we still have a long way to go in this country. Now lets see the courts strike down the licensing checkpoints in California. You know, those roadblocks where the police stop every car and ask the driver for their papers? Where if you cannot produce a valid license to drive they confiscate your car? The government has been getting away with way too much peeking into our lives.
All of this 3D printing is cool but I think the technology has a long way to go. This won't get much market share as the practical applications are minimal.
Let me know when these 3D printers can print me a Milla Jovovich then I'll go buy one.
From TFA:
The Obama administration is committed to "restarting the American nuclear industry," he said.
Bullshit!
If there was a commitment to restarting the American nuclear industry there would not be this overwhelming problem of disposing of nuclear waste. Spent fuel from the existing nuclear power plants could be used as fuel in next generation nuclear power plants. There are already applications for building these power plants that are three decades old! Let these people build their power plants and the waste problem would solve itself.
Oh, there is another source of nuclear waste, the federal ban on reprocessing the existing spent fuel. If this ban was lifted then even current nuclear power plants could burn the reprocessed spent fuel.
One thing I learned in my research of this nuclear waste "problem" is that if something is radioactive there is a very high probability that the stuff is either a valuable industrial, scientific, commercial, or medical commodity, or it is fuel for a nuclear reactor.
Sure, there is probably some radioactive stuff out there that just cannot be recycled into something useful. It seems to me that such items are quite rare and will be low level emitters of radiation. If they were highly radioactive then it would fall under the valuable commodity or nuclear fuel umbrellas. This low level radioactive junk will need to be disposed of properly but it should not require some massive salt mine to contain it. For that stuff I suggest bringing it to Detroit, there's nobody left there to complain.
The "Hydrogen Economy" is a scam.
Agreed. Hydrogen is difficult to produce, store, and transport safely and efficiently. I expect synthesized hydrocarbons to become viable first. Part of the synthetic fuel equation might be industrial hydrogen production but that will only be a feedstock for the synthetic fuel.
What many people have already realized is that the most efficient means to store and transport hydrogen is by combining it with carbon. This means we will continue to have vehicles running on hydrocarbons but the source will be production facilities powered by coal or nuclear reactors instead of digging it out of the ground.
It seems to me that the second most efficient means to transport hydrogen is by attaching it to nitrogen. This would mean an "ammonia economy". Ammonia can be stored, transported, and burned much like natural gas. We already see natural gas powered vehicles so conversion to ammonia would seem trivial.
Honda is working on a home hydrogen fuel station that connects to your water main and somehow generates hydrogen from the water mains. Not sure how that is accomplished.
It's called electrolysis, it's not difficult to do. I was able to electrolyze water into oxygen and hydrogen in high school with some wire, a lantern battery, a discarded jelly jar, and some other odd items. The hard part is making it efficient and safe. Storing hydrogen is difficult on it's own. Because of these issues I don't expect this to become a household item for a very long time, if ever.
Hasn't worked to date... How much more expensive would gas have to be before we stop seeing one-person-occupied SUVs? $5/gal? $10/gal?
Personally the price would have to get to about $20 or $25 per gallon. I don't drive much so my fuel costs are minimal. When it came time for me to get a new car I did some math on total cost of ownership comparing a used/inefficient vehicle with a new/efficient vehicle. I compared cheap used trucks and SUVs against more expensive new cars, trucks, and SUVs. My calculations included the hybrids, diesels, and natural gas cars along with the more common used gasoline burners. It was only when gasoline became more than somewhere between $20 to $25 per gallon that I'd be saving money on a more efficient vehicle.
I ended up buying a light SUV. Part of that choice was based on the issue that my garage could not hold a full sized SUV comfortably. I'm quite tall so finding a vehicle that "fits" is difficult and tends to go towards large vehicles. I don't expect this situation to change unless the average height of the car buying market approaches my own height.
If gasoline does begin to get that high I would likely not sell my SUV as I suspect I would get next to nothing for it and I'd still need the space and off road capability to go hunting, camping, and target shooting. I'd probably get a natural gas vehicle for my daily commute and keep my SUV for longer drives and trips to the shooting range.
I doubt gasoline would get that high any time soon. The economy would almost shutdown if it did. We'd start drilling for more domestic oil, digging up oil shale, we might even be hunting whales for whale oil if fuel got that high.
I once joked that I'd buy a Topkick if all the cars out there were mandated to be these tiny econo-boxes. I'm not joking about that any more.
And with no military left, what's left of our hegemony would be gone. Which means no deterrence against other nations doing naughty things like making nuclear and biological weapons, no deterrence against backing terrorist entities in inter-state disputes.
The states each have their own militia, or at least they should, to defend this federation against invasion. The states can, should, and most likely do, have the capability to defend themselves against all kinds of nasty people and their terrible weapons.
And the Arabs can gouge us as much as they want for oil, and the Saudi and Pakistani governments will collapse without support, resulting in takeovers by radical Islamists and a spike in oil prices to 200 dollars a barrel overnight.
Without the federal government telling the individual states that they cannot drill for the oil in their own lands the "Islamists" can charge whatever they want for the oil, we'll be fine. Oh, and the federal government has been holding up the building of new nuclear plants ever since the creation of the Department of (No) Energy.
But a $100M Federal government will never work.
I propose we try. It may come to be since, if the federal government cannot create a budget that the representatives from the states approve and the people can afford, then we just might have a federal government that can only afford to push papers in a handful of federal buildings in the District of Columbia.
What has been shown not to work is the central planning that so many people in our federal government have been pushing to create. They have burdened us with so much bureaucratic bullshit that, even though this federation is just overflowing with natural resources, that we can no longer feed, clothe, or even defend ourselves without bowing to tyrannical dictators in other countries.
We should be able to give a big middle finger to China, Iran, Venezuela, and all those other countries that take our money to fund a war against us. We should be able to deprive them of the funds they use against us and allow them to revert to the third world nothings of a nation before they sunk their teeth into our life blood. We have enough people, steel, coal, oil, and so on to build and operate a military capable of swatting down like an annoying bug any attempts to invade this country and steal our wealth.
Ronald Reagan once said, government is not the solution, it is the problem. To make the federal government get out of our way is, IMHO, to withhold the money it has taken from us to fund the bureaucratic bullshit that has held up things like breaking the shackles of oil dependence and reducing the size of the military.
I must ask... How else do we force the federal government to downsize the military, stop occupying countries, and providing funds to nations that use that money against us, other than by denying that same federal government the money it has been using to do all of this? There are too many in the federal government that see it as their duty to build new nations in far away lands, and create a military capable of doing so. If we hold the federal government to a $100 million per year "allowance" then they can't get us into so much trouble.
There is a very serious flaw in this plan. The TSA has been known to violate this policy. Even though they are required to open luggage containing a firearm only in the presence of the owner they have routinely violated this law. The reason is simple, the law is broken.
The TSA routinely cuts the locks off of luggage they wish to inspect. The law requires that there be no markings on luggage to indicate that they contain a firearm. Since the law does not allow the TSA to mark luggage that contains a firearm, and the TSA routinely cuts the locks off of luggage they wish to inspect, it is inevitable that some TSA agent, ignorant of the contents of the luggage, will cut the lock off a bag containing a firearm. That is precisely what has happened many times now.
The only way to fix this is to treat every bag as if it contains a firearm and not open them unless the owner is present. Another solution, marking the bags that contain firearms, is just asking for unscrupulous baggage handlers to steal them or cut them open. The current requirement that luggage containing firearms to not be marked exists precisely to deter potential theft. To better prevent theft of firearms, or any other property, all luggage should not be using TSA approved locks. No locks shall be cut. All luggage inspections need to be performed in the presence of the owner or his/her advocate.
(with whatever lock you choose, even if it's not a "TSA Approved" lock)
The law REQUIRES that one not use a "TSA approved" lock to secure luggage containing a firearm. Using a TSA approved lock would be, IIRC, a federal felony.
These scanners come in two varieties, one uses millimeter waves and the other uses x-rays. X-rays will pass through clothing, and people, but the detectors are placed and tuned in a way that only the X-rays that bounce off skin and solid objects is detected.
I am guessing the X-ray machines are cheaper which is why they are more popular.
I agree. These scanners will find nothing that a metal detector and those bomb sniffers don't already find. Sure, I suppose someone might be able to sneak one of those ceramic or high density plastic blades on board the plane that these back scatter scanners might find but that problem has already been addressed. Tactics like a bolted door to the pilots and a cabin filled with people (crew and passengers) that know that someone that wields such a weapon can kill everyone on board. These people will react with lethal force using their own fists, feet, and teeth if they must to take that person down.
Bomb sniffers and metal detectors are enough on the ground. Bolted doors and a "to the death" attitude in the air can handle what gets through the detectors. Pat downs should be reserved only for people that are placed under arrest for failure to comply with the safety rules. Anyone that has been patted down is automatically not going to fly, with rare exceptions.
Those bomb sniffers aren't even that great since they are often too sensitive and will pick up a variety of cosmetics, medicines, and just stuff people pick up from the environment and flag it as explosive. Common sense needs to prevail when screening for explosives. The sniffers are great in picking up potentially explosive compounds but really bad at finding an actual bomb. Turning people away only because the sniffer picked up something is stupid because the false positive rate is so high, and if the screeners truly felt the person did have a bomb then that person should not be allowed to walk free, that person needs to be arrested, investigated, and charged with attempted murder or something.
When it comes to the TSA screeners stealing there are two separate issues here. One is the unconstitutional search by an agent of the federal government without warrant or probable cause. No one can tell me that attempting to take a flight in an airplane is probable cause to a government search for explosives or weapons. Let the airline and/or airport staff take over control of the security. I recall that history shows that they are more effective at securing the airport anyway. Might have something to do with the fact that it is their own planes that are being protected, no airline wants to lose an airplane or the passengers within it.
The second issue with items disappearing in the handling of luggage is that the TSA is allowed to search bags in private where no one can see them steal stuff. There is also the plausible deniability on both the part of the TSA and the airline, both groups can point fingers at the other on who stole what. If it is only the airline that handles the luggage then they are solely responsible for any loss along the way. No luggage should be opened without the owner present, excepting some very rare instances. The policy of routinely cutting locks needs to go.
I have flown only once since this TSA nonsense began and that is only because I had a deal on some tickets. After the crap I went through to get on a plane I'm not sure I'd fly if the ticket was free.
someone will snap, someday. a citizen will be pushed too far and then he'll go terrorist on the local 'law enforcement'. its been long coming, too. how long will it take? this is boiling and ready to boil over.
This has happened before. It has happened in the USA. We have had on-duty police get held at gun point by people fed up with the corruption. Oh, and those people that held the LEO didn't end up dead or in jail. I've had similar feelings that this police state has gone on too long and taken too much of our rights. What mostly comes to mind is an outright violent tossing of the TSA from an airport. I envision a mob going through an airport that busts up the back scatter scanners, drags the x-ray machines away, tosses those stupid little trays that they make people put their shoes and keys into, and locks the TSA agents in a room (or just chases them away).
If a lone gunman tries to take out a local police department I suspect it won't go to far. What it would take is a community effort to dislodge the corrupt police. This has happened before in the USA. I suspect it will happen again.
There was a book, Unintended Consequences, that seems to go along these lines. I believe the premise is that a group of people feel that the federal law enforcement have become essentially an occupying force. Since these federal LEOs are no longer defending liberty, but instead are defending unconstitutional law, these people declare war on them and begin to kill them off. I should actually read the book sometime instead of just the WIkipedia summary.
If things continue down this road then I suspect that there will be a time when enough people get the idea that some government agency has failed them and is now worthy of being eliminated. I'm reminded of the four boxes of liberty. They are the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. Use them in that order, starting now. Resorting to the last of the four boxes to create change in the government without first exhausting the first three makes one no better then the government agents they seek to remove from power.
Someone mod parent up, I already made a comment. More people need to know about how the Department of Justice has been funding the drug war by buying guns for the drug smugglers. It's called "Project Fast and Furious", Google it.
People don't always do what is in their best interest. Taxation and government spending can get things done that people would not otherwise do of their own volition.
Who gets to decide what is in my best interest?
That kind of thinking makes me reach for my revolver. In this world where others get to decide what is best for me do I still get to choose what movies I watch? Will I get to choose what kind of work I do for a living or will I be assigned a job by the government? Do I still get to choose where I live? What I eat? When I go to bed?
OK, all of that is nonsense. Of course I can watch the movies I want, eat what I want, go to bed when I want. What really concerns me is that if we take this "we know what's best for you" to its logical conclusion, will I be able to vote for the person I wish to be in office? Think about that. If the government declares itself the arbiter of "what's best for me" and I disagree then the first thing I will do is seek to remove these tyrants from office.
There are elements in the government that felt they knew what was best for me and decided that some substances are bad for me. Therefore possessing them without their explicit permission is a felony. Now the government has thugs, and dogs, sniffing around the neighborhood looking for these substances. If they find them they will kick down doors and drag people away. Because the government "knows what's best for me" it's easier for me to get meth than it is to get effective cold medicine. Because the government knows what's best the education in this federation is the worst its been in decades.
Because the government knows best I had all kinds of papers to fill out when buying my revolver. I had to show government issued ID, and the dealer had to call the government to make sure I had permission to own that revolver. The government was kind enough to let me walk out of the store with that revolver. The government now has a record of where I live and what model of revolver I own. The government has been kind enough to allow me to keep my revolver. How long will that last if it is the government that gets to decide "what's best for me"?
No, the government does not have my best interests in mind. The government has what is in its own interests in mind. The government will take my money, my guns, and will even take my life, if that is what the government feels is "what's best for me" if allowed to do so. There are just some things that the government cannot do. That starts with no taxation without representation. If the people don't want the government to take their money and use it for something they do not approve of then they have the right to speak out against it. If people lose that ability then history can show us the result. It usually ends with the tree of liberty being refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
At any rate, cutting taxes for the wealthy hasn't exactly been working out so well. And we've got more than enough capital right now in the markets. What we don't have is consumer spending because all that money is going to the wealthiest.
Right. We don't have spending because those wealthy people are lighting their cigars with $100 bills.
I recall my history teacher talking about how "trickle down economics" was such a failure. He told the class about how these wealthy people took the money they saved in taxes and, instead of using it to invest in businesses, used it for cars, boats, vacations, etc. All of this money was WASTED on their own entertainment instead of providing jobs for the poor.
That made sense to my immature mind at the time. It took me probably a decade until I saw the folly in this. Where did that money go? Wasted? Well someone had to build those cars and boats. Someone had to serve these wealthy people their wine and cheese. Someone carried their clubs on the golf course, mowed the greens, parked their cars. They spend their money somehow, some way. Even if they put the money in a bank that bank now has more assets to make loans. Even if they use their money to buy gold bars to bury in their back yard that cash gets returned to the market. Even if they burn the cash to light their cigars that creates a scarcity of the dollar, thus improving the value of that dollar.
I no longer see the value in increasing taxes to the rich. I do see much value in reducing the burden the government has placed on us all. I see too much waste in government. Much of it has to do with the wars... I mean, kinetic military actions that are going on right now. Maybe the government could save a few bucks by not buying weapons for the drug cartels? I know, that government program wouldn't save a whole lot of money but, hey, it's a start.
Explain how efficiency requirements for bulbs are going to push manufacturing out of the U.S.
Not just efficiency but also pollution legislation. The manufacture of these CFL lamps requires the use of mercury. Because of the regulation on the handling of mercury in this country it is much cheaper to open up a factory in another country. I recall reading that the last light bulb factory in the USA closed down some time ago. Now we can't even make our own light bulbs in this country.
The regulations on pollution and efficiency in this country are reaching the absurd. Some of them have gone beyond absurd. Things like the regulations on lead content have gone to where, despite any evidence of this actually occurring, we can no longer hunt in certain places with lead projectiles in our shotgun shells. Lead occurs in nature. It lies there on the ground. When we go out in the woods to shoot we are only returning to the Earth what we dug up from it.
Another example of this absurdity was the oil sucking ship that was turned away from the Gulf of Mexico oil slick because the water it returned to the ocean could not meet the requirements of oil content in water expelled into the ocean, Good thing we did that because it just might make the oil slick worse or some shit.
There are all kinds of examples of this absurd level of concern over pollution not only being detrimental to our economy but actually being detrimental to our environment. Do you really think that China is all that concerned about the level of carbon, or mercury, it releases into the environment to make CFL light bulbs to be shipped to the USA? No, they don't care. What that means is that not only is the USA unable to make the light bulbs it needs but that China is now pumping all kinds of crap into the air.
You want to see less mercury in the air? I certainly do. Now tell me what China is doing right now to make sure that the mercury does not end up in the air on all of their coal fired plants that power their CFL factories. The wind that blows over China ends up in the USA. We can see their pollution end up in California. Perhaps we could scale back some of our pollution controls so we can make our own stuff here where we can have a real effect on the quality of the air we breathe. It may seem counter intuitive but loosening the air quality standards might actually make the air cleaner. It would also allow domestic manufacturing to be profitable. With unemployment so high here that would be a good thing right now.
I just saw an article pointing out an effort in Texas to go around this light bulb efficiency mandate by producing and selling the bulbs within the state.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-adv-texas-light-bulbs-20110710,0,4858840.story
I believe this has merit. This is the same argument to allow medicinal marijuana in California, and avoid firearm controls and taxes in Montana. The federal government is only empowered to regulate commerce among the states, not within them. If the lamps never enter or leave the state then the federal government has no jurisdiction.
This is not a straightforward issue.
yes it is. Incandescent bulbs are a seriously poor way to heat homes.
How are incandescent bulbs any different than any other form of resistive heating? Resistive heating is safe. (Well, it's safer since there is no chance of suffocation from burning wood or oil.) It's also easy to control. If it is such a poor way to heat homes then why is it so popular? If we just had more nuclear, hydro, and wind electricity generation this would not be an issue and perhaps most everyone would use electric heat.
Light bulbs reduce the need for central heating in cold areas.
And increase it in hot areas which is just about half the US at a minimum in the summer.
Then place the restrictions on the use of these lamps in warm areas of the country. Let the people in Alaska buy the cheap and inefficient lamps if they like.
They also provide a better light spectrum.
Technology issue that is being solved.
Let me know when that problem is solved. Until then I prefer the incandescent.
Funny, the article addresses this. *More* mercury is released by the coal plants to power the extra energy needs of incandescent bulbs than is in the CFL bulbs themselves. So the 'toxicity' issue is moot. 'Neither' would be a better option of course.
I'd rather we use nuclear power to reduce mercury in the environment than sitting in the dark.
Of course if you switch to all renewable energy sources the 'efficiency' issue also becomes just about moot since the 'fuel' would be free.
The price of the fuel is essentially irrelevant. Wind and solar are probably the most expensive ways to produce electricity. That is because of the labor and materials involved to construct and maintain the panels and mills. Just like the CFL bulbs don't add up for me since the cost of buying them do not cover the savings in electricity costs. The bulbs typically fail well before the stated expected life span. Much of this has to do with the fixtures I have in my home, they don't allow the bulbs to stay cool. Some of it might have to do with the low quality power I get, my house is near the end of a long overhead power line which picks up all kinds of noise. The large (100 watt equivalent) lamps seem to handle things well but they don't fit in most of my fixtures.
Technologies competing with incandescent just aren't mature enough yet. I'm confident that they will in time on their own. We don't need federal mandates and subsidies for the inevitable to happen. In some cases these mandates are counter productive since there is a social element to this. People don't like being told what to do and will resist as a matter of course. Let this take it's course naturally and we'll get there. Trying to force the issue only makes enemies.
You know what I'll do, I'll buy me some of them fancy new "heat balls" to, you know, "heat" my living room. They are cheap and fit nicely into my existing lamp holders.
Seriously though the ban has enough loop holes to drive a truck through. The ban does not affect special purpose lamps. A rough service bulb does not have to meet the efficiency standards, neither do appliance (cold and hot environment) lamps. I believe decorative lamps are also excepted, such as those globe lamps used on bathroom mirrors and the candle looking lamps used on chandeliers.
It will raise the price of these lamps but the incandescent lamps will still be available. What does bother me about all of these regulations on efficiency and pollution is that, first, this is driving much of the manufacturing out of the USA. This country can no longer manufacture things like light bulbs and solar panels because the environmental requirements are so strict. Second, much of these regulations on pollution is based on a still disputed claim over "climate change" caused by human activity.
It has become obvious to me that much of the regulations on "climate change" is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme. The USA is held to a different carbon output standard than China. There should be no surprise to anyone that doing so drives manufacturing from the USA to China. That is not only unsurprising but a desired outcome, because if these people were really concerned about pollution then all nations would be held to the same standard.
If the government wants to have this country reduce its carbon output the solution is simple, stop with this bureaucratic nonsense and let people build nuclear power plants. If we had a large portion of our power from nuclear power then it would not matter what kind of lighting we buy. It is quite possible that coal power would have been obsoleted by now if the government had not held up new construction of nuclear power for three decades. Add nuclear power along with hydro, wind, and maybe even solar* and we would not need coal. We'd probably still need to burn some natural gas and diesel for peak loads and emergency power but we should have had the dirty coal plants priced out of the market by now.
* Solar power is still, even after many decades of research, very expensive. It will likely remain as a special purpose power source for all time. Combine the expense with the inherent unreliability of solar power and it just does not make much sense for grid power.
I place a certain value on my privacy. I had one of those "loyalty cards" years ago at the nearby grocery. I'd use it to get the cheaper price on the stuff they sold me. In return I got a bunch of junk in the mail trying to sell me more stuff. When I stopped using the card I got less junk in the mail.
I had a credit card. In exchange for using the credit card the credit card company sent me stuff in the mail trying to sell me more stuff. They would also call me at home. How far and wide this information on my buying habits went hit me when I used my credit card at a gas station I don't normally visit and a couple weeks later I got a credit card advertisement in the mail from the gas station. I pay for my fuel and groceries with cash now excepting rare occasions when I forget to stop by the bank before my wallet gets too thin, then I pull out my debit card.
Not only does using cash prevent banks from selling my buying habits it also avoids the threat of my bank account information from being stolen with those hidden card readers that are popping up on gas pumps and the like. I don't even like to use ATMs any more. Not only is there a threat of my card getting copied by a hidden card reader the ATMs spit out only $20 bills. With a tank of gas costing over $60 and a grocery cart filled with food typically costing around $100 I prefer to see a real live teller so I can get $50 and $100 bills, that way my wallet doesn't get so fat and I can still buy what I need.
Now, I just wish those vending machines would take $2 and $5 bills. With a bottle of soda costing around $1.50 it makes sense to me to take the larger bills. This is also because I've had to not buy a drink because my wallet is full of $5, $20, and $100 bills.
All the crap in the mail, and the phone calls interrupting my supper, stopped for the most part once I got rid of my credit cards. Not using a debit or credit card for most purchases does mean a few more trips to the bank and having to pay for gas inside the station but that is a minor inconvenience. The bank is within walking distance of my house, and I'll often go into the gas station anyway when I travel to get a snack or use the restroom. It keeps the junk mail and cold calls down.
In my experience, the TSA guy has always slapped a sticker on my bag that says it has been searched (one of those shiny hologram TSA logo ones).
Yes, and an honest TSA agent will do so. The problem lies with opening the baggage in your absence if there is a firearm inside as this is a federal felony. The TSA does not always know which bags have a firearm in them since their own rules dictate that baggage is to not have any external marking to indicate a firearm is inside. All bags with a firearm in them must have a non-TSA approved lock. Not all bags with a non-TSA approved lock have a firearm in them. If there is a TSA approved lock on it then there is not a firearm inside.
If the TSA requires firearms to be locked with a non-TSA lock then they should assume that every bag with a non-TSA lock has a firearm and they should not cut open the bag. If the TSA requires a TSA approved lock for all baggage that does NOT contain a firearm then what they have done is create a de jure marking on the exterior of the baggage that a firearm is inside. Their own rules require that there be no such external markings.
What happens if a dishonest TSA agent opens a bag? Is there still a sticker applied with the TSA logo? Will all the contents still remain? What if a firearm happens to be inside? Will it still be there when the passenger gets it?
Logic dictates to me that there should be no usage of bolt cutters to open baggage excepting some very rare instances. This is precisely because a non-TSA lock is required to secure a firearm to transport on a plane. If there is a TSA lock on the bag then a key should be used, not a bolt cutters. Until the TSA requires that all baggage secured with a non-TSA approved lock be opened only in the presence of the owner we will continue to see the TSA violate their own policies that baggage that contains a firearm to NOT be opened unless the owner is present.
The very fact that TSA approved locks exist will give an indication to the presence or absence of a firearm in the luggage. If it has a TSA approved lock then it does not contain a firearm. Logic dictates that TSA approved lock should not even exist if strict following of their own rules are followed, that no external markings are to be present to indicate the presence of a firearm inside a bag.
I will NEVER EVER use a TSA approved lock on my luggage. This requires the TSA to either gain my permission to open the bag, or to use a bolt cutter. A TSA approved lock allows dishonest TSA agents to open the bag without providing indications it was opened. Honest TSA agents should know better to cut a lock they cannot open with the TSA master key since there might be a firearm inside. Dishonest ones will still cut the lock but then at least there will be a very visible indication of them doing so. If I also place a firearm inside, which I plan to do if I ever fly again, then not only will there be visible indications of it being opened that will also be evidence of a felony. This means that the FBI, ATF, FAA, and probably a few other alphabet agencies will get involved. This applies even if a sticker is placed on the bag with a TSA logo.
It seems quite logical to me on how the TSA fails in following their own rules. It seems quite logical on how they can fix the rules so that the rules no longer conflict. Just more proof that law and logic rarely meet,
That is true. However it's not a big deal. Most of crimes are occurring in two places - in private homes and in businesses (largely pharmacies.) Not too many people are mugged in the street, in part because nobody walks in CA - everyone drives.
I'm quite certain people still get mugged and molested on the street. "Most" is meaningless until it happens to you.
One area of conflict would be bars in bad parts of towns. But you don't want guys there to carry weapons, legal or not.
Many states allow concealed weapons into bars and there has not been a problem. It's the person, not the gun, that causes a problem. So long as the weapon is carried by a law abiding citizen there is not a problem, history proves that. The problem is that criminals do not obey the no weapons allowed policies of places that serve alcohol. When that happens a lot of people can end up dead precisely because the law disarmed them. Look up Suzanna Hupp and Nikki Goeser to find out what happens when an armed man enters a restaurant or bar filled with unarmed customers.
You are very vulnerable in the street, and a few guys (who you can't preemptively attack) can just grab you and take everything you have, including the weapon. Even one guy can throw a brick at you and take you out.
Concealed weapons law does not prevent every mugging, I will admit to that. What I do know is that there is a very real trend of concealed weapons reducing the frequency of violent crime, especially that of rape.
There are very, very few real CCW situations when having a weapon could make a positive difference. Your cell phone can be far more effective - instead of shooting at the car with escaping criminals (which is illegal and will surely land you in jail) you instead should tell the 911 call taker how the car looks like, the plate, the direction of travel, condition of the victim, etc. It's hard to outrun Motorola; you need to get more people on your side as fast as possible.
If the person hit you over the head with a brick then how are you going to have the mental capacity to operate a cell phone? If you did retain the capacity to operate a handheld device while someone was hitting you over the head with a brick which would you grab if available to you, a cell phone so the police can pick up your lifeless body in an hour, or grab a gun so you can end the attack before you end up dead?
I'm not suggesting that one does not call 911, I even stated that the police should be called in the examples I gave in my original post. In the mean time one will have to deal with the matter on their own.
There is also another old trick. You confront some criminal and draw on him to stop the crime. He stops and runs away. Then he calls 911 and reports you, the CCW holder, to the police - and the police will put you through the grinder for alleged "brandishing." Good luck with that - you may need a good lawyer and lots of luck. Criminals are good at lying, and they can deliver witnesses who actually haven't been there but say they were. If you have five witnesses against you your goose is cooked.
That is why instructors for concealed carry classes tell their students to call 911 whenever they pull their weapon. If that happens the crook cannot just call the police on the CCW holder, because the CCW holder has already called the police. I'll pay the legal bills if a crook runs away, because that means that I did not end up dead. It also means that the crook just got some negative reinforcement. If the crook keeps coming across armed citizens that crook is either going to find a different line of work, or end up dead from starvation, exposure, or a law abiding citizen's bullet.
I have permits to carry a concealed weapon from three different states. From what I can tell there are very few states that will give a "brandishing" charge to someone that pulls their weapon, and
(yes, you use NON-TSA compliant locks when transporting firearms, by law, and since they've already screened your luggage, they have a lot more restrictions on whether they can open it again).
Not only CAN you use a non-TSA lock when flying with a firearm but you MUST lock your firearm with a lock that only you have the key to open. The TSA does not trust their own handlers to not steal firearms. The airlines do not trust their baggage handlers to not steal firearms. Any attempt to open that luggage without your knowledge is a federal felony.
There is one problem with this plan. The rules require that there be no markings on the bag to indicate the presence of the firearm. The TSA routinely cuts the locks to baggage that they cannot open with a TSA master key. A bag with a firearm can be cut open despite the severe penalties for doing so. This has happened. This will continue to be a problem so long as bolt cutters are standard equipment for TSA baggage screeners.