Yes, you're very much correct. But the problem in the Netherlands is we have no *natural* places (read: on-the-cheap) to use for this trick, everything is be made by hand (also the mines you mention). The area with dikes is a great idea, it would even be possible to construct this right in the North sea... But the initial investment is immense, and that is the biggest obstacle.
The 20% is only valid for the 50% of people who sleep 8 hours, for the 50% who need only 6 hours sleep it's closer to 25%, and for the 50% who never sleep it's 100%!!!
Indeed, the inventor of the windmill is lost in history, the ancient Greeks, Chinese and Middle east are known to have used windmills, but no details on year or design are known. So it's also not certain that the invention is from the Islamic world (but it is certain that by the time of invention the Islam did not exist yet, so sorry: no dice)... But the dutch are the inventors of a lot of what makes a modern windmill even though they were late to the party...
What I do know is that the dutch pioneered the improvement of the wind powered archimedes screw (basically a diagonal windmill), they created higher (and much more effective) towering windmills, invented new methods of pumping the water and are also the inventors of the sawmill and oilmill for example... They also created numerous specific components like special gears and grinding stones for example. So although the first windmill was not exactly dutch (the dutch did not even exist back then), they still made the windmill like it is today for the most part.
Interesting... Is this the same Monsanto that is currently patenting our world food supply? Than it probably was this a chemical plant creating strong insecticides?
Still no matter how bad it was, it's always worse in other countries who are clear of these regulations, most companies just moved the dirty and dangerous stuff abroad. Remember Bhopal? After these regulations shit still happens, just not in our back yard...
What works on Iceland is geothermal because they have a very active geology, what works in the Netherlands is wind because we have a lot of wind, what works in the Alps is hydro because the have a lot of mountains and water, and what works in Greece is solar... Every region has it's strong points indeed, none is 'better' per se.
The solar system you describe is also being pioneered on an industrial scale, but they use mirrors to concentrate the sun and salt to store the heat of the day to use for power generation at night... This is the same concept as wind/hydro since they also buffer energy, thereby reducing output during the day to be able to provide baseline power throughout the night... The advantage of solar is that the day/night sequence is very predictable, while the wind isn't... But then again, that is also highly region dependent!
In a marshy delta the rivers and sea can change the layout of the land quite fast on a geological timescale. Look at the difference between these two pictures spaced less than 5000 years apart: 3850 BC and 800 AD - as you can see the coastline changed dramatically and the flow of the rivers is also different...
Interstate exchange is also a good solution, but to provide baseline power using both would be a better option. As to the loss it's all a matter of what's acceptable... Solar farms also use the cheap solar panels in abundance instead of the more efficient really expensive ones, generally because land is also cheap where they are used, so there is no use concentrating much power generation in a small space for a bigger price. The same could go for windmills, if these things are only 10% of the price of the best ones, but the process leaves you with 50% of the power left it's a valid choice to create bigger, cheaper, less efficient, but reliable wind farms.
I also believe it's best not to depend on one form of power generation/storage exclusively, so the option of having different kinds of wind turbines is not off the table... Efficient ones who generate power straight to the grid, and inefficient ones who pump and provide the buffer for when the wind does not blow... By varying the amount of each you decide the trade-off between efficiency against the size of the buffer.
You raise good questions, but it's a matter of the best solution for a local area... that will be different all around the world. But a technique with wind/hydro will work anywhere near the coastlines given enough gradient, that's why it doesn't work in the Netherlands, and we need the long cable to Norway... we lose a lot of energy that way, but when the *excess* energy would go unused otherwise it's pure profit indeed.
Increasing cost on fossil fuel will probably make solutions like buffering renewable energy more attractive later on, not even due to the emission quota (which is BS since it hardly cancels out the subsidies on coal for example) but due to scarcity and political benefits of not being so dependent on other nations. These benefits speak for themselves in the long run...
People a few centuries back beg to differ... It's simpler tech, do you have any idea of the complexity and cost of modern windmills? And bending the shaft,... What gave you the idea that would ever be needed???
I think journalists are slowly becoming aware that for something to be green there is more to it than people telling them it's green... They love a scoop, and an article about 150% loss of the power, which basically makes it an exercise in futility would be a good thing for them..
And the natural environment we had here centuries ago was already fast-changing, the rivers and sea shaped the land constantly. It was not an environment you could live in comfortably, and there weren't any old forests. Human involvement first started by keeping land the way it was, and later adding more land to it. I'd hardly call this 'destroyed', but the original nature is indeed severely reduced and most is shaped into something useful.
As they say: "God created the earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands":)
Pumping water with wind energy insures you can use wind energy as a baseline power supply (although it's actually hydro energy that achieves it). You lose some efficiency in raw power output, but since you can spread the use out to all day wind or no wind you increase the worth of that generated power a lot. The biggest disadvantages of both wind and solar is that they can't supply the base load 24/7. Mitigating that problem by reducing efficiency is a trade-off that can really help renewable energy become more mainstream and reduce our dependence on fossil fuel (which is still used mostly to supply baseline power). Also with scarce wind available this may still increase the value of the wind energy enough to make it worth the trade-off... Maybe not today, but soon enough.
As for the 'as a Dutch you should know'; when you quote someone it helps to also read the part you replaced with '[etc.]' since I already noted that windmills were created originally to pump water...
I kinda jumped to another idea, more in reference to the situation from the article than my little sidestory. Obviously it would only work in a location where there is a local height difference. But then again I don't know the losses involved with transporting power or water over long distances, there is probably some upper bound for distance but I wouldn't know it. A big water main that is being pressurized by an array of windmills in the sea can pump water over a distance of a hundred miles for example... I'm sure it's possible, but is it efficient? And more precisely is it more efficient than electric power transmission (and pumps). At a distance close to 0 it's obvious the water wins the efficiency test since it lacks the conversion...
Towers won't work, you need a lake to be able to store a capacity you can actually use. Dutch wind energy is currently being stored in Norwegian lakes (because here it's flat, and they have mountain lakes). Apparently the advantage was worth laying the worlds longest underwater power line between nations.
But taking this idea a step further for local power generation: Why convert to electricity in the first place? If you pump water to a higher place you might as well let the windmills pump it directly (that's why the Dutch invented them after all), you have an immediate buffer in the lake so you can never pump too hard, and the hydroelectric generators can be throttled easily. You have the benefits of a buffer and a higher efficiency, as well as a more simple design (no high-tech generators needed in every windmill). Damn great idea, if I say it myself... Must be because I'm Dutch.:-)
Sure you can. Obviously the Netherlands isn't the only country to think it's bullshit. The more that stop playing along with this bullshit, the better. Eventually, the point will come across that you guys actually intend to keep the "sovereign" in "sovereign nation". Same idea as dealing with the schoolyard bully. "We" can't go Rambo on you all.
We currently have spoken out against prolonged occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and our troops who helped build a little part of Afghanistan are moving out now... so that's exactly what we do. But funny that you make the comparison with the school bully, because that is how the treatment of the US feels a little by now. They have shown not to be above threatening their allies with economic sanctions (repercussions) if they did not help out or officially supported their crazy wars. This is bullying indeed, and our previous president was a pussy who immediately fell for it.
Oh yeah, and I realize that most Americans probably aren't like the idiots on TV, but i've seen Fox news, and i've seen how they reported on my home town of Amsterdam for example so I know first hand how distorted they can present 'news'. Knowing that fact and the fact that the channel is still wildly popular is a pretty strong indication that there are a *lot* of Americans who love to see the world trough... ehhh... well, no glasses at all. Only the US is slightly in focus, and the rest of the world is a blur.
It's hardly hatred from Europeans... more amazement at the new levels of stupidity we see from Americans all the time.
And on your first point you are right, there was one religious extremist who killed Theo van Gogh. He was an intolerant bastard, who just happens to be Muslim. The other recent high profile murder was of the politician Pim Fortuyn, and the extremist who did that was an eco-fanatic. It's all the same to me, it's all wrong. America had extremist Christians bombing abortion clinics, that's also more of the same...
What i'm talking about is more along the lines of the oppression of Palestine, or the minorities around Paris (remember the riots), any group that feels maltreated for long enough will react, often with violence. This is not any justification but merely static a historic fact which we can use as a warning. It's certainly not something to be totally amazed about, even though it is still despicable. And I'm not a terrorist-sympathizer for suggesting that treating people (or the world) better will result in a better life for yourself. Think of it as international karma...:-)
According to your logic they could also have run the CIA out of the country because they are also known to have 'worked together' with those same terrorists... The Taliban was only very loosely associated, but the fact was that Osama Bin Laden was in the country, so they invaded the whole country to catch one criminal unrelated to that country. Oh yeah, and they missed him...
The first war in Iraq is completely different from the second... I have no idea why the let Saddam in power (no doubt because he promised something that his probable successor would not), but it was a mistake. They may have fixed that mistake yes, but they *told us it was about WMDs*, they lied... simple. You can't go about invading countries for bullshit reasons. And you definitely can't drag other countries along with you like that, lying to your own citizens is still different from lying to your allies... the US lost a lot of goodwill worldwide.
And you point out Iraq shot at US planes. There was clearly some beef there not worked out since the first war... but it was not an attack on US soil, which was kinda the point since The North Atlantic treaty was bullshit in this situation... but the US played it like 'you are either with us or with the terrorists'.
The US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and then came to us for help. The only Dutch troops in Afghanistan help to build a new country after the US destroyed one (well I have to give you that there wasn't much country left before that)... And we are moving those troops out right now (because we don't want to be used by the US to clean up their mess anymore). You are right that there is oil/blood on the hand of the Dutch too, for example: Shell is a Dutch company screwing up Nigeria pretty bad. But this is something we're working on, and it's a whole other thing than invading a country under pretense of WMDs.
But still, you are right: It's all about the oil baby!
Our previous president was J.P. Balkenende, also known as 'that Harry Potter guy' (I think it was a G.W. Bush quote). He was a puppet for the US and generally sucked as president, but got (re-)elected because of the large Christian backing in the rural parts of the Netherlands. But our country clearly was not content with his actions, and this past election his party lost more seats than ever. The problem is we also have those redneck people who are yelling 'something needs to be done' other than a harsh letter, and a lot of those people vote Geert Wilders (the right extremist). He tries to solve the problem by making people scared of Muslims, and oppressing the Muslim population here... And you can be damn sure that oppressing any people will result in violence in the long run, so I expect nothing good from them. But luckily we can vote more than just 2 parties here, and we do... especially here in Amsterdam are far more to the left (the US would probably even classify us as commies). We do protest the government actions, and we do in fact get an actual effect, for example: we're moving our troops out of Afghanistan as we speak.
That being said, we can protest all we want and our government may even agree, but they can never get the US to stop treating the whole fucking world as their personal playground to do with as they damn well please... So don't pretend like we can actually have any influence of the policy of the US. And don't even begin about smugness, because Americans are the worst of all... Thinking they are the greatest, and this the United Planet of America. We see those dumbasses on TV all the time saying "USA is the greatest most free-est place on earth. I've never even been abroad because all other countries suck. Whooo USA!". Fuck, you don't even know what freedom is.
Yes, that and we Europeans feel like the increased threat to our countries is also to blame on US foreign policy... Most 'terrorists' are just idiots trying to do battle against the entire western world. Their beef is with the US, but the entire western world now feels the wrath of these terrorists... So top-secret-US-agencies thanks a lot for that, you really helped out! And so did invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and all of the shit the US pulls we don't even have a fucking clue about. You can't try to control the world because there will be (bad) consequences to all your actions... and right now we're feeling a little too much of that too here in Europe...
Yeah, like the terrorist attack on times square that was so adequately prevented by the agencies? Oh no, it was a dud... or did they sabotage that too?
Measure effectiveness? FAIL!
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
How do you measure effectiveness indeed? An attack that never occurs can never be proven to have been prevented, only attacks that actually occur can be reviewed by civilians. So that might skew the perception, but it's the only way to rate effectiveness.
The most recent example of a terrorist attack on US soil would be 9/11, and we know some things about the involvements of government agencies there:
- First of all they (CIA) funded, armed and trained the people responsible (although decades before, it had a measurable influence)
- After that their 'betrayal' and international covert operations (or more in general US involvement abroad) are mentioned by terrorist organizations as a mayor reason for their war on the US
- And last but not least these agencies knew of an impending attack prior to 9/11 and failed to protect the civilians
So according to my score they failed miserably! Given the absence of proof to the contrary it looks like the larger the (counter)intelligence in a country is the more likely that country will become involved in international terrorism and other unwanted unintended consequences.
I'm really glad the Netherlands where I live does not have such massive covert operations, if the US is the example to go by it would probably cause more problems for us than it would ever solve...
You have an excellent post with some good points against the global warming consensus. Sadly this will label you an AGW denier, and most likely also a holocaust denier and member of the flat earth society in one breath... It's responses like this to every little critical question that convinced me science is not a priority in this highly politicized debate. Do not be discouraged to ask questions, even though you will most likely never get any good answers...
They always post links to sites created on 'how to deal with denialists', but there is never enough scientific detail to satisfy your quest for actual knowledge on the subject. I noticed all these 'how-to-talk-to' sites have exactly the same questions, but phrase it slightly different, but they all lack answers to the important questions. It's enough to satisfy anyone who does not want to look into the details, and there are millions of these exact same sites popping up to give the public a feeling of consensus and legitimacy. Try a broad google search like this, there are currently over 46 million of them (obvious overestimate), each with a slightly different title, they call you 'denier', 'skeptic', 'conservative' or 'disruption denialist', when you search for these terms specifically you will find up to a million distinct sites just like that...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you're very much correct. But the problem in the Netherlands is we have no *natural* places (read: on-the-cheap) to use for this trick, everything is be made by hand (also the mines you mention). The area with dikes is a great idea, it would even be possible to construct this right in the North sea... But the initial investment is immense, and that is the biggest obstacle.
The 20% is only valid for the 50% of people who sleep 8 hours, for the 50% who need only 6 hours sleep it's closer to 25%, and for the 50% who never sleep it's 100%!!!
Indeed, the inventor of the windmill is lost in history, the ancient Greeks, Chinese and Middle east are known to have used windmills, but no details on year or design are known. So it's also not certain that the invention is from the Islamic world (but it is certain that by the time of invention the Islam did not exist yet, so sorry: no dice)... But the dutch are the inventors of a lot of what makes a modern windmill even though they were late to the party...
What I do know is that the dutch pioneered the improvement of the wind powered archimedes screw (basically a diagonal windmill), they created higher (and much more effective) towering windmills, invented new methods of pumping the water and are also the inventors of the sawmill and oilmill for example... They also created numerous specific components like special gears and grinding stones for example. So although the first windmill was not exactly dutch (the dutch did not even exist back then), they still made the windmill like it is today for the most part.
Interesting... Is this the same Monsanto that is currently patenting our world food supply? Than it probably was this a chemical plant creating strong insecticides?
Still no matter how bad it was, it's always worse in other countries who are clear of these regulations, most companies just moved the dirty and dangerous stuff abroad. Remember Bhopal? After these regulations shit still happens, just not in our back yard...
What works on Iceland is geothermal because they have a very active geology, what works in the Netherlands is wind because we have a lot of wind, what works in the Alps is hydro because the have a lot of mountains and water, and what works in Greece is solar... Every region has it's strong points indeed, none is 'better' per se.
The solar system you describe is also being pioneered on an industrial scale, but they use mirrors to concentrate the sun and salt to store the heat of the day to use for power generation at night... This is the same concept as wind/hydro since they also buffer energy, thereby reducing output during the day to be able to provide baseline power throughout the night... The advantage of solar is that the day/night sequence is very predictable, while the wind isn't... But then again, that is also highly region dependent!
In a marshy delta the rivers and sea can change the layout of the land quite fast on a geological timescale. Look at the difference between these two pictures spaced less than 5000 years apart:
3850 BC and 800 AD - as you can see the coastline changed dramatically and the flow of the rivers is also different...
Interstate exchange is also a good solution, but to provide baseline power using both would be a better option. As to the loss it's all a matter of what's acceptable... Solar farms also use the cheap solar panels in abundance instead of the more efficient really expensive ones, generally because land is also cheap where they are used, so there is no use concentrating much power generation in a small space for a bigger price. The same could go for windmills, if these things are only 10% of the price of the best ones, but the process leaves you with 50% of the power left it's a valid choice to create bigger, cheaper, less efficient, but reliable wind farms.
I also believe it's best not to depend on one form of power generation/storage exclusively, so the option of having different kinds of wind turbines is not off the table... Efficient ones who generate power straight to the grid, and inefficient ones who pump and provide the buffer for when the wind does not blow... By varying the amount of each you decide the trade-off between efficiency against the size of the buffer.
You raise good questions, but it's a matter of the best solution for a local area... that will be different all around the world. But a technique with wind/hydro will work anywhere near the coastlines given enough gradient, that's why it doesn't work in the Netherlands, and we need the long cable to Norway... we lose a lot of energy that way, but when the *excess* energy would go unused otherwise it's pure profit indeed.
Increasing cost on fossil fuel will probably make solutions like buffering renewable energy more attractive later on, not even due to the emission quota (which is BS since it hardly cancels out the subsidies on coal for example) but due to scarcity and political benefits of not being so dependent on other nations. These benefits speak for themselves in the long run...
People a few centuries back beg to differ... It's simpler tech, do you have any idea of the complexity and cost of modern windmills? And bending the shaft,... What gave you the idea that would ever be needed???
I think journalists are slowly becoming aware that for something to be green there is more to it than people telling them it's green... They love a scoop, and an article about 150% loss of the power, which basically makes it an exercise in futility would be a good thing for them..
:)
And the natural environment we had here centuries ago was already fast-changing, the rivers and sea shaped the land constantly. It was not an environment you could live in comfortably, and there weren't any old forests. Human involvement first started by keeping land the way it was, and later adding more land to it. I'd hardly call this 'destroyed', but the original nature is indeed severely reduced and most is shaped into something useful.
As they say: "God created the earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands"
Pumping water with wind energy insures you can use wind energy as a baseline power supply (although it's actually hydro energy that achieves it). You lose some efficiency in raw power output, but since you can spread the use out to all day wind or no wind you increase the worth of that generated power a lot. The biggest disadvantages of both wind and solar is that they can't supply the base load 24/7. Mitigating that problem by reducing efficiency is a trade-off that can really help renewable energy become more mainstream and reduce our dependence on fossil fuel (which is still used mostly to supply baseline power). Also with scarce wind available this may still increase the value of the wind energy enough to make it worth the trade-off... Maybe not today, but soon enough.
As for the 'as a Dutch you should know'; when you quote someone it helps to also read the part you replaced with '[etc.]' since I already noted that windmills were created originally to pump water...
I kinda jumped to another idea, more in reference to the situation from the article than my little sidestory. Obviously it would only work in a location where there is a local height difference. But then again I don't know the losses involved with transporting power or water over long distances, there is probably some upper bound for distance but I wouldn't know it. A big water main that is being pressurized by an array of windmills in the sea can pump water over a distance of a hundred miles for example... I'm sure it's possible, but is it efficient? And more precisely is it more efficient than electric power transmission (and pumps). At a distance close to 0 it's obvious the water wins the efficiency test since it lacks the conversion...
Towers won't work, you need a lake to be able to store a capacity you can actually use. Dutch wind energy is currently being stored in Norwegian lakes (because here it's flat, and they have mountain lakes). Apparently the advantage was worth laying the worlds longest underwater power line between nations.
:-)
But taking this idea a step further for local power generation: Why convert to electricity in the first place? If you pump water to a higher place you might as well let the windmills pump it directly (that's why the Dutch invented them after all), you have an immediate buffer in the lake so you can never pump too hard, and the hydroelectric generators can be throttled easily. You have the benefits of a buffer and a higher efficiency, as well as a more simple design (no high-tech generators needed in every windmill). Damn great idea, if I say it myself... Must be because I'm Dutch.
Sure you can. Obviously the Netherlands isn't the only country to think it's bullshit. The more that stop playing along with this bullshit, the better. Eventually, the point will come across that you guys actually intend to keep the "sovereign" in "sovereign nation". Same idea as dealing with the schoolyard bully. "We" can't go Rambo on you all.
We currently have spoken out against prolonged occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and our troops who helped build a little part of Afghanistan are moving out now... so that's exactly what we do. But funny that you make the comparison with the school bully, because that is how the treatment of the US feels a little by now. They have shown not to be above threatening their allies with economic sanctions (repercussions) if they did not help out or officially supported their crazy wars. This is bullying indeed, and our previous president was a pussy who immediately fell for it.
Oh yeah, and I realize that most Americans probably aren't like the idiots on TV, but i've seen Fox news, and i've seen how they reported on my home town of Amsterdam for example so I know first hand how distorted they can present 'news'. Knowing that fact and the fact that the channel is still wildly popular is a pretty strong indication that there are a *lot* of Americans who love to see the world trough... ehhh... well, no glasses at all. Only the US is slightly in focus, and the rest of the world is a blur.
It's hardly hatred from Europeans... more amazement at the new levels of stupidity we see from Americans all the time.
:-)
And on your first point you are right, there was one religious extremist who killed Theo van Gogh. He was an intolerant bastard, who just happens to be Muslim. The other recent high profile murder was of the politician Pim Fortuyn, and the extremist who did that was an eco-fanatic. It's all the same to me, it's all wrong. America had extremist Christians bombing abortion clinics, that's also more of the same...
What i'm talking about is more along the lines of the oppression of Palestine, or the minorities around Paris (remember the riots), any group that feels maltreated for long enough will react, often with violence. This is not any justification but merely static a historic fact which we can use as a warning. It's certainly not something to be totally amazed about, even though it is still despicable. And I'm not a terrorist-sympathizer for suggesting that treating people (or the world) better will result in a better life for yourself. Think of it as international karma...
According to your logic they could also have run the CIA out of the country because they are also known to have 'worked together' with those same terrorists... The Taliban was only very loosely associated, but the fact was that Osama Bin Laden was in the country, so they invaded the whole country to catch one criminal unrelated to that country. Oh yeah, and they missed him...
The first war in Iraq is completely different from the second... I have no idea why the let Saddam in power (no doubt because he promised something that his probable successor would not), but it was a mistake. They may have fixed that mistake yes, but they *told us it was about WMDs*, they lied... simple. You can't go about invading countries for bullshit reasons. And you definitely can't drag other countries along with you like that, lying to your own citizens is still different from lying to your allies... the US lost a lot of goodwill worldwide.
And you point out Iraq shot at US planes. There was clearly some beef there not worked out since the first war... but it was not an attack on US soil, which was kinda the point since The North Atlantic treaty was bullshit in this situation... but the US played it like 'you are either with us or with the terrorists'.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq never attacked the US. You probably watched a little too much Fox News...
The US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and then came to us for help. The only Dutch troops in Afghanistan help to build a new country after the US destroyed one (well I have to give you that there wasn't much country left before that)... And we are moving those troops out right now (because we don't want to be used by the US to clean up their mess anymore). You are right that there is oil/blood on the hand of the Dutch too, for example: Shell is a Dutch company screwing up Nigeria pretty bad. But this is something we're working on, and it's a whole other thing than invading a country under pretense of WMDs.
But still, you are right: It's all about the oil baby!
Our previous president was J.P. Balkenende, also known as 'that Harry Potter guy' (I think it was a G.W. Bush quote). He was a puppet for the US and generally sucked as president, but got (re-)elected because of the large Christian backing in the rural parts of the Netherlands. But our country clearly was not content with his actions, and this past election his party lost more seats than ever. The problem is we also have those redneck people who are yelling 'something needs to be done' other than a harsh letter, and a lot of those people vote Geert Wilders (the right extremist). He tries to solve the problem by making people scared of Muslims, and oppressing the Muslim population here... And you can be damn sure that oppressing any people will result in violence in the long run, so I expect nothing good from them. But luckily we can vote more than just 2 parties here, and we do... especially here in Amsterdam are far more to the left (the US would probably even classify us as commies). We do protest the government actions, and we do in fact get an actual effect, for example: we're moving our troops out of Afghanistan as we speak.
That being said, we can protest all we want and our government may even agree, but they can never get the US to stop treating the whole fucking world as their personal playground to do with as they damn well please... So don't pretend like we can actually have any influence of the policy of the US. And don't even begin about smugness, because Americans are the worst of all... Thinking they are the greatest, and this the United Planet of America. We see those dumbasses on TV all the time saying "USA is the greatest most free-est place on earth. I've never even been abroad because all other countries suck. Whooo USA!". Fuck, you don't even know what freedom is.
(Psssst: I also wish I could trade places)
Wouldn't we all? :-)
Yes, that and we Europeans feel like the increased threat to our countries is also to blame on US foreign policy... Most 'terrorists' are just idiots trying to do battle against the entire western world. Their beef is with the US, but the entire western world now feels the wrath of these terrorists... So top-secret-US-agencies thanks a lot for that, you really helped out! And so did invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and all of the shit the US pulls we don't even have a fucking clue about. You can't try to control the world because there will be (bad) consequences to all your actions... and right now we're feeling a little too much of that too here in Europe...
Yeah, like the terrorist attack on times square that was so adequately prevented by the agencies? Oh no, it was a dud... or did they sabotage that too?
How do you measure effectiveness indeed? An attack that never occurs can never be proven to have been prevented, only attacks that actually occur can be reviewed by civilians. So that might skew the perception, but it's the only way to rate effectiveness.
The most recent example of a terrorist attack on US soil would be 9/11, and we know some things about the involvements of government agencies there:
- First of all they (CIA) funded, armed and trained the people responsible (although decades before, it had a measurable influence)
- After that their 'betrayal' and international covert operations (or more in general US involvement abroad) are mentioned by terrorist organizations as a mayor reason for their war on the US
- And last but not least these agencies knew of an impending attack prior to 9/11 and failed to protect the civilians
So according to my score they failed miserably! Given the absence of proof to the contrary it looks like the larger the (counter)intelligence in a country is the more likely that country will become involved in international terrorism and other unwanted unintended consequences. I'm really glad the Netherlands where I live does not have such massive covert operations, if the US is the example to go by it would probably cause more problems for us than it would ever solve...
but now I kinda hate you already...
You have an excellent post with some good points against the global warming consensus. Sadly this will label you an AGW denier, and most likely also a holocaust denier and member of the flat earth society in one breath... It's responses like this to every little critical question that convinced me science is not a priority in this highly politicized debate. Do not be discouraged to ask questions, even though you will most likely never get any good answers...
They always post links to sites created on 'how to deal with denialists', but there is never enough scientific detail to satisfy your quest for actual knowledge on the subject. I noticed all these 'how-to-talk-to' sites have exactly the same questions, but phrase it slightly different, but they all lack answers to the important questions. It's enough to satisfy anyone who does not want to look into the details, and there are millions of these exact same sites popping up to give the public a feeling of consensus and legitimacy. Try a broad google search like this, there are currently over 46 million of them (obvious overestimate), each with a slightly different title, they call you 'denier', 'skeptic', 'conservative' or 'disruption denialist', when you search for these terms specifically you will find up to a million distinct sites just like that...