Democracies fail because at base they are simply two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner. The founders fully understood this which is why they created a republic. Eventually the Democrats showed up and became a force for "democracy" which is de-facto what we now have. We now have a democratic polity that votes to keep the good times rollin which means that with more wolves than sheep eventually you run out of sheep. Then the cannibalism starts which is very near where we are now.
I'm so glad that I am old and not that far from death so I can just sit back comfortably like a wolf and watch the chaos unfold in a splendid spectacle as the various interest groups fight over the few remaining productive scraps while the debt continues to mount. The really BIG wolves hold those debts and eventually they will battle it out for domination. This assumes that there doesn't come a new world revolution but that probably won't come until the last of the BIG wolves have died out, civilization is completely crushed and ground down to ashes. Without the abundance of natural resources the previous great civilization took advantage of, it will be very difficult for any new civilization to make much of itself.
Yes. Interesting times we live in. Very interesting times indeed.
And somehow you have missed my point that whenever the government gets involved it is to the detriment of the consumer who cannot afford to employ lobbyists and other influence peddlers that the large corporations can.
I have heard numerous arguments for so called "Net Neutrality" over the years but think about it. Do you really want the government forcing telecoms to treat ALL web traffic the same? Would that mean the lowliest customer gets the same bandwidth as the greatest? Just how much do you want to socialize the internet? Sure it seems like a small imposition, just to make sure they open all ports and don't throttle any. But eventually there will be special internet channels that come from the government at higher speed. Just so big-brother's face (or your J. Random Politician) can make sure everyone has unfettered access to official government sources.
Given the antics of the NSA and your favorite monolithic internet company collecting your data, allowing the government even more control over the internet seems a bit foolhardy.
Eventually it will work out so that even in small markets there will be more than one ISP. Pressure from consumers is already putting the brakes on some more monopolistic legislation in Kansas http://tech.slashdot.org/story.... A lot of people now have the choice to go to another ISP if they find some ports being blocked or "shaped" (doublespeak for throttled). When enough people switch, the offending ISP gets the message that they shouldn't be doing that.
If the government forces net neutrality then there will be less need for competition and less competition means worse service in the long run. It's much better in the rodeo than the stockyards.
This used to be called line lock. For 1/4 milers it was a help to get the engine revved up to the torque band while heating the rubber on the tires to get better traction. When the green light comes on you release the brakes and go.
When I was a kid we got tickets for negligent driving if we squealed the tires. The cops will have fun with this.
Perhaps this is why the FDA put the kabosh on it. I am for the free market but providing misleading or wrong interpretation is not a good thing. Since they'll be providing the raw data perhaps a market for a better analysis will spring up. Hopefully in another country beyond the gentle protections of the FDA.
Wouldn't a local caching DNS server solve that problem? Once a lookup is in the local cache there wouldn't be any DNS latency. Only new lookups would be delayed.
That the media in general is conflating Libertarian with criminal activities is more a sign of the general public being brainwashed in the government indoctrination camps (public schools) to believe that security is preferable to liberty.
AHA! Another product of the government monopoly on education. The Idea that left to themselves vendors would "game the system" to the detriment of the consumer is actually MORE prevalent under government granted monopolies that otherwise. It is up to the consumer to be aware of what he/she is getting for their money. However, people have been lulled into the false belief that the government is the great protector.
Corporations, without the involvement of government via corporate shield laws, tend to be evil because the individual stockholders are shielded from the evil actions of the corporation. Without this shielding, every owner would be liable for the wrongdoing and would take steps to prevent the evil. Corporations are inherently inhuman because, by law, a corporation is a "person" and that person is only entity liable for damages cause by the actions of the corporation. Only in cases of clear criminality can individuals be held liable while the stockholders have no liability at all.
You should pull your head out of the governments collective ass and learn how things work in the real world before you spout more of the drivel in your post.
Hasn't the government caused enough problems with granting monopolies to telecom companies. The whole industry needs to be totally deregulated. With deregulation comes competition and with competition comes better service and lower prices. The total over-regulation of telecom is the reason we have such lackluster service and higher costs. Telecom companies who have limited competition don't fear raising prices and don't need to improve service in order to attract new customers. Costs to business can be prohibitive. I still have clients that are still using ADSL (1.5 down and.5 up) because that's all they can get and that costs about $60/mo. Another has cable at 5/1 for $80/mo in a second office while the home office has decent cable from a different provider gets 50/4 which costs $200/mo and runs a VPN link between offices which is almost useless but at least they can get Terminal Services in the satellite office but the users complain a lot. Their only other choice is ADSL from AT&T which in a small town is only good for some light surfing and email assuming you have a lot of time.
Because governments limit the choices and regulate prices in a lot of cases we have crappy service. Can you imagine what it would be like if internet service were socialized? This country is already bankrupt. Can you imagine what a cluster f**k ObamaNet would be like? How about in Detroit?
Are you for real? Give me a break!
Remember, any government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it all away!
I'll assume that the RIAA is something other than the Recording Industry Association of America. But I presume that you are talking about some regulatory body.
The fact that electricity bills have not gone up in 10 years, assuming that is true, is the result of the regulation of the electricity producers even in the face of their fuel costs increasing. The result is, profits get squeezed. while this situation can continue for some time it will eventually result in the company in question being forced out of business because of profit margins being to low to support the company. Then because the socialists in power must assure low cost electricity the government will have to socialize or subsidize or even take over the production of electricity. The true costs will be passed on to taxpayers which means that the electricity will be paid for by the people who pay the most in taxes as a result of the progressive tax system. This is all econ 101 but then politicians could never be accused of knowing anything about economics.
There's enough "stupid" which comes from both parties in roughly equal proportion. To paraphrase Martin Luther, Stupid depends on who's party is being gored.
BTW, I'm an anarcho-capitalist Libertarian.
I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. —Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
The AGW is an hypothesis? Sure but there is no actual peer-reviewed proof of the AGW theory.
AGW is much more akin to a religion. A religion is a belief in something without any proof that the belief is true. There is no scientific consensus. All of the so called proof has been disproved by reputable scientists. But then what would one expect of the U.N. IPCC? Like any good religion no amount of proof against or lack of proof for the belief will have any effect on true believers.
Since we now have a true believer in the Whitehouse and a rubber-stamp liberal legislature we get stupid laws hoping to reduce the non-pollutant CO2 at great expense to utilities and consumers in the form of higher costs. I am NOT a conservative. I am a Libertarian and a lay scientist. I am also an atheist because there is no proof that a god exists. I.E. I am not a believer in things which are invisible and have no physical properties that can be measured or proven scientifically. But then most people don't understand science and couldn't distinguish fact from belief if their life depended on it which is frequently the case. I.E. God will not protect me from the evils of men or from my own foolish actions. God will not save you if you jump off a tall building without a parachute anymore than god will feed all of the people who will starve in the cold because of the actions of AGW believers.
In fact there is much historical and scientific data that shows quite the opposite of all the dire predictions of the AGW cultists. More CO2 in the air stimulates plant growth and extends the growing season in areas closer to the planets poles. There is no proof that more CO2 causes the so-called greenhouse effect. In fact the ice cores that the IPCC says shows an association between CO2 and higher temps actually upon closer examination show that higher temps PRECEED the increases in global CO2. There is a much greater association between solar radiation and higher global temps but the AGW cultists downplay this evidence by tweaking the weighting down of any data against AGW statistically to support their preconceived belief.
I could go on but again, like any good religion no amount of proof against or lack of proof for the AGW belief will have any effect on true believers.
I fully expect that the mostly true believers that seem to be on/. will also dismiss what I have said. Philosophically, it is impossible to prove a negative, but the lack of such proof doesn't mean that AGW is any more real than astrology. Any good scientist knows this. The proponents of AGW know this also but they are being foolish at best and dishonest at worst.
Amperes don't make electrons go. Voltage does that. Amperes is simply a measurement of the quantity of electrons flowing. I.E. 6.28 x 10^18 electrons past a certain point in one second = 1 Amp.
I registered Republican just to have the privilege of voting for Ron Paul in the primary. Then at the last minute the sleaseballs who run the party at the top changed the rules to deny Ron Paul from even speaking live at the convention. Just so they could claim that Romney had unanimous support of Republicans.
Folks, if you think that things are ever going to change via the democratic system in the United States you're fools. When the party leaders won't allow any Libertarian thought to enter into the neocon brain then you'll only have neocon's to vote for.
I won't go into the process of the leadership of the Democratic Party but I would guess it's similar. Otherwise how did a socialist like O'Bama get nominated twice?
I no longer vote. It's a waste of time. I no longer contribute to mainstream party candidates. It's a waste of money. Even the Libertarian party is not immune to the contagion of greed and power seeking that permeates the U.S. political system.
Eventually the system will collapse because of all the debt. The U.S. is in decline and nothing can stop that now. My advise is to invest in gold and silver and if possible get it any yourselves out of the country to a place which treats you and your money with much more respect. Stop being slaves and sheeple.
I see. So you don't believe that Gold and Silver are money since "no one is required to accept gold in payment". While It's possible that some people would prefer Dollars over Gold or Silver I would call those people fools. The reason for the term "Legal Tender" is because paper currency has no intrinsic value above the value of the paper and ink which isn't much. In Germany's Hyperinflation during the early years of the 20th century people were using stacks of newly printed Reichsmarks for heating and cooking fuel. People became so distrustful of fiat money that "legal tender" laws had to be passed to compel people to accept them in payment. They would much rather had silver or gold or even copper penny's or nickles.
So if you have any old gold or silver coins that you think you can't spend like the real money they are just send them to me. You see paper money can be printed without end but gold and silver have to be dug out of the ground. This is why gold and silver have value while paper money only has value as long as some fool will accept it. When there are trillions of dollars being printed or created every day the dollars in your pocket will not be worth the paper they're printed on.
Previous to the invention of paper money, gold and silver served very well as money for thousands of years. Gold and silver will be freely traded again because the Dollar regime is coming to an end.
Before the question of regulation can be answered one must have a good knowledge of the difference between paper (fiat) money and real money as defined in the U.S. constitution. Paper money in the past was redeemable from banks in silver and gold coin. In fact paper dollars had printed on them "Silver Certificate" that guaranteed that the paper dollar could be redeemed for a 90% silver dollar coin. The fact that it was redeemable for "hard" money (silver) put a limit on the number of paper dollars that could be printed because banks were always subject to bank runs if the depositors felt that their paper was being inflated.
Inflation BTW is not a rise in prices (Consumer Price Index) but an increase in the supply of money.
So we have two kinds of money, real money (gold and silver despite what Ben Bernanke says) and paper (fiat) money. And now we have a third kind of money called digital currency (Bitcoin). Bitcoin is still a fiat currency because, like paper money it was created out of nothing. The fact that it was created by a computer(s) is irrelevant. Most of the "Dollars" nowadays are merely bookkeeping entries which were created by the Federal Reserve and "spent" into circulation thereby inflating the money supply. The same can be said of the Euro, Pound, Yen, Yuan etc...
Because Bitcoin is a fiat currency it is subject to inflation and like other fiat currencies its value is determined by the faith of the people who have Bitcoin wallets. If people stopped accepting Bitcoins then Bitcoins would be worthless. The same can be said of every other fiat currency. They are all faith-based money.
Gold and silver along with other traditional coinage metals copper and nickle are real money because they have an intrinsic value. Fiat money however requires that some institution or government stand behind it. Take a dollar out of your wallet and on it you'll find "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE", but you'll find no such words on any gold, silver, copper or nickle coins because it isn't needed.
The good thing about Bitcoins have is that they currently are private, outside of the banking system and they facilitate monetary exchange without the need to ship "real" or 'fiat" money around the country. Bitcoin transactions have some of the utility of credit/debit cards with the addition that they are anonymous and private. If governments start regulating Bitcoins they will first lose their privacy and anonymity which to me is their only redeeming qualities.
The first and last time I encountered the TSA (Toadlike Stupid Assholes) was a bad experience which I won't detail, so I no longer fly commercial. I drive wherever I go which could be a 3,200 mile round-trip to visit relatives. It takes about 2.5 days both ways out of my vacation time but I do get to see a lot of pretty country on the trip. I no longer need to put up with Toadlike Stupid Assholes wanting to question me and look in my luggage and feel my junk. I also miss out on the travel time to-from airports (at LAX it's very stressful) and I don't have to eat airport/jet plane food or listen to kids crying etc... etc...
The TSA is just one of the many violations of my god-given rights some of which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights. What really saddens me however is the sheep-like response of the majority of the public in putting up with these violations. Every time some government jack-booted thug violates a citizens rights the citizen should protest loudly to whoever will listen. But instead most of the sheeple will either knuckle under and go along to get along and be thankful he wasn't beaten or shot to death. When it happens to somebody else the sheeple sometimes laugh and make fun of the poor soul who is now in the hospital or morgue because he dared to open his mouth and protest or resisted (in the mind of the thug anyway) even slightly.
Yes. In many ways we live in a totalitarian police state. The fact that sheeple deny it is because they were mostly educated in a government school and raised by their parent sheeples. Few are the scholars who know what life would be like if the Bill of Rights were strictly enforced by placing every government thug on trial for rights violations and the agency he works for to be civilly liable for monetary damages.
The sensitivity and thermal noise of a receiver has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that a mythical airport radar on a planet orbiting a star at 50 light years distance, that cannot be resolved as a separate source by any known optical or synthetic aperture will be completely overwhelmed by the output of the planet's star. A wildly inaccurate (because I'm to lazy to do the math) analogy would be comparing the output of a microwave oven with the output of 1 billion blast furnaces. While the EM spectrum of the blast furnaces would not be in the gigahertz range there is still some present. Likewise with a star there is EM "noise" that extends well down into the gigahertz range so having a highly selective filter won't help.
The antenna will essentially "see" a blob of radiation coming from the star and while the airport radar would be in there somewhere it couldn't be picked out at all.
OK so lets assume for the sake of argument that we're NOT talking about an airport radar on a planet orbiting a star but instead we're talking about a radar aboard a space ship which is far enough from any other source that it COULD be resolved by the antenna. Is the amount of radiation that has traveled 50 light years enough to overcome the CBR? That's questionable as well.
I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of the original statement and my perhaps faulty assumptions.
A lot of great math there but it completely misses the point. A point source radiator, at that distance couldn't be distinguished from the radiation coming from the planets star. I don't care how much processing power you put on the various correlated antenna. The capture area BTW is not the longest baseline between array collectors. That would be the resolving power meaning the beam-width of the antenna array at 50 light years which would be far greater than the distance between the planet and its star. Capture area OTOH would be the sum of all the antennas dish or aperture area. Therefore the planet or any radiator on it's surface would be completely lost in the noise of the star not to mention the noise generated by the system itself. It isn't necessary for me to point out the noise created by the intervening 50 light years of sources which would also be captured by the array.Only with an antenna with a beam width infinitely small would the system be able to resolve the radar on the planet and only when the antenna was pointed directly at the radar source which is so impractical as to be impossible. I studied antennas when I was in high-school 45 years ago when I was in electronics class. It's called signal to noise ratio and believe me there's a lot of noise. Just on logic alone I have proven the absurdity of the statement. You can do the math yourself since you seem to be so good at it.
Slashdot Mirror
Democracies fail because at base they are simply two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner. The founders fully understood this which is why they created a republic. Eventually the Democrats showed up and became a force for "democracy" which is de-facto what we now have. We now have a democratic polity that votes to keep the good times rollin which means that with more wolves than sheep eventually you run out of sheep. Then the cannibalism starts which is very near where we are now.
I'm so glad that I am old and not that far from death so I can just sit back comfortably like a wolf and watch the chaos unfold in a splendid spectacle as the various interest groups fight over the few remaining productive scraps while the debt continues to mount. The really BIG wolves hold those debts and eventually they will battle it out for domination. This assumes that there doesn't come a new world revolution but that probably won't come until the last of the BIG wolves have died out, civilization is completely crushed and ground down to ashes. Without the abundance of natural resources the previous great civilization took advantage of, it will be very difficult for any new civilization to make much of itself.
Yes. Interesting times we live in. Very interesting times indeed.
Edwin
And somehow you have missed my point that whenever the government gets involved it is to the detriment of the consumer who cannot afford to employ lobbyists and other influence peddlers that the large corporations can.
I have heard numerous arguments for so called "Net Neutrality" over the years but think about it. Do you really want the government forcing telecoms to treat ALL web traffic the same? Would that mean the lowliest customer gets the same bandwidth as the greatest? Just how much do you want to socialize the internet? Sure it seems like a small imposition, just to make sure they open all ports and don't throttle any. But eventually there will be special internet channels that come from the government at higher speed. Just so big-brother's face (or your J. Random Politician) can make sure everyone has unfettered access to official government sources.
Given the antics of the NSA and your favorite monolithic internet company collecting your data, allowing the government even more control over the internet seems a bit foolhardy.
Eventually it will work out so that even in small markets there will be more than one ISP. Pressure from consumers is already putting the brakes on some more monopolistic legislation in Kansas http://tech.slashdot.org/story.... A lot of people now have the choice to go to another ISP if they find some ports being blocked or "shaped" (doublespeak for throttled). When enough people switch, the offending ISP gets the message that they shouldn't be doing that.
If the government forces net neutrality then there will be less need for competition and less competition means worse service in the long run. It's much better in the rodeo than the stockyards.
We never had anything with enough power to break anything. We had to go to the strip and watch the nitro boys blow shit up.
This used to be called line lock. For 1/4 milers it was a help to get the engine revved up to the torque band while heating the rubber on the tires to get better traction. When the green light comes on you release the brakes and go.
When I was a kid we got tickets for negligent driving if we squealed the tires. The cops will have fun with this.
Perhaps this is why the FDA put the kabosh on it. I am for the free market but providing misleading or wrong interpretation is not a good thing. Since they'll be providing the raw data perhaps a market for a better analysis will spring up. Hopefully in another country beyond the gentle protections of the FDA.
Wouldn't a local caching DNS server solve that problem? Once a lookup is in the local cache there wouldn't be any DNS latency. Only new lookups would be delayed.
That the media in general is conflating Libertarian with criminal activities is more a sign of the general public being brainwashed in the government indoctrination camps (public schools) to believe that security is preferable to liberty.
AHA! Another product of the government monopoly on education. The Idea that left to themselves vendors would "game the system" to the detriment of the consumer is actually MORE prevalent under government granted monopolies that otherwise. It is up to the consumer to be aware of what he/she is getting for their money. However, people have been lulled into the false belief that the government is the great protector.
Corporations, without the involvement of government via corporate shield laws, tend to be evil because the individual stockholders are shielded from the evil actions of the corporation. Without this shielding, every owner would be liable for the wrongdoing and would take steps to prevent the evil. Corporations are inherently inhuman because, by law, a corporation is a "person" and that person is only entity liable for damages cause by the actions of the corporation. Only in cases of clear criminality can individuals be held liable while the stockholders have no liability at all.
You should pull your head out of the governments collective ass and learn how things work in the real world before you spout more of the drivel in your post.
Edwin
Hasn't the government caused enough problems with granting monopolies to telecom companies. The whole industry needs to be totally deregulated. With deregulation comes competition and with competition comes better service and lower prices. The total over-regulation of telecom is the reason we have such lackluster service and higher costs. Telecom companies who have limited competition don't fear raising prices and don't need to improve service in order to attract new customers. Costs to business can be prohibitive. I still have clients that are still using ADSL (1.5 down and .5 up) because that's all they can get and that costs about $60/mo. Another has cable at 5/1 for $80/mo in a second office while the home office has decent cable from a different provider gets 50/4 which costs $200/mo and runs a VPN link between offices which is almost useless but at least they can get Terminal Services in the satellite office but the users complain a lot. Their only other choice is ADSL from AT&T which in a small town is only good for some light surfing and email assuming you have a lot of time.
Because governments limit the choices and regulate prices in a lot of cases we have crappy service. Can you imagine what it would be like if internet service were socialized? This country is already bankrupt. Can you imagine what a cluster f**k ObamaNet would be like? How about in Detroit?
Are you for real? Give me a break!
Remember, any government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it all away!
Edwin
Just get the government involved.
Good one!
I'll assume that the RIAA is something other than the Recording Industry Association of America. But I presume that you are talking about some regulatory body.
The fact that electricity bills have not gone up in 10 years, assuming that is true, is the result of the regulation of the electricity producers even in the face of their fuel costs increasing. The result is, profits get squeezed. while this situation can continue for some time it will eventually result in the company in question being forced out of business because of profit margins being to low to support the company. Then because the socialists in power must assure low cost electricity the government will have to socialize or subsidize or even take over the production of electricity. The true costs will be passed on to taxpayers which means that the electricity will be paid for by the people who pay the most in taxes as a result of the progressive tax system. This is all econ 101 but then politicians could never be accused of knowing anything about economics.
There's enough "stupid" which comes from both parties in roughly equal proportion. To paraphrase Martin Luther, Stupid depends on who's party is being gored.
BTW, I'm an anarcho-capitalist Libertarian.
I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
—Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
The AGW is an hypothesis? Sure but there is no actual peer-reviewed proof of the AGW theory.
AGW is much more akin to a religion. A religion is a belief in something without any proof that the belief is true. There is no scientific consensus. All of the so called proof has been disproved by reputable scientists. But then what would one expect of the U.N. IPCC? Like any good religion no amount of proof against or lack of proof for the belief will have any effect on true believers.
Since we now have a true believer in the Whitehouse and a rubber-stamp liberal legislature we get stupid laws hoping to reduce the non-pollutant CO2 at great expense to utilities and consumers in the form of higher costs. I am NOT a conservative. I am a Libertarian and a lay scientist. I am also an atheist because there is no proof that a god exists. I.E. I am not a believer in things which are invisible and have no physical properties that can be measured or proven scientifically. But then most people don't understand science and couldn't distinguish fact from belief if their life depended on it which is frequently the case. I.E. God will not protect me from the evils of men or from my own foolish actions. God will not save you if you jump off a tall building without a parachute anymore than god will feed all of the people who will starve in the cold because of the actions of AGW believers.
In fact there is much historical and scientific data that shows quite the opposite of all the dire predictions of the AGW cultists. More CO2 in the air stimulates plant growth and extends the growing season in areas closer to the planets poles. There is no proof that more CO2 causes the so-called greenhouse effect. In fact the ice cores that the IPCC says shows an association between CO2 and higher temps actually upon closer examination show that higher temps PRECEED the increases in global CO2. There is a much greater association between solar radiation and higher global temps but the AGW cultists downplay this evidence by tweaking the weighting down of any data against AGW statistically to support their preconceived belief.
I could go on but again, like any good religion no amount of proof against or lack of proof for the AGW belief will have any effect on true believers.
I fully expect that the mostly true believers that seem to be on /. will also dismiss what I have said. Philosophically, it is impossible to prove a negative, but the lack of such proof doesn't mean that AGW is any more real than astrology. Any good scientist knows this. The proponents of AGW know this also but they are being foolish at best and dishonest at worst.
Edwin
I don't think the article author knows what != means either.
Good point.
Don't you mean 100 Gb and not 100 GB which really would be a boost!
Amperes don't make electrons go. Voltage does that. Amperes is simply a measurement of the quantity of electrons flowing. I.E. 6.28 x 10^18 electrons past a certain point in one second = 1 Amp.
She should have shown the PIE chart.
I registered Republican just to have the privilege of voting for Ron Paul in the primary. Then at the last minute the sleaseballs who run the party at the top changed the rules to deny Ron Paul from even speaking live at the convention. Just so they could claim that Romney had unanimous support of Republicans.
Folks, if you think that things are ever going to change via the democratic system in the United States you're fools. When the party leaders won't allow any Libertarian thought to enter into the neocon brain then you'll only have neocon's to vote for.
I won't go into the process of the leadership of the Democratic Party but I would guess it's similar. Otherwise how did a socialist like O'Bama get nominated twice?
I no longer vote. It's a waste of time. I no longer contribute to mainstream party candidates. It's a waste of money. Even the Libertarian party is not immune to the contagion of greed and power seeking that permeates the U.S. political system.
Eventually the system will collapse because of all the debt. The U.S. is in decline and nothing can stop that now. My advise is to invest in gold and silver and if possible get it any yourselves out of the country to a place which treats you and your money with much more respect. Stop being slaves and sheeple.
I see. So you don't believe that Gold and Silver are money since "no one is required to accept gold in payment". While It's possible that some people would prefer Dollars over Gold or Silver I would call those people fools. The reason for the term "Legal Tender" is because paper currency has no intrinsic value above the value of the paper and ink which isn't much. In Germany's Hyperinflation during the early years of the 20th century people were using stacks of newly printed Reichsmarks for heating and cooking fuel. People became so distrustful of fiat money that "legal tender" laws had to be passed to compel people to accept them in payment. They would much rather had silver or gold or even copper penny's or nickles.
So if you have any old gold or silver coins that you think you can't spend like the real money they are just send them to me. You see paper money can be printed without end but gold and silver have to be dug out of the ground. This is why gold and silver have value while paper money only has value as long as some fool will accept it. When there are trillions of dollars being printed or created every day the dollars in your pocket will not be worth the paper they're printed on.
Previous to the invention of paper money, gold and silver served very well as money for thousands of years. Gold and silver will be freely traded again because the Dollar regime is coming to an end.
Before the question of regulation can be answered one must have a good knowledge of the difference between paper (fiat) money and real money as defined in the U.S. constitution. Paper money in the past was redeemable from banks in silver and gold coin. In fact paper dollars had printed on them "Silver Certificate" that guaranteed that the paper dollar could be redeemed for a 90% silver dollar coin. The fact that it was redeemable for "hard" money (silver) put a limit on the number of paper dollars that could be printed because banks were always subject to bank runs if the depositors felt that their paper was being inflated.
Inflation BTW is not a rise in prices (Consumer Price Index) but an increase in the supply of money.
So we have two kinds of money, real money (gold and silver despite what Ben Bernanke says) and paper (fiat) money. And now we have a third kind of money called digital currency (Bitcoin). Bitcoin is still a fiat currency because, like paper money it was created out of nothing. The fact that it was created by a computer(s) is irrelevant. Most of the "Dollars" nowadays are merely bookkeeping entries which were created by the Federal Reserve and "spent" into circulation thereby inflating the money supply. The same can be said of the Euro, Pound, Yen, Yuan etc...
Because Bitcoin is a fiat currency it is subject to inflation and like other fiat currencies its value is determined by the faith of the people who have Bitcoin wallets. If people stopped accepting Bitcoins then Bitcoins would be worthless. The same can be said of every other fiat currency. They are all faith-based money.
Gold and silver along with other traditional coinage metals copper and nickle are real money because they have an intrinsic value. Fiat money however requires that some institution or government stand behind it. Take a dollar out of your wallet and on it you'll find "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE", but you'll find no such words on any gold, silver, copper or nickle coins because it isn't needed.
The good thing about Bitcoins have is that they currently are private, outside of the banking system and they facilitate monetary exchange without the need to ship "real" or 'fiat" money around the country. Bitcoin transactions have some of the utility of credit/debit cards with the addition that they are anonymous and private. If governments start regulating Bitcoins they will first lose their privacy and anonymity which to me is their only redeeming qualities.
The first and last time I encountered the TSA (Toadlike Stupid Assholes) was a bad experience which I won't detail, so I no longer fly commercial. I drive wherever I go which could be a 3,200 mile round-trip to visit relatives. It takes about 2.5 days both ways out of my vacation time but I do get to see a lot of pretty country on the trip. I no longer need to put up with Toadlike Stupid Assholes wanting to question me and look in my luggage and feel my junk. I also miss out on the travel time to-from airports (at LAX it's very stressful) and I don't have to eat airport/jet plane food or listen to kids crying etc... etc...
The TSA is just one of the many violations of my god-given rights some of which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights. What really saddens me however is the sheep-like response of the majority of the public in putting up with these violations. Every time some government jack-booted thug violates a citizens rights the citizen should protest loudly to whoever will listen. But instead most of the sheeple will either knuckle under and go along to get along and be thankful he wasn't beaten or shot to death. When it happens to somebody else the sheeple sometimes laugh and make fun of the poor soul who is now in the hospital or morgue because he dared to open his mouth and protest or resisted (in the mind of the thug anyway) even slightly.
Yes. In many ways we live in a totalitarian police state. The fact that sheeple deny it is because they were mostly educated in a government school and raised by their parent sheeples. Few are the scholars who know what life would be like if the Bill of Rights were strictly enforced by placing every government thug on trial for rights violations and the agency he works for to be civilly liable for monetary damages.
http://www.ncc-1776.org/
The sensitivity and thermal noise of a receiver has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that a mythical airport radar on a planet orbiting a star at 50 light years distance, that cannot be resolved as a separate source by any known optical or synthetic aperture will be completely overwhelmed by the output of the planet's star. A wildly inaccurate (because I'm to lazy to do the math) analogy would be comparing the output of a microwave oven with the output of 1 billion blast furnaces. While the EM spectrum of the blast furnaces would not be in the gigahertz range there is still some present. Likewise with a star there is EM "noise" that extends well down into the gigahertz range so having a highly selective filter won't help.
The antenna will essentially "see" a blob of radiation coming from the star and while the airport radar would be in there somewhere it couldn't be picked out at all.
OK so lets assume for the sake of argument that we're NOT talking about an airport radar on a planet orbiting a star but instead we're talking about a radar aboard a space ship which is far enough from any other source that it COULD be resolved by the antenna. Is the amount of radiation that has traveled 50 light years enough to overcome the CBR? That's questionable as well.
I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of the original statement and my perhaps faulty assumptions.
A lot of great math there but it completely misses the point. A point source radiator, at that distance couldn't be distinguished from the radiation coming from the planets star. I don't care how much processing power you put on the various correlated antenna. The capture area BTW is not the longest baseline between array collectors. That would be the resolving power meaning the beam-width of the antenna array at 50 light years which would be far greater than the distance between the planet and its star. Capture area OTOH would be the sum of all the antennas dish or aperture area. Therefore the planet or any radiator on it's surface would be completely lost in the noise of the star not to mention the noise generated by the system itself. It isn't necessary for me to point out the noise created by the intervening 50 light years of sources which would also be captured by the array.Only with an antenna with a beam width infinitely small would the system be able to resolve the radar on the planet and only when the antenna was pointed directly at the radar source which is so impractical as to be impossible. I studied antennas when I was in high-school 45 years ago when I was in electronics class. It's called signal to noise ratio and believe me there's a lot of noise. Just on logic alone I have proven the absurdity of the statement. You can do the math yourself since you seem to be so good at it.