"I think you did not understand parent. Although the "living standard" in western countries are higher the gap between the rich and poor is growing bigger and bigger."
I fail to see the relevance of "income gap" in this situation.
"It is like my statistics professor told me, the mean (average) is the least informative of all the statistical equations, you can have two sets {$10,$10,$0,$0} and ($5,$5,$5,$5} and they will give you the same average. Guess which one of those groups of people are better."
A more apt compairison would be ($10, $10,rich $1, $1, poor) and ($20, 20, $2, $2). assuming this is adjusted for inflation, I would rather be the poor person in the second set than the poor person in the first set even though the gap between rich and poor is much higher.
I didn't use $0 because most poor have something even if not much. The worst squallar still doesn't compair to the shanty towns seen many decades ago here or even in other contries today.
"As I saw it from outside (I am from Mexico but was in UK when it happened) it seemed that Katrina came to show the extreme poverty that exists in the USA (the $0 in the sets)."
People living in poverty in the USA don't know what real poverty is. Heck, over 70% of people in the USA that are defined as in Poverty own a car. Almost half own their own home and over 3/4 have AC.
Just personal expireance: I have worked in a food bank and seen people come in for food wearing nice cloths and driving nice cars. I helped at a vacation bible school in a housing project and the streets were lined with cars (Some were quite nice). I deliverd coal to poor people and they had cable TV.
"(Side note: the hoarding off the market is not always accomplished through direct purchase-and-hold, as storage can be expensive. Rather, it can take the form of someone buying futures contracts which specify that the resource simply won't be extracted until a later date.)"
This kind of thing happens now. I seem to recall reading about how one airline had signed a long term contract for fuel before prices went up and therfore had a big advantage. On the other hand, they would have been hating life if prices had gone down.
"Eveyone is living in the pre-Great Depression Era. When Peak Oil hits, then it will be Great Depression times 10."
I doubt this since the oil peak isn't going to "hit" but rather it will gradually cause prices to increase as production of oil gets more expensive. While the supply of oil in the mid east is really cheap (You pee in the sand too hard and you might cause a gusher), there are other places where oil could be extracted at a higher cost.
There is also the chance that we will find some more previously unknown oil reserves that are easy to get to also.
---The alternatives have to be put in place first, and subsidised to bring them to a realistic price point. Once renewable energy is within the purchasing capacity of "ordinary people", they will buy it; then economies of scale will set in, and the subsidies can be gradually cut.---
As oil supplies are exausted, the price of oil will rise which will start to stear long term investers toward toward R&D into alternatives to oil as the search for new oil supplies becomes more costly.
---It won't just be fuel prices that will rise; everything that has to be manufactured and/or delivered will become more expensive. The poorest people will find themselves unable to afford to travel to work; they will exist in a state of perpetual unemployment, so increasing the burden on the taxpayer.---
Oil will gradually become more and more expensive as it becomes more and more costly to produce. Other supplies that cost a lot to get will start being tapped as oil prices rise. The market will handle that so the effects will not cause big shocks. Oil prices will still fluctuate from time to time but periodic shocks, like the aftermath of Katrina, are less likely to spur any major investment in energy production unless a world event was so severe that the price wasn't expected to recover any time soon.
---To get an engine to start, you sometimes have to use an external power source. The beardy-weirdies and the forward-thinkers alone simply won't have enough buying power between them to initiate the process of bringing down the price of renewable energy.---
The wildcard here is that many want to get away from oil not because of oil running out but because of the environmental ramifications of oil use. This is where Govt. subsidies would help jumpstart a process but reduction in polution from oil use is a viable alternative in this case.
"And there most of your data is based on stupid antartica which will be the last thing which will notice global warming"
Everyone knows that Antarctica is at the bottom of the world and that since Hot air rises it is obvious that Global Warming would affect the rest of the world first.
"And this new energy system is going to appear in a flash of capitalist magic?"
Oil isn't going to disappear in a flash.
I think the point the Parent post was making is that the growing price of one energy source (oil) as it becomes more and more scarce will make investment in other energy sources more economical.
I seem to recall a Dilbert cartoon some years ago where Dilbert built some sort of Stealth work suit and was testing it on Dogbert. His pager was encased in lead or something to block pages, he had a sound dampening field set up so nobody could talk to him and he had a nonstick coating to keep post it notes off of him.
"You do realize that "co2science.org" is run by fossil-fuel PR flacks, don't you?"
"If you want to know where climate scientists stand, you should read stuff written by climate scientists."(realclimate.org)
So co2science.org is evil liars to be sneered at but realclimate.org is completely objective with no agenda?
Do a whois on them and you will see thier physical address is the exact same as the address Fenton.com which is a left wing PR firm that represents liberal organizations including moveon.org.
"Typically they are called 'former president' in the media. The media does this with everyone other than Bill Clinton. Listen for it.:)"
I don't know if there are any general rules followed by anyone. Usually a presedent that just left office is in the news a lot and is refered to as "former President soandso" at first but over time the "former" tag will erode away some if they stay in the news a lot like Clinton. Ford isn't in the news much so he is usually given the former tag when he is refered to. An exception to this would obviously be Bush Sr. since this can cause some confusion with the current Presedent.
Once they die though they usually are just "President Soandso" from then on.
As far as who deserves to be called president, Clinton and Bush both got a majority of the Electoral College so both sides can just drop this "He wasn't legitimatly elected" crap.
"Letting people vote in the open is a bad idea. All you need is a thug to tell people "you better vote in the open so we can verify you vote in your best interest" and have them break legs of people who vote wrong or privatly. If private voting is not mandatory, then it is worthless."
I think you have a good point but I don't really have a problem with voting in private or even making it manditory as long as they have enough voting booths. The time I voted on floor I had gotten through the line and was then faced with a bottleneck of not enough booths.
"Let's face it, if you could get paid via capital gains (15% tax rate, until it's not taxed at all...) instead of salary (38% tax rate), why would you want a salary?"
I am not a Tax accountant but in order for the profit of a stock sale to qualify for capital gains tax it has to be held for a certain amount of time. The profit of a sale is based on what they paid for the stock and what they sell it for. It gets complicated but it's not exactly a perfect tax dodge.
North Carolina had some big problems in one county where an electronic system screwed up and lost a bunch of votes. This helped lead to a couple a close statewide race in the last election being held up in the courts for a while. One of them (Agriculture Commisioner I think) was decided by less than the number of missing votes.
There are tons of different systems all over the USA. The computerized touch screens were all the rage following the 2000 election fiasco because many people had trouble figuring out how to vote on a butterfly ballot that seemed to confuse some people in Florida.
My area uses a large printed 11x17 paper ballot that which is marked by filling in an arrow with a magic marker then feeding the ballot into a scanner. In addition to having a bunch of physical ballots to count if needed, it also speeds up the process since you don't have to mark your ballot in the little private booth if you don't want to wait for one as long as they have enough Magic Markers. I marked mine while sitting on the floor one time.
One thing I don't like about the touch screens is that they will keep you from overvoting. My view is that if you don't understand the instructions and you don't ask for help then it's your own fault if you vote ends up helping the wrong person.
"I see people all the time who hit both the down and up buttons on an elevator, just to get the car to come faster."
I have never noticed this being successful really. The person that does this will usually end up screwing themselves since they will find that when they get on the elevator that is going the oposing direction that they will just end up going the wrong way. On the other hand, if there is only one elevator then it's not a total loss since they will just ride the wrong way before coming back.
Slashdot Mirror
I use McAfee and My system is working fi
"I think you did not understand parent. Although the "living standard" in western countries are higher the gap between the rich and poor is growing bigger and bigger."
I fail to see the relevance of "income gap" in this situation.
"It is like my statistics professor told me, the mean (average) is the least informative of all the statistical equations, you can have two sets {$10,$10,$0,$0} and ($5,$5,$5,$5} and they will give you the same average. Guess which one of those groups of people are better."
A more apt compairison would be ($10, $10,rich $1, $1, poor) and ($20, 20, $2, $2). assuming this is adjusted for inflation, I would rather be the poor person in the second set than the poor person in the first set even though the gap between rich and poor is much higher.
I didn't use $0 because most poor have something even if not much. The worst squallar still doesn't compair to the shanty towns seen many decades ago here or even in other contries today.
"As I saw it from outside (I am from Mexico but was in UK when it happened) it seemed that Katrina came to show the extreme poverty that exists in the USA (the $0 in the sets)."
People living in poverty in the USA don't know what real poverty is. Heck, over 70% of people in the USA that are defined as in Poverty own a car. Almost half own their own home and over 3/4 have AC.
Just personal expireance: I have worked in a food bank and seen people come in for food wearing nice cloths and driving nice cars. I helped at a vacation bible school in a housing project and the streets were lined with cars (Some were quite nice). I deliverd coal to poor people and they had cable TV.
"Check out books from the library knowing that my choice of books cannot and will not be used against me ?"
The Patriot act isn't required to get this information. Grand Juries can subpoena that kind of information for a criminal investigation.
Wohoo. I have a Moto v265! I'm number 1!
I don't have to worry about the rads since I use an earpiece while I keep the phone in my front pocket.
"(Side note: the hoarding off the market is not always accomplished through direct purchase-and-hold, as storage can be expensive. Rather, it can take the form of someone buying futures contracts which specify that the resource simply won't be extracted until a later date.)"
This kind of thing happens now. I seem to recall reading about how one airline had signed a long term contract for fuel before prices went up and therfore had a big advantage. On the other hand, they would have been hating life if prices had gone down.
"Didn't he get eaten?"
Then his remains were buried and eventually extracted as oil!
I like cheese.
"Eveyone is living in the pre-Great Depression Era. When Peak Oil hits, then it will be Great Depression times 10."
I doubt this since the oil peak isn't going to "hit" but rather it will gradually cause prices to increase as production of oil gets more expensive. While the supply of oil in the mid east is really cheap (You pee in the sand too hard and you might cause a gusher), there are other places where oil could be extracted at a higher cost.
There is also the chance that we will find some more previously unknown oil reserves that are easy to get to also.
---The alternatives have to be put in place first, and subsidised to bring them to a realistic price point. Once renewable energy is within the purchasing capacity of "ordinary people", they will buy it; then economies of scale will set in, and the subsidies can be gradually cut.---
As oil supplies are exausted, the price of oil will rise which will start to stear long term investers toward toward R&D into alternatives to oil as the search for new oil supplies becomes more costly.
---It won't just be fuel prices that will rise; everything that has to be manufactured and/or delivered will become more expensive. The poorest people will find themselves unable to afford to travel to work; they will exist in a state of perpetual unemployment, so increasing the burden on the taxpayer.---
Oil will gradually become more and more expensive as it becomes more and more costly to produce. Other supplies that cost a lot to get will start being tapped as oil prices rise. The market will handle that so the effects will not cause big shocks. Oil prices will still fluctuate from time to time but periodic shocks, like the aftermath of Katrina, are less likely to spur any major investment in energy production unless a world event was so severe that the price wasn't expected to recover any time soon.
---To get an engine to start, you sometimes have to use an external power source. The beardy-weirdies and the forward-thinkers alone simply won't have enough buying power between them to initiate the process of bringing down the price of renewable energy.---
The wildcard here is that many want to get away from oil not because of oil running out but because of the environmental ramifications of oil use. This is where Govt. subsidies would help jumpstart a process but reduction in polution from oil use is a viable alternative in this case.
When you play it backwards will the satanic messages still be there?
"And there most of your data is based on stupid antartica which will be the last thing which will notice global warming"
Everyone knows that Antarctica is at the bottom of the world and that since Hot air rises it is obvious that Global Warming would affect the rest of the world first.
"Not sure how the Bush administration could have affected weather in the 20th century, considering they didn't take office until 2000."
Firstly, 2000 was the last year of teh 20th century.
Secondly, W was elected in 2000 but didn't take office untill 2001.
The only conclusion we can make is that not only has Bush created an evil weather machine but he also has created a time machine of some sort too.
Buy a programable thermostat. You could then let it lower the temp a few degrees when you are normally away and at night.
In that case the OP could buy cheap beer. The Beast!
http://www.milbestlight.com/home.aspx
"And this new energy system is going to appear in a flash of capitalist magic?"
Oil isn't going to disappear in a flash.
I think the point the Parent post was making is that the growing price of one energy source (oil) as it becomes more and more scarce will make investment in other energy sources more economical.
I seem to recall a Dilbert cartoon some years ago where Dilbert built some sort of Stealth work suit and was testing it on Dogbert. His pager was encased in lead or something to block pages, he had a sound dampening field set up so nobody could talk to him and he had a nonstick coating to keep post it notes off of him.
Too bad he was wearing it to work on Sunday.
"You do realize that "co2science.org" is run by fossil-fuel PR flacks, don't you?"
"If you want to know where climate scientists stand, you should read stuff written by climate scientists."(realclimate.org)
So co2science.org is evil liars to be sneered at but realclimate.org is completely objective with no agenda?
Do a whois on them and you will see thier physical address is the exact same as the address Fenton.com which is a left wing PR firm that represents liberal organizations including moveon.org.
"Typically they are called 'former president' in the media. The media does this with everyone other than Bill Clinton. Listen for it. :)"
I don't know if there are any general rules followed by anyone. Usually a presedent that just left office is in the news a lot and is refered to as "former President soandso" at first but over time the "former" tag will erode away some if they stay in the news a lot like Clinton. Ford isn't in the news much so he is usually given the former tag when he is refered to. An exception to this would obviously be Bush Sr. since this can cause some confusion with the current Presedent.
Once they die though they usually are just "President Soandso" from then on.
As far as who deserves to be called president, Clinton and Bush both got a majority of the Electoral College so both sides can just drop this "He wasn't legitimatly elected" crap.
"Letting people vote in the open is a bad idea. All you need is a thug to tell people "you better vote in the open so we can verify you vote in your best interest" and have them break legs of people who vote wrong or privatly. If private voting is not mandatory, then it is worthless."
I think you have a good point but I don't really have a problem with voting in private or even making it manditory as long as they have enough voting booths. The time I voted on floor I had gotten through the line and was then faced with a bottleneck of not enough booths.
"Let's face it, if you could get paid via capital gains (15% tax rate, until it's not taxed at all...) instead of salary (38% tax rate), why would you want a salary?"
I am not a Tax accountant but in order for the profit of a stock sale to qualify for capital gains tax it has to be held for a certain amount of time. The profit of a sale is based on what they paid for the stock and what they sell it for. It gets complicated but it's not exactly a perfect tax dodge.
North Carolina had some big problems in one county where an electronic system screwed up and lost a bunch of votes. This helped lead to a couple a close statewide race in the last election being held up in the courts for a while. One of them (Agriculture Commisioner I think) was decided by less than the number of missing votes.
There are tons of different systems all over the USA. The computerized touch screens were all the rage following the 2000 election fiasco because many people had trouble figuring out how to vote on a butterfly ballot that seemed to confuse some people in Florida.
My area uses a large printed 11x17 paper ballot that which is marked by filling in an arrow with a magic marker then feeding the ballot into a scanner. In addition to having a bunch of physical ballots to count if needed, it also speeds up the process since you don't have to mark your ballot in the little private booth if you don't want to wait for one as long as they have enough Magic Markers. I marked mine while sitting on the floor one time.
One thing I don't like about the touch screens is that they will keep you from overvoting. My view is that if you don't understand the instructions and you don't ask for help then it's your own fault if you vote ends up helping the wrong person.
Just string all phone lines above ground on wooden Poles. We could even put the electrical wires up there too.
"I see people all the time who hit both the down and up buttons on an elevator, just to get the car to come faster."
I have never noticed this being successful really. The person that does this will usually end up screwing themselves since they will find that when they get on the elevator that is going the oposing direction that they will just end up going the wrong way. On the other hand, if there is only one elevator then it's not a total loss since they will just ride the wrong way before coming back.
We almost have Green Eggs and Ham!
OK, we have the Green Pigs but what about the Green chickens?