Er right.
Verses the combined military might of Russia, China, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy to name a few. Bring your head out of the clouds! In a conventional military engagement with the rest of the world the US would literally be slaughtered.
The rest of the world have more soldiers, more planes, more ships and more than 10 times the US production capability and land access via the rest of the continent.
If you really believe what you just posted then you are a blind moron.
That would depend on the battlefield. Few countries have the air/sea lift that the US does. In fact, most EU nations send their troops/equipment to conflict areas on US aircraft/ships. In this theoretical non-nuclear engagement, transit would be the key factor. In the Battle of the Atlantic, the Germans sure did one hell of a job on Allied shipping, and we did on Japanese shipping in WWII. If the attack were to come to the US via Canada/Mexico, then the transit of forces to those countries would be threatened by the USAF and US Navy. Conversely, the advantage would be to foreign nations if we had to defend our current deployed forces, or fight on foreign soil.
Also, aside from munitions production, most war equipment takes an awful long time to build. Gone are the days of WWII and Detroit pumping planes and tanks out by the thousands. I don't care who's building them, but production capacity would be less of an issue in this theoretical war. We'd use up everything too quickly.
One more thing to consider is that most of the world uses some American built equipment. The F-16 is everywhere; along with a multitude of other US produced equipment; like the F-14s that Iran flies. Certainly the Russians, China, the EU make their own jets/tanks/stuff, but a significant portion of the world's military equipment is stamped with a made in the USA sticker. After all, we are the world's biggest arms dealer. The last I checked, we had the rest of the world beat; combined. No, I am not proud of that fact.
The last problem is that we would lose. In just about every war game that we had in Germany during the Cold War, we pretty much always had to resort to using Nukes to hold back all of those Russian tanks. The A-10 was built to help with that, but even lots of them didn't really tip the equation.
So, yes, we'd lose, but it's would be difficult to consider the situation without nukes flying.
Still, in a recruiting tool, and that game is one, why would anyone expect that the Army would allow a situation that it could lose? To me, even though it is far from realistic, it is just good marketing on their part. They'll get more recruits that way. After all, the oldest joke in the US military is "How can you tell when a recruiter is lying?... When his/her lips are moving." I certainly knew that before I signed any paperwork, but I'm 3rd generation military.
For the record, I am a veteran of the USAF, as is my father and my grandfather was a Army soldier. That, and I think the poster you're replying to was trolling. Me, I'm just wasting time!
Of course, this does mean that areas pre-disposed to have smarter kids (e.g. rich kids who can afford better education aids, tutors, books, etc.) would tend to have better schools because it is easier to get better results but these schools would also tend to have more competition.
I'd like to bring up some of issues that have an effect in my opinion as well. These kids have a tougher time from reasons that can not be solved by only adding money to the schools. The community needs to be improved. This is one of the problems that I see through what my girlfriend experiences. She's a 4th grade teacher in a very poor South Bronx neighborhood. Me, I grew up in a nice, safe, rural suburb of NYC, and use that as my comparison here. Out of an average of 30 or so kids, you might have a 1/3 whose parents seem to be like those who were in the majority where I grew up; that is to say had the time and desire to help their kids learn. I'd say that 2/3 of her students parents/guardians are too busy working too many hours, dealing with their own drug/legal/marital problems, or something else like that. Then you have to compound the fact that the neighborhood isn't exactly safe. There's violence, gangs, and easier access to drugs. I'm not saying these places are a little slice of hell, but it is a lot harder to be a kid there, than where I grew up were the drug problem was alcohol and a bit of weed. I never heard of a kid pulling a knife on a teacher, but it happened to her last year. One of her 4th graders was pissed off at her for sending a letter home about his acting up in class!
I think community improvement programs need to be included in any school improvement issues.
I think the US should change from "we only care about economics and hate to pay for others" into something more responsible.
Making a sweeping generalization about us Americans is about as accurate as making one about Europeans. Have you forgotten that the EU is very roughly the same size, in population and land area, as the US. It's just as ignorant for us to say there is no difference between a say French person and a Czech person, as it is for you to say that we are all the same.
I guess America isn't the only place burdened with people with small minds. I'm getting awfully tired of Europeans thinking that all of us here are oil burning George Bush supporters. Half of us voted against him. I myself, along with millions of others, pay extra for electricity to buy our power from low impact sources like wind and hydro. Most states have tax rebates or other similar incentives to encourage the use of low impact energy sources. Bush, himself, recently created the World's Largest Marine Sanctuary. I'm not saying he's a good guy, but he's not all evil either. To say that America is some environmental destruction zone is false, and I am sick and tired of ignorance laced opinions like yours. We have pleanty of room to improve here, but the place that was first to set aside protected land is not the worst either.
Despite David Chamelion's "being green" phase, the Tories - and people who act like them i.e. the Telegraph - have generally been known to be less than caring about silly leftie issues like the environment. They will manipulate all sorts of "facts" to try and encourage more in the way of industry and wealth and such.
How is that different from any other political group in any country? Both sides here in the US are scummy in that way; manipulating the truth to support their political aim. That aim is always to get them (re-)elected.
Actually, taxing fossil fuels would be more like finding a "safe" cigarette (read: plug in hybrids powered by renewable or nuclear) that smells and tastes more or less the same and has the same effect of getting you wired without most of the negative health effects. Don't prohibit the old kind for those who want the *exact* same experience as before, just tax it so it'd be annoying to smoke a lot of them.
I can only speak for NY, as I've looked into it here, but we already do that. Anyone who installs Solar or wind energy harvesting equipment, buys a hybrid, or like me buys power from a low impact source, gets a tax benefit. In the first two examples, they get income tax benefits, and I pay no state sales tax(4%) on the power I buy from the low impact source. The problem is that most folks don't know about this.
The $30 a pack tax, in your example, that you say for fuel prices would be like prohibition. That kind of drastic tax is not a nudge, but a shove. I don't think they're even trying something like that in Europe. Raise prices that dramatically on something as entrenched as smoking or fossil fuels, and you end up with a large black market. Your intent is a good one, and I certainly support that, but in practice, I don't see it working. Again, sell the idea, and get more people like me to volunteer to do it. That's the way.
CRAF should be raised. That would be a minor tax on car sales that would help. Force SUVs to meet the car standard instead of the light truck standard. That would help.
About sea level rise: it's not due to the melting of the north polar ice cap as many people think it is. Ice in water is actually in equilibrium (more or less) since a floating piece of ice displaces its own mass in water. So when it melts, it occupies the volume previously displaced by it. The rise in sea level is due to runoff from land-based glaciers melting, thermal expansion of the ocean water and ice shelves previously supported by land but overhanging the sea breaking off and falling in. Ultimately, sea level rise may even be reduced due to increased evaporation of the oceans eventually which would increase cloud cover, possibly reducing solar penetration and moderating the warming trend. But we don't want to run this experiment and find out that the worst case scenario was true.
Sure, and my 1-4 mm a year works out to be about a meter per century. Still, the question is why? Is there a link between CO2 and GW? Is the link increased solar activity? It's not the effects that I disagree with you about. Why is the warming occurring? That's the part where I disagree with you.
The punitive tax that you suggest is exactly like the sin taxes on tobacco. I don't think they work either. It certainly didn't stop my girlfriend, and millions of others from smoking, but arguments about health have convinced many, including her, to quit. Convince people the value of the tax, as I have been convinced, and you have a winning strategy. Tax them forcibly, and you end up giving people a reason to work around the law. That's where the link to prohibition comes into play. Coercion does not work as well as a sales pitch. Get someone to believe it, and they won't try to subvert it. It's like people in NY driving to NJ to get the cheaper gas there that has a lower tax, even though the extra tax in NY is there to help the roads or something. I've done that myself, because I don't believe the extra tax money is being used properly. It's not that I think you would go the extreme, but even the moderate logic of the idea fails in my mind. I've never heard anyone say they stopped smoking because of the tax that seems to go up here in NYS every few years. I have heard them talk about ways to subvert the tax by buying them out of state, on reservations, or simply complaining about it. That's my point, not that I think you would say turn off the spigot tomorrow.
I agree with you about investing in alternate energy technology. And, BTW, nowhere did I mention that Kyoto should or should not be signed. I'm just saying that fossil fuels should be very gradually taxed and tax breaks should be given for use of alternative environmentally-friendly technologies to encourage people to switch. Nothing should be mandated perse. Just a nudge in the pocketbook to get people going in the right direction. Also, research on how to mitigate global warming should be funded *now*. Meaning that the space-based sunshade idea and ideas like it should be seriously considered and developed. As I said, I don't want to lose our cities and our coasts. The US and the world is already crowded enough without losing more land area to the sea. And I mentioned that much of the land that would be submerged is somewhat polluted - this wouldn't have good effects on ocean ecology. With sudden change like that, you also wouldn't get nice beaches like we're used to and love. A sandy beach isn't going to magically appear in the Poconos or in Morristown, NJ. What we'll get is a coastline of rocks and mud at least for the next few millenia. Do you want to tell your grandkids to tell their grandkids: "when I was a boy, I used to go to the beach..."
I agree, that beach scenario would suck, but you're still missing my point. I'm not convinced of the link between higher levels of CO2 and global warming. I've heard a very convincing argument that suggested that higher solar intensity would is the cause here. I also think that this stuff will happen, no matter what we do. As in the case of beaches, a large number of this countries beaches would not exist today if they were not regularly dredged up and 're-sanded'. I don't see why we couldn't do that again to the "new" coastline. Also, I do not support the opinion that the oceans will rise quickly. They are rising at a higher rate today than they were earlier in the last century, but still we're talking about going from 1-2 mm a year to 3-4mm a year. That is dramatic, but it's not the kind of thing that you could watch with your eyes. We will have to adapt, but I'm sure we'll find a way. The Dutch have been successfully reclaiming land for almost 1000 years. I'm sure they'd be willing to teach us how to do it. I have faith in humans ability to adapt to changes in climate, but not our ability to prevent them. That being said, research into why and how this is happening is a good idea. Research, development, and deployment of alternative fuels is a better idea. I agree there with you on both of those points, but it's still the link between higher CO2 and GW that I disagree with you on.
The problem with this warming trend is that it's happening much faster than previous warming. That doesn't give nature much time to adapt.
Anyway, now that you've resorted to threatening me, instead of offering me evidence that could change my mind, I will not listen to you. For your sake, hopefully, someone else will offer me that information without at silly threat.
Threats? No, I'm just giving an example of what will happen (not may happen) if there are suddenly a lot of displaced, likely armed and hungry, people wandering the countryside with nothing to lose. It may not happen to you, but it'll happen to your friends or your neighbors. Unless you're willing to live in an armed camp, of course, but would you be willing to shoot to kill to defend your property?
The threats come from you talking about gun toting roving bands. Displaced people happen from hurricanes and disasters like that. A gradual rise in sea levels will not cause that, but the next big hurricane to hit another American city probably will; including my fair NYC. Besides, in most of this city, the poor don't live near the water. Harlem, and the South Bronx, are on the high ground. Quibbling, sure, but it's part of the point. The Battery, lower Manhattan, is full of the ultra rich and home to Wall Street. They are no threat. I bel
If I have to move off Manhattan, well, that's okay. The house I grew up in is 60 miles north of the city, and about 600 feet above sea level. Besides, I believe that there is pleanty of room for all of us on this planet; loss of space or not. We could simply build up, and convert many of the suburbs into farm land.
Have you considered the costs of rebuilding our cities more inland? Those might pale compared to the costs of us getting off of the oil tit. This doesn't even mention the fact that most of our heavy industries are within 10 miles of a coast. If that (oft-polluted) land gets flooded, we all lose due to ocean contamination.
And it won't be a nice process. There'll be severe storms, deaths, riots, etc...
My point is that I'm not convinced that if we stopped burning fossil fuels today that this wouldn't happen anyway. I think we're warming for reasons beyond our control, so I think we WILL have to move our cities and heavy industries. If we blow our economic wad on controlling CO2, and this happens anyway, then we're in worse shape. If we go my way, we'll have the resources to adjust better than without them. In the meantime, we SHOULD develop the alternate technologies, and deploy them as they become effective.
The problem with the tax, is not necessarily for people like myself. I'm, in effect, taxing myself by volunteering to pay the extra 6 cents per KWH to have ConEdison send me clean power. I'm concerned about those folks up in Harlem and the South Bronx. The poor can not afford that tax, and there are a lot of them in places between New York and LA.
So give them an energy subsidy, or subsidize their purchase of compact fluorescents for them or something. We already subsidize their housing. Besides what do you really care about them? You talk so casually about yourself having a house to move to when you get flooded off of Manhattan. But what about the poor that have *nowhere* to go (think New Orleans, except if New York swims, it'll also be Boston, DC, Baltimore, New Haven, Philly, LA, etc...). Would you shelter a band of them in your house if you find one. Actually, they probably wouldn't give you a choice - they'll just kick down your door with guns in hand and tell you to leave.
I do care about them. Again, I believe that we will have to deal with the consequences of a warming earth regardless of what we do. The IPCC report on the Kyoto treaty says that if we all met the agreement, including the US and Austrailia, that we'd only delay the effects by a few decades. Kyoto only buys time, instead of solving the problem. I say, screw that, invest in alternative energy technologies, and that will get us out of the dirty fossil fuel business once and for all. You seem to be missing the fact that there are only two parts of your argument that I disagree with. The first is that I think Kyoto type treaties will not get us off of fossil fuels; for the same, or probably less money, I think we can develop alternative energy sources that will make free from fossil fuels. The second is that I don't think we can do anything to prevent the warming that is occurring. I honestly believe we'll have to adapt to it, and that the wars and problems that will come.
Also, you seem to think that threatening me will help change my mind. I said in my last post, that I'm not convinced that we can do anything about it, but my mind is open. Tell me what articles, reports, and arguments that convinced you, and I might change my mind. Unlike you, I've clearly said that I'm willing to, only that my opinion is different than yours. Opinions can change, and I was willing to listen to your arguments. Talking about the consequences is not enough, when I'm not convinced of the relationship between the cause and the effect. I agree that as the warming continues, the environmental effects will start to get a lot worse, but I'm not sure there is anything we can do to prevent it.
Another point is that I've heard no one say that the
In summary, my point is that I support alternative fuels as the solution, and am afraid of the idea of limiting energy usage. The latter I think is a terrible waste of money.
But I never said anything about limiting energy usage. I was discussion taxing gasoline so as to limit *gasoline* usage gradually over a period of decades. Gradually so as to allow alternative technologies to be introduced to replace gasoline.
True, you didn't say that. I am also referring to the Kyoto and Kyoto Follow-on treaties. I'm fully against them
Now, I agree that Global Warming, if it progresses to the point that it does do what the current models say it will do, will cause events that suck for most of humanity, I'm not convinced that limiting gasoline usage via gasoline or other similar in effect taxes or policies on fossil fuel energy usage, will help. I can agree to disagree here, but that's my current opinion. I believe that if the climate does warm significantly, then we'll adapt. If I have to move off Manhattan, well, that's okay. The house I grew up in is 60 miles north of the city, and about 600 feet above sea level. Besides, I believe that there is pleanty of room for all of us on this planet; loss of space or not. We could simply build up, and convert many of the suburbs into farm land. Again, the land I grew up on, was a farm until 1965. Humans will adapt. I know that's quibbling, but I believe that the world is a big place, and if the whole population lived in cities, then we'd use much less land for work and life freeing a huge amount for food production.
I'm not convinced that added CO2 in the atmosphere, or some warming is all that bad. First of all, there is a limit to how much warming you can get. It's not a linear scale, and we do get less warming in a greenhouse for each unit of added CO2. This is logical since CO2 only works on a limited frequency band of electromagnetic radiation. Other gasses reflect other bands, which explains why low clouds warm the earth, and high clouds cool it; the crystals reflect heat back out to space, and the droplets reflect it back to the surface.
Greenland, during the Medieval Warm Period, did support Viking settlements quite well. During the Roman Warm period, grapes were grown in England. All that occurred during a time which production CO2 from human sources was negligible compared with today. I've read a ton of papers posted on www.co2science.com that show that most plants do better in a higher CO2 environment; better yield with lower water needs. That's good for humanity, and the biosphere in general. Humanity seems to do worse when it's colder; as evident during the Little Ice Age. I find it interesting that the Little Ice Age occurred around the same time as the Maruander Minimum. Sun spot activity seems to be a good proxy for solar intensity, and the latter has been shown to correlate quite nicely in the last 30 years. 30 years ago the big idea was that an ice age was coming. Today, it's the warming. Clearly the warming is happening, but why is still a question to me. I'm not convinced that the tragic events that will occur from the warming will be prevented, even if we turned off the spigot tomorrow.
I am still not convinced that Global Warming is caused by human released CO2, but I'm willing to meet you half way. As I said in my other post, while the CO2 and H2O that is released by fossil fuel usage is not a problem in my opinion, every thing else is. I do agree with you that we'd be better off if not one more drop/ounce of it was burned or used. The problem with the tax, is not necessarily for people like myself. I'm, in effect, taxing myself by volunteering to pay the extra 6 cents per KWH to have ConEdison send me clean power. I'm concerned about those folks up in Harlem and the South Bronx. The poor can not afford that tax, and there are a lot of them in places between New York and LA. Currently, fossil fuels get a lot of support in the budget. Why don't we redir
(b) use of fossil fuels leads to other problems. Air pollution at ground level. Spills into the oceans and groundwater. Wars over oil-producing lands. Etc and so forth.
Let me get a couple of points out... I think CO2 is not a pollutant, and I think that Global Warming is a natural event. I seriously doubt human activity is having the effect that the IPCC says we're having on the climate with the CO2 that results from our energy usage.
That being said, I do think that burning fossil fuels is bad. All the other crap that results from burning them, including the money that helps fuel the wars in the Middle East and other places, is a bad idea. Personally, I pay 30% more for my electricity to have it come from wind/solar/hydro. I do not feel that everyone should be forced to do that, but that we should create a situation that would make folks want to do that. How? The fact is that with proper research and development, we can make energy sources other than fossil fuels cost effective enough so that people don't need to start walking more while still not using fossil fuels. I think it's foolish to believe that people in general, and Americans in particular, will give up their cars. I did when I moved to Manhattan, but mostly because I couldn't afford the $350 a month just for the parking spot! It was a hugely difficult decision. No, as much as the average American could use a little more exercise, the better option is to avoid social engineering; Prohibition and the current War on Drugs prove the futility of that. The prices are high enough now that there are plenty of venture capitalists going hog wild investing in this stuff. I know this partially thanks to my work as a software engineer in the financial industry. A few government sponsored X-prises for alternative technologies would be a good idea, but the high cost of energy will likely make this a mute point. Like I said, those VCs are voting with their dollars, and I believe that their greed will help us all.
The precautionary principle that you suggest with your idea a, I do not support. It's not that I think that Global Warming won't prove to be a problem. I think for some humans/parts of the world, it will be. For others, it will be a boon. Siberia will likely warm turning it into another breadbasket for the world. My concern is the cost of something like the Kyoto treaty. The Stearn report which just came out the other day said that they expect the world's economies would be impacted by GW to the tune of 4-5% of the GDP; 40 Trillion US last year. They also said that proper Kyoto and Kyoto+ implementation would only cost 1% of that 40Trillion, or about 400 billion each year. Well, I see that as a terrible investment of money. Less money could be spent researching and deploying the better alternative technologies that would have a greater effect. Simply cutting back energy usage is a bad idea; Carbon trading, I include in that, would not be nearly as effective as curbing CO2 as making low impact energy sources(non-fossil fuels) cheaper to use than fossil fuels. The kicker is that this money would not be sent to the Middle East; there you get the war hawks in America to support you. The energy production equipment would be used here, and probably made here; at least partially; as well. There you get the America first folks.
Anyway, what scares me is what if we spend all this money, and the report said that the 1% would come from the lower growth and such from the global economy, but what if they're wrong. The head of the Russian Academy of science believes that the warming is due to increased solar activity, and other non-human related sources. I'm not necessarily saying he's right, but what if he is. If we go my way, then companies like GE grow, and our economy grows while our environmental impact diminishes. Thus leaving us in a position to deal with the possibility that their wrong.
In summary, my point is that I support alternative fuels as the solution, and am afraid of the idea of limiting energy usage. The latter I think is a terrible waste of money.
Hmm I wonder what the article on me says in the Intellipedia. I'd be really interested to make a few changes there.
Next will be insurance, credit, crime and health pedia.
More seriously, I think shared stores of information online have always existed in these departments, its only now they're calling it 'pedia' just as they're calling websites with text 'blogs' now.
Not really. I helped setup the first data centric website for section within the center that I worked for while I was on active duty; 98-02. While I was there, there was an attempt to make a linked database for all the centers, but it was crap. Everyone I know thought so, but it was all we had. We tried to make the best of it. The basic web stuff, sites dedicated to each individual center/section thereof was much better and more useful. The truth is, from someone who was an analyst (me), this is a great idea, and should solve a lot of problems that I had. I seriously doubt any information on specific Americans would be there. We were always very careful about that, and there was quite a bit of pressure from above to ensure we never did that. Granted, my specialty was foreign military aircraft, so not a problem for me to worry about Americans. In thinking further about it, it well, helps with the daily workflow of a analyst. You don't have to make new reports, you don't have to keep notes in one place that you will later collect into a report, and more. Were I still in my old job, I'd just update the wiki, like my own wiki, with the latest data; when I felt I had enough confirmation of it, moving it from my local notes stored in well, whatever appropriate. Granted for technical data, it would be less useful; think like the performance numbers of a piece of hardware, but for a lot of stuff; like who's using what and where, that would be great. I expect a lot of positive outcomes from this. It is huge! The only problem will be the center or two, I'll leave you to guess who, who doesn't like to share. Things changed a bit with them after 9/11, but not significantly in the 10 months after it that I was still working there. Hopefully now 4 years out, things are better.
I'll it even further back in history, to Benjamin Franklin. He wanted to bar Germans from immigrating to the US.
Falcon
Well, back then, he might of had a point. We had just finished fighting our independence from the Brits who used them as mercs. The Germans were the best troops of that day, so I could see the concern.
While the US is sliding spookily towards fascism, it isn't killing of large blocks of it's own citizens that disagree with it. While it doesn't put people into prison for saying the wrong things, it does have lots of laws and enforces them selectively against people who say the wrong thing.
I think, sadly, that you're pretty close to the mark with that, but, as I always do with my posts here, I have to bring up historical references. We were in a worse place 50+ years ago with McCarthyism. It was worse still further back during the first world war. My grandmother, born here but of German-born parents, Americanized her name in response to all the anti-German feelings of the time. Around those days we had the constitutional amendment for Prohibition. That too was changed, even if it took 10+ years and led directly (or at least greatly boosted depending on which article you read) to the rise of organized crime in America. We'll pull out of this fascist slide as we did those other slides. We only need people like you and me who are not happy with it to make it an electoral issue.
Will the U.S. lose control of the Internet? One can hope.
Just a question, and I don't want to start a flame war, but can you please list out what the US is doing wrong with regards to the internet? I'm not trying to egg you on, nor piss you off. I simply am not aware of what my government is doing wrong here, and I'd like to know. Granted, after you list your facts, I'll look into this to verify what you say, but I'd like a starting point.
It's clear that you don't like the President, and that's fine with me. I don't either, but with the noted exception of the.xxx domain, what's the problem?
I disagree with you about the US screwing up good ideas. I think it's more like that the US comes up with a good idea, and then smart folks in other places take it to places that we haven't thought of. Still, the example of the auto, chip, and other manufacturing industries is not as simple as all of that. The US has higher manufacturing costs than other countries do; namely in the form of higher wages and benefits for their employees. Certainly this is not true in all cases, I'm looking more toward Asian competition rather than European competition in those industries. That's how the US beat Europe back 100+ years ago during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It was cheaper and easier to make stuff here than in Europe. My guess is that will change when folks there start earning wages closer to those that we do here, and won't that be better for everybody!
It sounds like you don't like the US very much. That's cool, and I don't agree with folks who say you should get out of the country then. No, dissent is necessary. People who are not happy with things help those who are by giving them the reason to question what they value. Questioning is good. Without it, we'd still have bad things that I need not list out. I agree with you that more change is needed, even as I disagree with you that the US is big and bad.
I don't mean to quibble with you, but I don't really think things are that bad. Hell, there aren't even the riots that there were in the 60s. Were the country as full of violence strife as it was then, I'd agree with you. I think many people are angry and motivated in a positive way, and I do think that the result will be for the benefit of all of us. As for the corruption, well again, I don't think this administration is particularly bad historically speaking. We've had some BAD corrupt presidents in the past. Even honest guys like U.S. Grant were unable to control the corruption in their administrations. Granted, I'm not comparing the North's hero of the Civil War to Bush, far from it, but his administration was far, far more corrupt. Harding's was probably the worst, and he wasn't a great guy. He, you might want to compare to Bush. I could go on and on, sadly, with many more examples. My point is that I really don't think things are THAT bad, but I do agree that significant corruption is taking place and needs to be fixed. I'm just trying to say that we've been here before, and I have a secular faith in the people to correct their mistakes. We elected the wrong guy, and he's mucked up far more than he's done right. The other thing that makes me even more hopeful for the future is things like this. The internet with the fantastic ability of it to keep tabs on folks, and to spread commentary, will only help empower people more while at the same time adding another check on to the corruption of the politicians. Would you and I be talking were it not for this? I doubt we'd even hear about this terrible law were it not for the internet. I do not think the MSM would cover it; left or right leaning. You could argue that I view the world through rose colored glasses, but much of my hope is from studying the past. It has been worse, and we're smarter now. In no way could the abuses of Tammany_Hall exist in my town, NYC, today. So I feel about our country.
For the record, we don't have the largest stockpile of nukes. We are number 2. Russia still maintains a significantly larger number of nuclear weapons.
Another point I'd like to make is about the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. The purpose of the law was a reaction against British prohibition of gun ownership in the colonies. Once things got a bit rebellious here, they decided to take the guns away. In fact, the British march on both Lexington and Concord in 1775 was intended to retrieve a rebel cache of weapons. Here's the key point, in those days the civilians did have more or less the same quality of weapons as the army. In fact, the refiling on many of the barrels that were used by the frontier folk for hunting made great waring weapons. The average British army soldier did not have that, but they did have more cannon. As technology has improved, the point of that law has lost much of it's meaning. Tanks, jets, and machine guns are quite beyond anything that an average person would have. The only way to beat that would be as you said to win the hearts and minds of the troops.
Now to address your main point. Having a few bad laws is no big deal. After all, we did make Prohibition a constitutional amendment. It's easy enough to undo the bad laws that any president would push through. The US has need of fresh politicians; I agree. Our government is not so bad that we need a new form of government. Our system is different, but certainly quite similar to the parliamentary systems in use in many other countries. It happens that people make mistakes and elect people who do a bad job. Just as this has happened before, we'll fix it again. These calls for revolution and the like are just silly. Sure people are angry, and I understand that. In general, I agree with them, but let's be serious. Militias and revolutions are not likely to appear in any serious numbers any time soon here. Hopefully, a fresh crop of politicians with fresh ideas that actually represent the desires of the people do. The latest commercials from both sides is not all that encouraging to me.
I am really missing anything? The new TVs in the stores look fine, but every time I visit a friend who has an enormous screen, I can't help but think "Man, those guys look all blocky and stretched" when Hockey Night in Canada is on.
I mean, WTF?
Your friend probably doesn't have an HD source. I have a 42 LCD HD tv, and the channels that my cable company supplies that aren't in HD do look stretched and blocky, but the HD channels that they supply look fantastic. Also, you might just ask your friend to turn off the stretching feature. Most of the big widescreen tv's that I've seen have the ability to show the image stretched to fill the whole screen or "letterbox". Showing a SD signal in that mode looks fine.
As an aside, I play in a pool league with a guy who's a bigshot video guy for one of the TV stations here in the city, and he told me that the optimal viewing distance for a tv is about 2.5-3 times the length of the diagonal of the screen (103-124 inches in the case of my tv), so your 6-8 feet back sounds like a good idea. I've seen a few web articles that seem to support this guy's suggestion.
Good Game != Good Movie
Doom, Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, RE2, I could go on. These where great games, but the movies sucked. Even though Halo was a fantastic game with a well written script & plot, 90% of the game was the same thing over & over. Shoot, hunt, shoot, hide, repeat. Doesn't make for a good movie.
Yeah, I loved the Wing Commander series, but have you seen the movie? Ugh!
Of course, digitised books have advantages too, such as not taking up space, and being easily searchable. It seems like an ideal format for non-fiction reference books such as encyclopedias and guides, but not very good for fiction.
You're right that this would not be useful for real books; the stuff most folks are willing to shell out $15 -$25 for in a bookstore or on Amazon. What about the world of paperbacks? There are pleanty of books that I buy that I seriously doubt will be worth reading in 50 years; some of that goofy sci-fi stuff that's so fun to read. I think one of these electronic readers would be good for that realm. Those eBooks that Baen Books offers; note I am a huge fan of their eBook service; would be great to read on one of these things. All they need to do now is to cut the price to below $100, and I'd actually buy one of these readers.
If you really want to go by the movie, it's technically love. I guess most slashdoters, being linux-using, slightly unattractive über-geeks with little education in literature might have missed that because the mindnuming hotness of Ms. Jovovich's body was standing in the way.
No, we all get the love point, but that is not nearly as funny as a low-brow sexual reference.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, aside from munitions production, most war equipment takes an awful long time to build. Gone are the days of WWII and Detroit pumping planes and tanks out by the thousands. I don't care who's building them, but production capacity would be less of an issue in this theoretical war. We'd use up everything too quickly.
One more thing to consider is that most of the world uses some American built equipment. The F-16 is everywhere; along with a multitude of other US produced equipment; like the F-14s that Iran flies. Certainly the Russians, China, the EU make their own jets/tanks/stuff, but a significant portion of the world's military equipment is stamped with a made in the USA sticker. After all, we are the world's biggest arms dealer. The last I checked, we had the rest of the world beat; combined. No, I am not proud of that fact.
The last problem is that we would lose. In just about every war game that we had in Germany during the Cold War, we pretty much always had to resort to using Nukes to hold back all of those Russian tanks. The A-10 was built to help with that, but even lots of them didn't really tip the equation.
So, yes, we'd lose, but it's would be difficult to consider the situation without nukes flying.
Still, in a recruiting tool, and that game is one, why would anyone expect that the Army would allow a situation that it could lose? To me, even though it is far from realistic, it is just good marketing on their part. They'll get more recruits that way. After all, the oldest joke in the US military is "How can you tell when a recruiter is lying?
For the record, I am a veteran of the USAF, as is my father and my grandfather was a Army soldier. That, and I think the poster you're replying to was trolling. Me, I'm just wasting time!
I think community improvement programs need to be included in any school improvement issues.
I guess America isn't the only place burdened with people with small minds. I'm getting awfully tired of Europeans thinking that all of us here are oil burning George Bush supporters. Half of us voted against him. I myself, along with millions of others, pay extra for electricity to buy our power from low impact sources like wind and hydro. Most states have tax rebates or other similar incentives to encourage the use of low impact energy sources. Bush, himself, recently created the World's Largest Marine Sanctuary. I'm not saying he's a good guy, but he's not all evil either. To say that America is some environmental destruction zone is false, and I am sick and tired of ignorance laced opinions like yours. We have pleanty of room to improve here, but the place that was first to set aside protected land is not the worst either.
The $30 a pack tax, in your example, that you say for fuel prices would be like prohibition. That kind of drastic tax is not a nudge, but a shove. I don't think they're even trying something like that in Europe. Raise prices that dramatically on something as entrenched as smoking or fossil fuels, and you end up with a large black market. Your intent is a good one, and I certainly support that, but in practice, I don't see it working. Again, sell the idea, and get more people like me to volunteer to do it. That's the way.
CRAF should be raised. That would be a minor tax on car sales that would help. Force SUVs to meet the car standard instead of the light truck standard. That would help.
The punitive tax that you suggest is exactly like the sin taxes on tobacco. I don't think they work either. It certainly didn't stop my girlfriend, and millions of others from smoking, but arguments about health have convinced many, including her, to quit. Convince people the value of the tax, as I have been convinced, and you have a winning strategy. Tax them forcibly, and you end up giving people a reason to work around the law. That's where the link to prohibition comes into play. Coercion does not work as well as a sales pitch. Get someone to believe it, and they won't try to subvert it. It's like people in NY driving to NJ to get the cheaper gas there that has a lower tax, even though the extra tax in NY is there to help the roads or something. I've done that myself, because I don't believe the extra tax money is being used properly. It's not that I think you would go the extreme, but even the moderate logic of the idea fails in my mind. I've never heard anyone say they stopped smoking because of the tax that seems to go up here in NYS every few years. I have heard them talk about ways to subvert the tax by buying them out of state, on reservations, or simply complaining about it. That's my point, not that I think you would say turn off the spigot tomorrow.
I agree, that beach scenario would suck, but you're still missing my point. I'm not convinced of the link between higher levels of CO2 and global warming. I've heard a very convincing argument that suggested that higher solar intensity would is the cause here. I also think that this stuff will happen, no matter what we do. As in the case of beaches, a large number of this countries beaches would not exist today if they were not regularly dredged up and 're-sanded'. I don't see why we couldn't do that again to the "new" coastline. Also, I do not support the opinion that the oceans will rise quickly. They are rising at a higher rate today than they were earlier in the last century, but still we're talking about going from 1-2 mm a year to 3-4mm a year. That is dramatic, but it's not the kind of thing that you could watch with your eyes. We will have to adapt, but I'm sure we'll find a way. The Dutch have been successfully reclaiming land for almost 1000 years. I'm sure they'd be willing to teach us how to do it. I have faith in humans ability to adapt to changes in climate, but not our ability to prevent them. That being said, research into why and how this is happening is a good idea. Research, development, and deployment of alternative fuels is a better idea. I agree there with you on both of those points, but it's still the link between higher CO2 and GW that I disagree with you on.
The threats come from you talking about gun toting roving bands. Displaced people happen from hurricanes and disasters like that. A gradual rise in sea levels will not cause that, but the next big hurricane to hit another American city probably will; including my fair NYC. Besides, in most of this city, the poor don't live near the water. Harlem, and the South Bronx, are on the high ground. Quibbling, sure, but it's part of the point. The Battery, lower Manhattan, is full of the ultra rich and home to Wall Street. They are no threat. I bel
My point is that I'm not convinced that if we stopped burning fossil fuels today that this wouldn't happen anyway. I think we're warming for reasons beyond our control, so I think we WILL have to move our cities and heavy industries. If we blow our economic wad on controlling CO2, and this happens anyway, then we're in worse shape. If we go my way, we'll have the resources to adjust better than without them. In the meantime, we SHOULD develop the alternate technologies, and deploy them as they become effective.
I do care about them. Again, I believe that we will have to deal with the consequences of a warming earth regardless of what we do. The IPCC report on the Kyoto treaty says that if we all met the agreement, including the US and Austrailia, that we'd only delay the effects by a few decades. Kyoto only buys time, instead of solving the problem. I say, screw that, invest in alternative energy technologies, and that will get us out of the dirty fossil fuel business once and for all. You seem to be missing the fact that there are only two parts of your argument that I disagree with. The first is that I think Kyoto type treaties will not get us off of fossil fuels; for the same, or probably less money, I think we can develop alternative energy sources that will make free from fossil fuels. The second is that I don't think we can do anything to prevent the warming that is occurring. I honestly believe we'll have to adapt to it, and that the wars and problems that will come.
Also, you seem to think that threatening me will help change my mind. I said in my last post, that I'm not convinced that we can do anything about it, but my mind is open. Tell me what articles, reports, and arguments that convinced you, and I might change my mind. Unlike you, I've clearly said that I'm willing to, only that my opinion is different than yours. Opinions can change, and I was willing to listen to your arguments. Talking about the consequences is not enough, when I'm not convinced of the relationship between the cause and the effect. I agree that as the warming continues, the environmental effects will start to get a lot worse, but I'm not sure there is anything we can do to prevent it.
Another point is that I've heard no one say that the
True, you didn't say that. I am also referring to the Kyoto and Kyoto Follow-on treaties. I'm fully against them
Now, I agree that Global Warming, if it progresses to the point that it does do what the current models say it will do, will cause events that suck for most of humanity, I'm not convinced that limiting gasoline usage via gasoline or other similar in effect taxes or policies on fossil fuel energy usage, will help. I can agree to disagree here, but that's my current opinion. I believe that if the climate does warm significantly, then we'll adapt. If I have to move off Manhattan, well, that's okay. The house I grew up in is 60 miles north of the city, and about 600 feet above sea level. Besides, I believe that there is pleanty of room for all of us on this planet; loss of space or not. We could simply build up, and convert many of the suburbs into farm land. Again, the land I grew up on, was a farm until 1965. Humans will adapt. I know that's quibbling, but I believe that the world is a big place, and if the whole population lived in cities, then we'd use much less land for work and life freeing a huge amount for food production.
I'm not convinced that added CO2 in the atmosphere, or some warming is all that bad. First of all, there is a limit to how much warming you can get. It's not a linear scale, and we do get less warming in a greenhouse for each unit of added CO2. This is logical since CO2 only works on a limited frequency band of electromagnetic radiation. Other gasses reflect other bands, which explains why low clouds warm the earth, and high clouds cool it; the crystals reflect heat back out to space, and the droplets reflect it back to the surface.
Greenland, during the Medieval Warm Period, did support Viking settlements quite well. During the Roman Warm period, grapes were grown in England. All that occurred during a time which production CO2 from human sources was negligible compared with today. I've read a ton of papers posted on www.co2science.com that show that most plants do better in a higher CO2 environment; better yield with lower water needs. That's good for humanity, and the biosphere in general. Humanity seems to do worse when it's colder; as evident during the Little Ice Age. I find it interesting that the Little Ice Age occurred around the same time as the Maruander Minimum. Sun spot activity seems to be a good proxy for solar intensity, and the latter has been shown to correlate quite nicely in the last 30 years. 30 years ago the big idea was that an ice age was coming. Today, it's the warming. Clearly the warming is happening, but why is still a question to me. I'm not convinced that the tragic events that will occur from the warming will be prevented, even if we turned off the spigot tomorrow.
I am still not convinced that Global Warming is caused by human released CO2, but I'm willing to meet you half way. As I said in my other post, while the CO2 and H2O that is released by fossil fuel usage is not a problem in my opinion, every thing else is. I do agree with you that we'd be better off if not one more drop/ounce of it was burned or used. The problem with the tax, is not necessarily for people like myself. I'm, in effect, taxing myself by volunteering to pay the extra 6 cents per KWH to have ConEdison send me clean power. I'm concerned about those folks up in Harlem and the South Bronx. The poor can not afford that tax, and there are a lot of them in places between New York and LA. Currently, fossil fuels get a lot of support in the budget. Why don't we redir
That being said, I do think that burning fossil fuels is bad. All the other crap that results from burning them, including the money that helps fuel the wars in the Middle East and other places, is a bad idea. Personally, I pay 30% more for my electricity to have it come from wind/solar/hydro. I do not feel that everyone should be forced to do that, but that we should create a situation that would make folks want to do that. How? The fact is that with proper research and development, we can make energy sources other than fossil fuels cost effective enough so that people don't need to start walking more while still not using fossil fuels. I think it's foolish to believe that people in general, and Americans in particular, will give up their cars. I did when I moved to Manhattan, but mostly because I couldn't afford the $350 a month just for the parking spot! It was a hugely difficult decision. No, as much as the average American could use a little more exercise, the better option is to avoid social engineering; Prohibition and the current War on Drugs prove the futility of that. The prices are high enough now that there are plenty of venture capitalists going hog wild investing in this stuff. I know this partially thanks to my work as a software engineer in the financial industry. A few government sponsored X-prises for alternative technologies would be a good idea, but the high cost of energy will likely make this a mute point. Like I said, those VCs are voting with their dollars, and I believe that their greed will help us all.
The precautionary principle that you suggest with your idea a, I do not support. It's not that I think that Global Warming won't prove to be a problem. I think for some humans/parts of the world, it will be. For others, it will be a boon. Siberia will likely warm turning it into another breadbasket for the world. My concern is the cost of something like the Kyoto treaty. The Stearn report which just came out the other day said that they expect the world's economies would be impacted by GW to the tune of 4-5% of the GDP; 40 Trillion US last year. They also said that proper Kyoto and Kyoto+ implementation would only cost 1% of that 40Trillion, or about 400 billion each year. Well, I see that as a terrible investment of money. Less money could be spent researching and deploying the better alternative technologies that would have a greater effect. Simply cutting back energy usage is a bad idea; Carbon trading, I include in that, would not be nearly as effective as curbing CO2 as making low impact energy sources(non-fossil fuels) cheaper to use than fossil fuels. The kicker is that this money would not be sent to the Middle East; there you get the war hawks in America to support you. The energy production equipment would be used here, and probably made here; at least partially; as well. There you get the America first folks.
Anyway, what scares me is what if we spend all this money, and the report said that the 1% would come from the lower growth and such from the global economy, but what if they're wrong. The head of the Russian Academy of science believes that the warming is due to increased solar activity, and other non-human related sources. I'm not necessarily saying he's right, but what if he is. If we go my way, then companies like GE grow, and our economy grows while our environmental impact diminishes. Thus leaving us in a position to deal with the possibility that their wrong.
In summary, my point is that I support alternative fuels as the solution, and am afraid of the idea of limiting energy usage. The latter I think is a terrible waste of money.
Still, I see your point...
It's clear that you don't like the President, and that's fine with me. I don't either, but with the noted exception of the
I disagree with you about the US screwing up good ideas. I think it's more like that the US comes up with a good idea, and then smart folks in other places take it to places that we haven't thought of. Still, the example of the auto, chip, and other manufacturing industries is not as simple as all of that. The US has higher manufacturing costs than other countries do; namely in the form of higher wages and benefits for their employees. Certainly this is not true in all cases, I'm looking more toward Asian competition rather than European competition in those industries. That's how the US beat Europe back 100+ years ago during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It was cheaper and easier to make stuff here than in Europe. My guess is that will change when folks there start earning wages closer to those that we do here, and won't that be better for everybody!
It sounds like you don't like the US very much. That's cool, and I don't agree with folks who say you should get out of the country then. No, dissent is necessary. People who are not happy with things help those who are by giving them the reason to question what they value. Questioning is good. Without it, we'd still have bad things that I need not list out. I agree with you that more change is needed, even as I disagree with you that the US is big and bad.
it makes me think of stopping my pc gaming in place of nintendo's wii or the PS3; if only to remove the hassle of dealing with M$.
I don't mean to quibble with you, but I don't really think things are that bad. Hell, there aren't even the riots that there were in the 60s. Were the country as full of violence strife as it was then, I'd agree with you. I think many people are angry and motivated in a positive way, and I do think that the result will be for the benefit of all of us. As for the corruption, well again, I don't think this administration is particularly bad historically speaking. We've had some BAD corrupt presidents in the past. Even honest guys like U.S. Grant were unable to control the corruption in their administrations. Granted, I'm not comparing the North's hero of the Civil War to Bush, far from it, but his administration was far, far more corrupt. Harding's was probably the worst, and he wasn't a great guy. He, you might want to compare to Bush. I could go on and on, sadly, with many more examples. My point is that I really don't think things are THAT bad, but I do agree that significant corruption is taking place and needs to be fixed. I'm just trying to say that we've been here before, and I have a secular faith in the people to correct their mistakes. We elected the wrong guy, and he's mucked up far more than he's done right. The other thing that makes me even more hopeful for the future is things like this. The internet with the fantastic ability of it to keep tabs on folks, and to spread commentary, will only help empower people more while at the same time adding another check on to the corruption of the politicians. Would you and I be talking were it not for this? I doubt we'd even hear about this terrible law were it not for the internet. I do not think the MSM would cover it; left or right leaning. You could argue that I view the world through rose colored glasses, but much of my hope is from studying the past. It has been worse, and we're smarter now. In no way could the abuses of Tammany_Hall exist in my town, NYC, today. So I feel about our country.
For the record, we don't have the largest stockpile of nukes. We are number 2. Russia still maintains a significantly larger number of nuclear weapons.
Another point I'd like to make is about the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. The purpose of the law was a reaction against British prohibition of gun ownership in the colonies. Once things got a bit rebellious here, they decided to take the guns away. In fact, the British march on both Lexington and Concord in 1775 was intended to retrieve a rebel cache of weapons. Here's the key point, in those days the civilians did have more or less the same quality of weapons as the army. In fact, the refiling on many of the barrels that were used by the frontier folk for hunting made great waring weapons. The average British army soldier did not have that, but they did have more cannon. As technology has improved, the point of that law has lost much of it's meaning. Tanks, jets, and machine guns are quite beyond anything that an average person would have. The only way to beat that would be as you said to win the hearts and minds of the troops.
Now to address your main point. Having a few bad laws is no big deal. After all, we did make Prohibition a constitutional amendment. It's easy enough to undo the bad laws that any president would push through. The US has need of fresh politicians; I agree. Our government is not so bad that we need a new form of government. Our system is different, but certainly quite similar to the parliamentary systems in use in many other countries. It happens that people make mistakes and elect people who do a bad job. Just as this has happened before, we'll fix it again. These calls for revolution and the like are just silly. Sure people are angry, and I understand that. In general, I agree with them, but let's be serious. Militias and revolutions are not likely to appear in any serious numbers any time soon here. Hopefully, a fresh crop of politicians with fresh ideas that actually represent the desires of the people do. The latest commercials from both sides is not all that encouraging to me.
As an aside, I play in a pool league with a guy who's a bigshot video guy for one of the TV stations here in the city, and he told me that the optimal viewing distance for a tv is about 2.5-3 times the length of the diagonal of the screen (103-124 inches in the case of my tv), so your 6-8 feet back sounds like a good idea. I've seen a few web articles that seem to support this guy's suggestion.
Just thought I'd pass it on...
Yeah, I loved the Wing Commander series, but have you seen the movie? Ugh!
Great sig... made me laugh!