Anything other than exporting faces of cubes would be extremely difficult. SL prims are based off parametric equations and are incompatible with 3D models based on sets of vertices (Sketchup).
If someone found an efficient algorithm to convert 3D models based off vertices into a group of simple parametric objects, they would be very, very rich. It would be the Computer Graphics equivalent of an alchemist discovering a way to convert copper into gold.
What this guy did was paint a piece of copper with liquified gold, then wrote a blurb about how great it would be if this was pure gold. It's not, although it's good to dream. I'm sure a lot of alchemists made progress in chemistry just by trying to solve the copper-into-gold problem. I just don't think people should get their hopes up about a Sketchup to SL importer that does anything worthwhile.
Also see http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html to see some info on their plug-in hybrids that achieve over 100 MPG. Hopefully Google will help fund something similar, except this time we can buy it.
One of Google.org's first projects is the development of a plug-in hybrid vehicle that achieves a mileage rating equivalent to 100 MPG.
After seeing the movie 'Who Killed the Electric Car' I was so angry I swore I would never buy another car that doesn't run on electricity. Hopefully Google is going to save my ass so I don't have build it.
Any time there's a story on wrong-doing, it all comes down to "everybody does it." That's the worst position I've ever heard.
Not everyone does it, and if they do, they should be investigated, convicted or if that fails, they should be exposed to the point where there is such public outrage that they're thrown out of office.
My politics are left-wing and I support the movement to purge the DLC and corporate democrats. The only reason I am part of that movement is because of the internet, something you say is a threat to "our system." Well maybe, but I think it is actually a threat to THEIR SYSTEM, because one day my right-wing counterparts will wake up and realize their party is also over-run with corporate puppets, and start voting Libertarian or someone else in who isn't bought off by lobbyists. People will stop getting their news from the corporate press, and will go to places like opensecrets.org to get facts about who actually pays for legislation.
I got off-topic from the vote-rigging, but I was making a point that your apathy and defeatist attitude is not helping the cause to expose corruption. Vote-rigging is the worst crime against our democracy, but you'd rather attack a democratic medium such as the internet for bringing up the issue. In your world, democracy is dangerous, ignorance is strength, down is the new up.
I agree. Why do parents insist on teaching kids out-dated languages that will be today's equivalent of programming on punch cards when they reach the workforce?
As someone who started out with Java 6 years ago, I find it completely ridiculous to go backwards to BASIC. Why not make things fun, and go into a game like Second Life and open up the script editor. Or make a robot. Or make a cool website with a database backend? Then parents wonder why kids rather go back to playing WoW instead of opening up the math book to write some programs. I wish I had some hipster punchline to end this train of thought, like "BUFU MUFU"... I saw that one on Youtube, but yeah I'm too old for that and I read Slashdot, so I don't know what it means. BUFU MUFU
The key is what "awoke a desire to learn more programming."
With my generation (I'm 24) and younger that's video games... and to a lesser degree robots and web programming. I went into Comp Sci because of video games, and finished my degree liking programming enough where I didn't need to program games after college.
Given the attention span of the current generation, kids need to see quick results. I would recommend messing around with the script editor in Second Life because you see results instantaneously. You can bring objects to life within minutes.
For making robots, there's Lego Mindstorms. For web programming I recently fell in love with Google's GWT, but that's a little too bleeding edge for some parents. Maybe giving them some html to "pimp out their myspace" might inspire them? I don't know.
Hydrogen is such a 'pie in the sky' technology. It costs too much to make hydrogen, it's expensive to store and the infrastructure is non-existant. Even with this new technology, hydrogen costs more to make and loses more energy than any other fuel out there.
Not only that, but there is already a proven alternative. Electric cars have the infrastructure (power outlets), are more efficient than either oil or hydrogen, and there is far less pollution using power from the grid than burning oil or making hydrogen with current methods.
Anyone who wants to know the truth needs to look at California. Back in the 1990s, California forced major car companies to make a choice... either make EVs or you can't sell cars in California. The auto companies made electric cars that were fast, looked good and could go 120 miles on a charge. Thousands of people wanted them. Instead of selling the cars, the auto companies leased them, then joined oil companies to lobby California politicians to cancel the EV mandate.
Andrew Card, former GM lobbyist and Bush Chief of Staff acted as a plaintiff against the State of California, attempting to sue the state for pushing the EV mandate. A few years later, the Department of Justice under the Bush administration filed an amicus brief supporting GM and other automakers. The automakers were very clear, they didn't want to make electric cars... so much so they even took back and crushed every EV they leased.
To replace EVs, Bush presented the new "Hydrogen Economy." He gave $1.2 billion of taxpayer money to car makers just to research the technology. This article is no doubt part of that research.
Hydrogen is of course 10 to 15 years away... suspiciously convenient for auto-manufacters and oil companies who don't want electric cars. So my conclusion is that, everything you see on TV, everything you see on the web about hydrogen, it's all just a big charade to distract people away from electric cars.
The scary thing is this guy is just a casual observer. If you step outside the mainstream media and dig deeper you will find things that sound like fiction, but the government is actually doing.
1 in 5 scientists at the FDA say that "I have been asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or my conclusions in an FDA scientific document" - UCS
When I read the title, I assumed "Their Discontents" meant the oil industry.
For slashback I would ask, 'How much do you think the oil industry is spending this week to slander and block electric vehicle technology?'
Most people on Slashdot would think I'm an outrageous left-wing nut for asking. But really, if every week the oil monopoly makes over a billion dollars in profits, do people believe they wouldn't spend a small fraction to oppose a disruptive technology that could bankrupt them?
'Spore's unprecedented level of user-generated content is sure to send ripple effects through and beyond the video-game world. Could the mass-market game provide the tipping point for the burgeoning retail trend of mass customization? How will it redefine the roles of game designers and publishers alike? We asked a variety of experts to predict the economic, educational, legal, and other effects of the game.'
Hasn't anyone heard of Second Life? From what I've seen of Spore, only creatures are user created. You can't sell them and don't own the IP rights.
In Second Life you can create creatures, vehicles, gadgets, pretty much anything and sell them in-game while retaining the IP rights. Yes, the graphics suck in SL. But when people talk about the "economic, educational, legal and other effects" of a game they should look to SL, not Spore.
I saw it yesterday too. Thought it was great. The movie needed to focus more on COST. The lease of the GM EV1 was for a car around $30,000. Did it really cost $30,000?
The movie hinted that the car's parts were off the shelf and they were producing 5 a day in a factory (according to the GM insider). Maybe they couldn't talk about manufacturing costs for fear of being sued for 'trade secrets.'
Tesla Motors needs to learn from this movie. Everyone knows the oil companies make at least $1 billion in profits every week. How much do you think they are spending this week to stop electric cars from being on the road? Maybe $5 million this week? Whatever they are doing, oil companies are influencing someone, and 'Who Killed the Electric Car' is the first movie to confront that truth.
I'd actually be surprised if the National Transportation Safety Board didn't block Tesla's car from being 'unsafe for highway.' The current politicians are owned. Any electric car company needs to understand that reality before they can be successful.
Yep, the true greens still hate nuclear power. Why? Pragmatism... not idealism.
Have you read any of the arguments presented by the NRDC, FOE (Friends of the Earth) or Greenpeace? Here's a couple (sorry for the pdfs): NRDC FOE
Nuclear power is an unrealistic way to slow down global warming, poses more safety risks, is a national security threat and costs way more than switching to 100% renewable energy. Unfortunately, the US Government has a habit of illegally blocking renewable technologies such as wind power. Despite what the mainstream corporate media says we can meet the energy needs of the entire US with wind and solar power. Both the cost of wind and solar are rapidly dropping. Why should we punish taxpayers to support nuclear, when you can let clean renewable technology take over without doing anything?
P.S.
F--- the F---ing birds that are stupid enough to fly into wind turbines (or into the side of buildings for that matter). True environmentalists don't give a shit about birds when our oceans are turning to acid.
Oil prices have risen because the 6 oil companies that control our government have cut down production. No new oil refineries have been built in the US since 1976. We are at an 8 year high in supply for oil, we just don't refine it!
A congressional investigation uncovered internal memos written by the major oil companies operating in the U.S. discussing their successful strategies to maximize profits by forcing independent refineries out of business, resulting in tighter refinery capacity. From 1995-2002, 97% of the more than 920,000 barrels of oil per day of capacity that have been shut down were owned and operated by smaller, independent refiners. Were this capacity to be in operation today, refiners could use it to better meet today's reformulated gasoline blend needs.
Profit margins for oil refiners have been at record highs. In 1999, for every gallon of gasoline refined from crude oil, U.S. oil refiners made a profit of 22.8 cents. By 2004, the profits jumped 80% to 40.8 cents per gallon of gasoline refined. Between 2001 and mid-2005, the combined profits for the biggest five refiners was $228 billion.
- Public Citizen
If you look at these oil companies investor reports, you will see it is price gouging. Take Exxon/Mobil. Last year as a share of capital investment, Exxon Mobil made a 46% rate of return on it's US oil operations, a 59% profit margin on it's US oil refining, totalling $36 billion. They love reporting this information to their investors. While a barrel of oil costs $20 to make, they turn around and sell it for $70.
It's a myth that Saudis or some organization sets these prices. The prices are set on energy trading markets. Back in 2000, Enron lobbied hard for the "Commodities Futures Modernization Act." Look it up. It deregulated the energy trading exhanges, meaning over half of the trades are unregulated. When the oil companies are the main ones throwing money around on these exchanges, it's easy for them to hike up the price.
As for the Democrats, yes they do receive money. But if you look at the percentage of campaign contributions going to Republicans, Republicans receive 4 times as much money from oil companies than democrats. That means Republicans should be hung 4 times as high for making consumers deal with this BS.
The UCS is never wrong. Just like the scientists at realclimate.org they are careful not to over-hype scientific data. They reference scientific journals and government agencies for their data (fact), whereas people who call environmentalists communists reference Michael Crichton (fiction).
There's a difference between religious intolerance and intolerance of government policies.
Briefly looking at those Arab sites I didn't see anything close to saying "Christ is a demon." The equivalent is said on those right-wing hate sites, that "Mohammad is a demon." The worst thing Khilafa.com says is that us colonial imperialists condone torture... and if you look at it logically, that's not really news... it's old news.
This "debunking" pdf actually helps the Loose Change video by failing to disprove any facts in the movie. It just adds to the facts like a chef adds garlic to a cheeseburger. Some people would say the garlic doesn't go well with the burger, but the burger still exists and is just as edible.
Here are some examples of the garlic:
Most people don't know NORAD is a joint US/Canadian Organization.
Here's a better view of the free-fall of the debris, in a still not from loose change
Unidentified voiceover and interviewer. We know from other sources that the interviewee is Marc Bimbach
And it goes on like that, sometimes throwing in a quip like "the Islamic Jihadists, that's who." It doesn't debunk anything.
Contrary to the moon landing conspiracy nuts, the makers of Loose Change have undeniable evidence that buildings were blown up by explosives. WTC 7 collapsed for no reason, and they have Larry Silverstein on tape saying that the building was "pulled." There's just to much evidence in the video to ignore.
Actually... the conservative way is to give huge tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies so everyone has to ride a freaking mule, instead of giving new technologies a chance to compete. They keep old industries locked in as monopolies and then you complain about gas prices.
I'm tired of these hand-outs, especially when Exxon/Mobil made $10 billion in earnings and became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion. They beat out everyone, including Walmart! The price of gas increases regardless. Then, Congress uses the "ease the pain at the pump" argument to give even more hand-outs! Just look at their proposed legislation: http://www.taxpayer.net/energy/
A similar phenomena can be found in print media where long time bastions of liberal journalism like the Washington Post, the NYT, and the LA Times are suffering from a loss of readership. Both the LA Times and the NYT have had to lay off workers because of this. Meanwhile conservative-leaning newspapers like the Washington Times are experiencing record subscription levels.
It's true the Washington Times is slowly increasing subscription levels. But there is a simple reason for it, explained at Wikipedia:
The Unification Church has been willing to run the paper at a loss to provide a political voice for the conservative right. In 2003, The New Yorker reported that a billion dollars had been spent since the paper's inception, as Rev Moon himself had noted in a 1991 speech ("Literally nine hundred million to one billion dollars has been spent to activate and run the Washington Times"[21]). In 2002, Columbia Journalism Review suggested Moon had sunk nearly $2 billion into the Times[22].
All newspapers are losing readership or running at a loss because of the the internet. As a progressive liberal, I have nothing but contempt for the Mainstream Media(much like Stephen Colbert). Other than Google News, Truthout.org, Commondreams.org, every week I go to fair.org to hear about the blatant lies of corporate rags like the NYT. Maybe the NYT is losing it's readership because their former readers like me are going FARTHER LEFT!
Hasn't Google learned anything from evil companies like Haliburton? You make a subsidiary that is evil (like KBR), while disavowing any responsibility for that company.
That's where CHOOGLE comes in... the Chinese evil Google.
I'm almost in the same situation and decided to quit. Graduated almost 3 years ago, no debt, no social life, and I was bored with my job. I was making VBA OLE Servers and boring.NET desktop apps.
I suggest saving up 6 months to 1 year worth of money, then quit. That might be hard with that girlfriend of yours, but it's worth it when you're able to do WHATEVER you want. If I have to get a "real job" again, I will, but we're too young (I'm 24) for managers to peddle their "mission-critical" bullshit on us. Right now I'm just working on a couple independent projects, losing some weight at the gym (15 pounds so far) and I have time to sleep, eat healthy and play video games. It's great!
And I highly recommend taking off the first two months after resignation to DO NOTHING. I did it... and it was EVERYTHING I thought it could be!
Where are the protesters calling for more hybrid animals? Who exactly is fighting for the right to buy or clone human-embryos?
Global Warming, now that's a controversial issue. And calling for "more research" on producing zero-emission vehicles or coal plants is not news. Bush has been doing that for the last 6 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Anything other than exporting faces of cubes would be extremely difficult. SL prims are based off parametric equations and are incompatible with 3D models based on sets of vertices (Sketchup).
If someone found an efficient algorithm to convert 3D models based off vertices into a group of simple parametric objects, they would be very, very rich. It would be the Computer Graphics equivalent of an alchemist discovering a way to convert copper into gold.
What this guy did was paint a piece of copper with liquified gold, then wrote a blurb about how great it would be if this was pure gold. It's not, although it's good to dream. I'm sure a lot of alchemists made progress in chemistry just by trying to solve the copper-into-gold problem. I just don't think people should get their hopes up about a Sketchup to SL importer that does anything worthwhile.
That would be too long of a post and it's been covered in other places:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic8972.html
Also see http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html to see some info on their plug-in hybrids that achieve over 100 MPG. Hopefully Google will help fund something similar, except this time we can buy it.
After seeing the movie 'Who Killed the Electric Car' I was so angry I swore I would never buy another car that doesn't run on electricity. Hopefully Google is going to save my ass so I don't have build it.
I Love Google.
Any time there's a story on wrong-doing, it all comes down to "everybody does it." That's the worst position I've ever heard.
Not everyone does it, and if they do, they should be investigated, convicted or if that fails, they should be exposed to the point where there is such public outrage that they're thrown out of office.
My politics are left-wing and I support the movement to purge the DLC and corporate democrats. The only reason I am part of that movement is because of the internet, something you say is a threat to "our system." Well maybe, but I think it is actually a threat to THEIR SYSTEM, because one day my right-wing counterparts will wake up and realize their party is also over-run with corporate puppets, and start voting Libertarian or someone else in who isn't bought off by lobbyists. People will stop getting their news from the corporate press, and will go to places like opensecrets.org to get facts about who actually pays for legislation.
I got off-topic from the vote-rigging, but I was making a point that your apathy and defeatist attitude is not helping the cause to expose corruption. Vote-rigging is the worst crime against our democracy, but you'd rather attack a democratic medium such as the internet for bringing up the issue. In your world, democracy is dangerous, ignorance is strength, down is the new up.
I agree. Why do parents insist on teaching kids out-dated languages that will be today's equivalent of programming on punch cards when they reach the workforce?
As someone who started out with Java 6 years ago, I find it completely ridiculous to go backwards to BASIC. Why not make things fun, and go into a game like Second Life and open up the script editor. Or make a robot. Or make a cool website with a database backend? Then parents wonder why kids rather go back to playing WoW instead of opening up the math book to write some programs. I wish I had some hipster punchline to end this train of thought, like "BUFU MUFU"... I saw that one on Youtube, but yeah I'm too old for that and I read Slashdot, so I don't know what it means. BUFU MUFU
The key is what "awoke a desire to learn more programming."
With my generation (I'm 24) and younger that's video games... and to a lesser degree robots and web programming. I went into Comp Sci because of video games, and finished my degree liking programming enough where I didn't need to program games after college.
Given the attention span of the current generation, kids need to see quick results. I would recommend messing around with the script editor in Second Life because you see results instantaneously. You can bring objects to life within minutes.
For making robots, there's Lego Mindstorms. For web programming I recently fell in love with Google's GWT, but that's a little too bleeding edge for some parents. Maybe giving them some html to "pimp out their myspace" might inspire them? I don't know.
Ugh, another article about our "hydrogen future."
Hydrogen is such a 'pie in the sky' technology. It costs too much to make hydrogen, it's expensive to store and the infrastructure is non-existant. Even with this new technology, hydrogen costs more to make and loses more energy than any other fuel out there.
Not only that, but there is already a proven alternative. Electric cars have the infrastructure (power outlets), are more efficient than either oil or hydrogen, and there is far less pollution using power from the grid than burning oil or making hydrogen with current methods.
Anyone who wants to know the truth needs to look at California. Back in the 1990s, California forced major car companies to make a choice... either make EVs or you can't sell cars in California. The auto companies made electric cars that were fast, looked good and could go 120 miles on a charge. Thousands of people wanted them. Instead of selling the cars, the auto companies leased them, then joined oil companies to lobby California politicians to cancel the EV mandate.
Andrew Card, former GM lobbyist and Bush Chief of Staff acted as a plaintiff against the State of California, attempting to sue the state for pushing the EV mandate. A few years later, the Department of Justice under the Bush administration filed an amicus brief supporting GM and other automakers. The automakers were very clear, they didn't want to make electric cars... so much so they even took back and crushed every EV they leased.
To replace EVs, Bush presented the new "Hydrogen Economy." He gave $1.2 billion of taxpayer money to car makers just to research the technology. This article is no doubt part of that research.
Hydrogen is of course 10 to 15 years away... suspiciously convenient for auto-manufacters and oil companies who don't want electric cars. So my conclusion is that, everything you see on TV, everything you see on the web about hydrogen, it's all just a big charade to distract people away from electric cars.
Good discussion and movie:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic8972.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSBykAngDpY
You are talking about Clinton Curtis' testimony, right? The video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UvEuqYyDoE
The scary thing is this guy is just a casual observer. If you step outside the mainstream media and dig deeper you will find things that sound like fiction, but the government is actually doing.
When I read the title, I assumed "Their Discontents" meant the oil industry.
For slashback I would ask, 'How much do you think the oil industry is spending this week to slander and block electric vehicle technology?'
Most people on Slashdot would think I'm an outrageous left-wing nut for asking. But really, if every week the oil monopoly makes over a billion dollars in profits, do people believe they wouldn't spend a small fraction to oppose a disruptive technology that could bankrupt them?
Hasn't anyone heard of Second Life? From what I've seen of Spore, only creatures are user created. You can't sell them and don't own the IP rights.
In Second Life you can create creatures, vehicles, gadgets, pretty much anything and sell them in-game while retaining the IP rights. Yes, the graphics suck in SL. But when people talk about the "economic, educational, legal and other effects" of a game they should look to SL, not Spore.
I saw it yesterday too. Thought it was great. The movie needed to focus more on COST. The lease of the GM EV1 was for a car around $30,000. Did it really cost $30,000?
The movie hinted that the car's parts were off the shelf and they were producing 5 a day in a factory (according to the GM insider). Maybe they couldn't talk about manufacturing costs for fear of being sued for 'trade secrets.'
Tesla Motors needs to learn from this movie. Everyone knows the oil companies make at least $1 billion in profits every week. How much do you think they are spending this week to stop electric cars from being on the road? Maybe $5 million this week? Whatever they are doing, oil companies are influencing someone, and 'Who Killed the Electric Car' is the first movie to confront that truth.
I'd actually be surprised if the National Transportation Safety Board didn't block Tesla's car from being 'unsafe for highway.' The current politicians are owned. Any electric car company needs to understand that reality before they can be successful.
Yep, the true greens still hate nuclear power. Why? Pragmatism... not idealism.
Have you read any of the arguments presented by the NRDC, FOE (Friends of the Earth) or Greenpeace? Here's a couple (sorry for the pdfs):
NRDC
FOE
Nuclear power is an unrealistic way to slow down global warming, poses more safety risks, is a national security threat and costs way more than switching to 100% renewable energy. Unfortunately, the US Government has a habit of illegally blocking renewable technologies such as wind power. Despite what the mainstream corporate media says we can meet the energy needs of the entire US with wind and solar power. Both the cost of wind and solar are rapidly dropping. Why should we punish taxpayers to support nuclear, when you can let clean renewable technology take over without doing anything?
P.S.
F--- the F---ing birds that are stupid enough to fly into wind turbines (or into the side of buildings for that matter). True environmentalists don't give a shit about birds when our oceans are turning to acid.
Oil prices have risen because the 6 oil companies that control our government have cut down production. No new oil refineries have been built in the US since 1976. We are at an 8 year high in supply for oil, we just don't refine it!
If you look at these oil companies investor reports, you will see it is price gouging. Take Exxon/Mobil. Last year as a share of capital investment, Exxon Mobil made a 46% rate of return on it's US oil operations, a 59% profit margin on it's US oil refining, totalling $36 billion. They love reporting this information to their investors. While a barrel of oil costs $20 to make, they turn around and sell it for $70.
It's a myth that Saudis or some organization sets these prices. The prices are set on energy trading markets. Back in 2000, Enron lobbied hard for the "Commodities Futures Modernization Act." Look it up. It deregulated the energy trading exhanges, meaning over half of the trades are unregulated. When the oil companies are the main ones throwing money around on these exchanges, it's easy for them to hike up the price.
As for the Democrats, yes they do receive money. But if you look at the percentage of campaign contributions going to Republicans, Republicans receive 4 times as much money from oil companies than democrats. That means Republicans should be hung 4 times as high for making consumers deal with this BS.
See Tyson Slocon's testimony before the Senate:http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear
Oil Refiners:
http://wyden.senate.gov/leg_issues/reports/wyden_
http://69.63.136.213/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/e
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_100605I
Campaign Contributions:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?I
The UCS is never wrong. Just like the scientists at realclimate.org they are careful not to over-hype scientific data. They reference scientific journals and government agencies for their data (fact), whereas people who call environmentalists communists reference Michael Crichton (fiction).
There's a difference between religious intolerance and intolerance of government policies.
Briefly looking at those Arab sites I didn't see anything close to saying "Christ is a demon." The equivalent is said on those right-wing hate sites, that "Mohammad is a demon." The worst thing Khilafa.com says is that us colonial imperialists condone torture... and if you look at it logically, that's not really news... it's old news.
This "debunking" pdf actually helps the Loose Change video by failing to disprove any facts in the movie. It just adds to the facts like a chef adds garlic to a cheeseburger. Some people would say the garlic doesn't go well with the burger, but the burger still exists and is just as edible.
Here are some examples of the garlic:
Most people don't know NORAD is a joint US/Canadian Organization.
Here's a better view of the free-fall of the debris, in a still not from loose change
Unidentified voiceover and interviewer. We know from other sources that the interviewee is Marc Bimbach
And it goes on like that, sometimes throwing in a quip like "the Islamic Jihadists, that's who." It doesn't debunk anything.
Contrary to the moon landing conspiracy nuts, the makers of Loose Change have undeniable evidence that buildings were blown up by explosives. WTC 7 collapsed for no reason, and they have Larry Silverstein on tape saying that the building was "pulled." There's just to much evidence in the video to ignore.
Actually... the conservative way is to give huge tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies so everyone has to ride a freaking mule, instead of giving new technologies a chance to compete. They keep old industries locked in as monopolies and then you complain about gas prices.
I'm tired of these hand-outs, especially when Exxon/Mobil made $10 billion in earnings and became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion. They beat out everyone, including Walmart! The price of gas increases regardless. Then, Congress uses the "ease the pain at the pump" argument to give even more hand-outs! Just look at their proposed legislation:
http://www.taxpayer.net/energy/
You quoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an example of the UN restricting people's rights? The treaty that states:
So since 1948 this treaty has restricted people's right to be tortured?... how horrible.
It's true the Washington Times is slowly increasing subscription levels. But there is a simple reason for it, explained at Wikipedia:
All newspapers are losing readership or running at a loss because of the the internet. As a progressive liberal, I have nothing but contempt for the Mainstream Media(much like Stephen Colbert). Other than Google News, Truthout.org, Commondreams.org, every week I go to fair.org to hear about the blatant lies of corporate rags like the NYT. Maybe the NYT is losing it's readership because their former readers like me are going FARTHER LEFT!
That's right. According to Google, analysts don't deserve an opinion page. Maybe if GOOG stock goes back up to 400 they might consider it?
Luckily Google is hosting this footage to bring "fairness and balance" to the acrchived moon footage.
Hasn't Google learned anything from evil companies like Haliburton? You make a subsidiary that is evil (like KBR), while disavowing any responsibility for that company.
That's where CHOOGLE comes in... the Chinese evil Google.
I'm almost in the same situation and decided to quit. Graduated almost 3 years ago, no debt, no social life, and I was bored with my job. I was making VBA OLE Servers and boring .NET desktop apps.
I suggest saving up 6 months to 1 year worth of money, then quit. That might be hard with that girlfriend of yours, but it's worth it when you're able to do WHATEVER you want. If I have to get a "real job" again, I will, but we're too young (I'm 24) for managers to peddle their "mission-critical" bullshit on us. Right now I'm just working on a couple independent projects, losing some weight at the gym (15 pounds so far) and I have time to sleep, eat healthy and play video games. It's great!
And I highly recommend taking off the first two months after resignation to DO NOTHING. I did it... and it was EVERYTHING I thought it could be!
Those are not controversial issues!
Where are the protesters calling for more hybrid animals? Who exactly is fighting for the right to buy or clone human-embryos?
Global Warming, now that's a controversial issue. And calling for "more research" on producing zero-emission vehicles or coal plants is not news. Bush has been doing that for the last 6 years.