This is not about free speech. The companies MUST file a law suit, because otherwise they loose their trademark.
This has nothing to do with satirical or political or whatever. If they don't sue or at least protest,they loose the trademark.
Nope.
Overview of Trademark Law: "The standard is "likelihood of confusion." To be more specific, the use of a trademark in connection with the sale of a good constitutes infringement if it is likely to cause consumer confusion as to the source of those goods or as to the sponsorship or approval of such goods. In deciding whether consumers are likely to be confused, the courts will typically look to a number of factors, including: (1) the strength of the mark; (2) the proximity of the goods; (3) the similarity of the marks; (4) evidence of actual confusion; (5) the similarity of marketing channels used; (6) the degree of caution exercised by the typical purchaser; (7) the defendant's intent."
So - unless the political activists are trying to sell a similar product or service that will confuse consumers then it cannot infringe, and the companies filing the suits know that very, very well.
As someone who posted up-thread about still using his 30 year old HP scientific calculator, and who also has Mathematica installed on his small portable computer (a 13 inch TimelineX), I can address this. Each tool has its own area of ideal application. I can crunch through some rapid calculations with my little calculator much more easily than I can boot my laptop. load Mathematica, and enter the same series of numbers and operations in it, even if I havemy laptop with me. Pressing the sin button on my HP is faster than typing Sin[ ] on a keyboard.
I can only effectively use RPN calculators - it is how I think.
So, when you write a program, do you use forth, or do you recompile the expressions into a parenthesized tree form in your head before you type them in?
I don't use a calculator to write programs - I use them to solve problems. I think about the terms in a problem exactly the way RPN handles them - do you think up parenthesis in your head when you are mentally calculating something?
Having a foreign first name is a sign that a person is a foreigner. Barry himself called attention to his years abroad as a child and his non-citizen father by reverting to "Barrack". Seems fair that someone who emphasizes his foreignness for political reasons should be subject to questions about whether he is too foreign for politics.
A "foreign first name" is a sign of a foreigner?
Hi: I live in an immigrant nation where everyone has foreign first names. I encounter very few people with original native American first names. Where do you live?
"Too foreign for politics?"
What a coy little formulation. This is a disqualification over and above being legally entitled to hold office? You mean he is too different to be permitted to hold office even if people vote him in?
Bush didn't Clinton didn't, Reagan didn't Carter didn't. non of the other white guys have ha to do it. you get a non white guy with a non anglo saxon name in office and all the racists start a birther movement because they can't believe a non white guy was born here. Think about it why was Obama singled out above all others? was it name? was it color? the fear was irrational and stupid.
Or maybe the fact that one of his parents was born overseas, and his parents lived overseas a fairly substantial amount of time before he was born? I mean, let's make sure to run in and play the race card before observing the obvious. Given his circumstances, it's quite reasonable that the circumstances of his birth would be subjected to a bit more rigor.
...
And the formal sworn statement by the medical doctor legally entrusted to attest to the existence and content of the "long form" birth certificate - which is considered legal proof of birth in every circumstance in the United States - followed by an additional confirming letter by said doctor, and which is then buttressed with the additional and irrefutable evidence of birth announcements in two Hawaiian newspapers - is not sufficient for that "bit more rigor"?
Are we alleging time travel forgery for the birth announcements? Not even James Bond black operations can change the contents of decades old newspapers. We are alleging that Dr. Chiyome Fukino was and is violating his professional duties and committing perjury too? And that all other employees handling and preserving of official records are in on the conspiracy to hide the non-existence of the birth certificate?
Honestly - if this wasn't sufficient evidence to settle the matter then something other than concern for adequate evidence is at play here. I'll be willing to stipulate that racism is not an necessary explanation - the bizarre chimera of the fake White Water "scandal", the fradulent "Swift Boat" attack, etc. provides good evidence that bizarre, false smears are simply standard right wing operating procedure.
Notice that the map shows Bin Laden's compound and Kakul - the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). As you travel down Awami Road the distance from the corner of the walled Bin Laden compound to the apparent corner of the PMA grounds you traverse no more than mere 600 meters (2000 feet)! This compound was specially built in 2005.
It is impossible for me to believe that the Pakistani military was not protecting this man.
"we can cut defense spending "
I love this argument, "just cut defense spending!" You do realize we're the World Police, right?...
I'm checking my sarcasm meter, but something's wrong, it's not going off. This poster can't possibly be serious... can he?
Currently we spend nearly half of the entire world's defense spending, and the majority of the remainder is spent by our allies, this is not even counting our extra war and homeland security spending which aren't counted as defense. Ya don't think we can cut this back maybe a little?
But, heavens, what if we - as world policemen - hadn't invaded Iraq? What then? Well, we would have 4500 soldiers still alive (call that one and half 9-11s), between 50,000 and 100,000 soldiers who aren't maimed, and a trillion extra dollars to do good stuff with, and another trillion in war-related commitments we wouldn't have to spend. We would also have a weaker Iran - a more serious threat than the emasculated Saddam Hussein regime was.
I don't think it is a fear of chemicals that is the issue, I think it is the fear of lawsuits. We have parents who see every kid's boo-boo as a chance to win the courtroom lottery....
The funny thing about this fear is that no lawsuits of this kind appear to have ever been filed. It is fear of a non-existent threat.
The nearly complete disappearance of access to common chemicals seems to have occurred after 9/11, but not just due to terrorism fears. The DEA has become increasingly aggressive at prohibiting the sale of chemicals that have application to drug manufacturing - which means almost all chemicals. They started decades ago with exotic organic chemicals that are specialized precursors of popular intoxicating drugs, and has been working its way down the chain of synthesis and is now banning - err "controlling" - once common inorganics and solvents. It is now impossible to buy iodine in the U.S. for example, even in small quantities for medical use.
What's false above? Smaller businesses, inventors, workers, etc are all greedy people.
Ah so! Greedy people = everybody. So you choose to "win" the argument by emptying your claim of all content, thus completely trivial. Well done sir!
Of course this is wholly irrelevant to your original attempt to refute the observation that large corporations, and individuals only motivated by their own desire to acquire, can wreak a great deal of harm on others (which has the defect in Libertarian eyes of being 'theoretically inadmissable' though easily demonstrably true).
Incidentally I wonder how these blimps would go if they were suspended entirely by hot air. The idea would be to use an envelope which traps heat. Hot air in the envelope generates lift. Should work well in a hot climate.
The concept of the "hot air balloon" depends on the air inside the balloon being much hotter than the air outside the balloon, thus making it lighter and generating lift. In a hot climate balloons must be much hotter inside to generate the same lift they would have produced in a cold climate. Very hot air creates various problems - shortening the life of materials, possibly actually raising the amount of heating fuel required. Hot air balloons work best in cold climates.
This reference book on urban design gives the average albedo of urban areas as 15%. The point is - it is a small fraction of the light energy directed at the ground, so it has little effect compared to the light emitted into the sky.
When light is directed downward at the ground some of that light is reflected upward again. Otherwise we could not see what is on the ground. How do you stop light being reflected by the ground?
You don't, and that's okay. The reflectivity of stuff on the ground is on average fairly low (like 10% or less), whereas for directly emitted photons it is 100%. One doesn't need to entirely eliminate every part of a problem to deal with the major part of the problem.
but if you ever visit a gated community with proper lighting you can see that traffic areas (walkways, streets, etc) are well lit and very safe, but the sky is still quite dark.
Because gated communities pay the high-priced lighting design experts, due to wanting it to be aesthetically perfect, and have the money to pay for that?
The OP used a poor example by citing a wealthy community (though an available one). He could of cited the entire city of Tucson which has used such lights since 1972. Using non-light-polluting fixtures (which can also be described as "more efficient fixtures") doesn't require high priced "lighting design experts", it only requires that you buy the fixtures.
Lights pointed to the sky tend to cause glare, which is not all that aesthetically pleasant in a nice gated community area.
And everywhere else also. Kinda the point. Why should every one else have a glare blighted sky, at considerable electrical cost?
Why are parking lot lights often aimed at a 30* angle, emitting much or most of their light skyward?
Probably something about using as few lights as possible. If they pointed them straight down, a lot more lights would be required to achieve the same illumination. If they put them closer to the ground, the lighting would be easily blocked,
or people would have to contend with the lights being distracting.
Probably not. The energy inefficient, glare producing area illumination actually are already also pointed "straight down" (only the downward radiating photons illuminate the area in question. The problem is that the upward radiating photons aren't blocked or (preferably) reflected back to Earth. The efficient lights cover exactly the same area. The point about "upward pointed lights" actually refers to sign illumination, you know, like highway sign illumination at the sign base sending most of their photons up into the sky. Top mounted downward pointing lights illuminate the sign just as well, and some of the roadway as well - a plus.
Why are huge flood lights used to illuminate flags and signs, when a small spotlight would be more environmentally friendly and more efficient?
Because this was done by the lowest bidder? The businesses owning the parking lots spent as little in the design of lighting as possible, and want good safety margin to ensure the flag/sign will be lighted; even when some worker or bad whether dicks up the position of the flag or light a bit?
Because the issue never came up and they are buying what every one else is buying? Properly shielded lights actually cost about the same as a non-shielded fixture.
Let's see. Everyone yells at AT&T because they can't provide the coverage and bandwidth iPhone users need. AT&T tries to install more towers but ridiculous levels of regulation and red tape either limit their ability or make it take such a long time it's the same thing. AT&T sees a competitor with towers who is losing money and wants to sell. AT&T buys said competitor as the only way to provide the support customers demand.
Customers immediately become furious with AT&T rather than the ridiculous government regulations keeping AT&T from providing desired services and demand (wait for it) more government regulation to ensure we all have crappy coverage within the United States.
People then step in and blame all the problems not on too much regulation but on deregulation. (And yes, I agree it's not just an issue of deregulation or regulation but smart regulation - however let's be honest. How often do politicians pass laws with smart regulations?)
After a bit of Googling over the issue of how "ridiculous levels of regulation" and "red tape" are obstructing needed AT&T tower expansion - all I can find is that local communities, where the towers are physically placed, insist on public feedback and local government approval - which indeed can take significant time to work through.
I guess if corporations could build what they want where they want without having to consider what local communities want they (the corporations) would be much happier.
Anyone acquainted with any of the literature in radiation exposure up through the late-1990s (including classic and still standard works like The Effects of Nuclear Weapons by Glasstone and Dolan) will have encountered discussion of radiation exposure in terms of rems, not sieverts. It is useful to know that a centisievert (cSv) is essentially identical with a rem, so expressing doses in cSv terms allows direct comparisons with the large body of older but still relevant literature.
It does, however, in this case correctly indicate that it has not been exhaustively proven...
The "Theory of Evolution" is the theory about how evolution operates - just as the "Theory of Gravity" is the theory about how gravity operates. In neither case is the subject of study - evolution or gravity - a hypothetical one, the evidence for each is immense, multi-disciplinary, with mutually supporting. There is no significant question about whether either topic of study is real.
... and anyone who says otherwise is more ignorant of science than those they would malign.
Attempting to preemptively declare universal victory without even presenting an argument is so lame it doesn't even qualify as a fallacy. As Wolfgang Pauli used to say this assertion "is not even wrong".
For 72 years - from 1845 to 1917. The Leviathan of Parsonstown was a telescope with a 72 inch (diameter) mirror built by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse on his estate, Birr Castle, at Parsonstown. He was a gentleman astronomer who wished to conduct scientific research from his estate, which explains why such a large instrument was built at such an unsuitable site.
Astronomers have a saying, the three most important features of a telescope are aperture, aperture and aperture. Having the biggest telescope in the world gives you real advantages, despite the lousy weather, and Rosse (nobles being referred by their landed title) discovered the spiral structure of distant galaxies as well as naming the Crab Nebula.
I tend to agree. In reality, however, it's never those kinds of leaders you have to worry about. The reason Brutus and Co. were freaked out about Julius Caesar wasn't because he was such a shitty, evil autocratic leader, but because he was an incredibly competent, popular autocratic leader.
I'd be more worried about some future FDR than I would about a GWB or a Nixon. The latter type of leader always self-destruct one way or the other. The popular, charismatic leaders, those are the dangerous ones.
Say we get hard intel that sometime later that day, someone will be using Twitter or Gmail to issue timing commands to a bunch of people ready to drop off backpack bombs on metro trains in half a dozen large cities around the country.
Or they might do it via cell phone, so you should shut down all cell phones too...
Give the man a cigar! You have nailed this scenario right to the ground with a pile driver. Disposable cell phones are how bombings are coordinated and triggered right now. Not "twitters" via the Internet.
If this is really the problem they want to solve then blanking out all cell phone access is where they should be starting. Since it isn't, one can reasonably suspect that they really don't care about this scenario at all, it is simply a stalking horse, and want the powers for other reasons.
... Say we get hard intel that sometime later that day, someone will be using Twitter or Gmail to issue timing commands to a bunch of people ready to drop off backpack bombs on metro trains in half a dozen large cities around the country. The "kill switch" mechanism doesn't shut down the internet. It allows the counter terror people to ask the administration to use that legal power to get on the phone with Twitter and tell them what needs to happen to prevent such use.
And I am sure a scenario very like this is being offered to justify it by its proponents (only in the scenario it will be a nuke, not some measly London-subway TATP devices).
The "ticking bomb" scenario is an old warhorse of an argument used to justify all manner of extra-legal activities and authoritarian measures. Problem is - these scenarios seem to only exist in hypothetical arguments and techno-thriller plots. But the extension of legal powers made under their cover quickly become standard "tools" that are used routinely, and furthermore serve as precedents the next time new coercive measures are considered. That mythical ticking bomb keeps stealing liberties without ever actually existing.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not about free speech. The companies MUST file a law suit, because otherwise they loose their trademark.
This has nothing to do with satirical or political or whatever. If they don't sue or at least protest,they loose the trademark.
Nope.
Overview of Trademark Law: "The standard is "likelihood of confusion." To be more specific, the use of a trademark in connection with the sale of a good constitutes infringement if it is likely to cause consumer confusion as to the source of those goods or as to the sponsorship or approval of such goods. In deciding whether consumers are likely to be confused, the courts will typically look to a number of factors, including: (1) the strength of the mark; (2) the proximity of the goods; (3) the similarity of the marks; (4) evidence of actual confusion; (5) the similarity of marketing channels used; (6) the degree of caution exercised by the typical purchaser; (7) the defendant's intent."
So - unless the political activists are trying to sell a similar product or service that will confuse consumers then it cannot infringe, and the companies filing the suits know that very, very well.
You are just trying to justify a sub-class of SLAPP suits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation.
As someone who posted up-thread about still using his 30 year old HP scientific calculator, and who also has Mathematica installed on his small portable computer (a 13 inch TimelineX), I can address this. Each tool has its own area of ideal application. I can crunch through some rapid calculations with my little calculator much more easily than I can boot my laptop. load Mathematica, and enter the same series of numbers and operations in it, even if I havemy laptop with me. Pressing the sin button on my HP is faster than typing Sin[ ] on a keyboard.
I can only effectively use RPN calculators - it is how I think.
So, when you write a program, do you use forth, or do you recompile the expressions into a parenthesized tree form in your head before you type them in?
I don't use a calculator to write programs - I use them to solve problems. I think about the terms in a problem exactly the way RPN handles them - do you think up parenthesis in your head when you are mentally calculating something?
Ditto - and I still use it! It is now 30 years old!! I can only effectively use RPN calculators - it is how I think.
Having a foreign first name is a sign that a person is a foreigner. Barry himself called attention to his years abroad as a child and his non-citizen father by reverting to "Barrack". Seems fair that someone who emphasizes his foreignness for political reasons should be subject to questions about whether he is too foreign for politics.
A "foreign first name" is a sign of a foreigner?
Hi: I live in an immigrant nation where everyone has foreign first names. I encounter very few people with original native American first names. Where do you live?
"Too foreign for politics?"
What a coy little formulation. This is a disqualification over and above being legally entitled to hold office? You mean he is too different to be permitted to hold office even if people vote him in?
Bush didn't Clinton didn't, Reagan didn't Carter didn't. non of the other white guys have ha to do it. you get a non white guy with a non anglo saxon name in office and all the racists start a birther movement because they can't believe a non white guy was born here. Think about it why was Obama singled out above all others? was it name? was it color? the fear was irrational and stupid.
Or maybe the fact that one of his parents was born overseas, and his parents lived overseas a fairly substantial amount of time before he was born? I mean, let's make sure to run in and play the race card before observing the obvious. Given his circumstances, it's quite reasonable that the circumstances of his birth would be subjected to a bit more rigor.
...
And the formal sworn statement by the medical doctor legally entrusted to attest to the existence and content of the "long form" birth certificate - which is considered legal proof of birth in every circumstance in the United States - followed by an additional confirming letter by said doctor, and which is then buttressed with the additional and irrefutable evidence of birth announcements in two Hawaiian newspapers - is not sufficient for that "bit more rigor"?
Are we alleging time travel forgery for the birth announcements? Not even James Bond black operations can change the contents of decades old newspapers. We are alleging that Dr. Chiyome Fukino was and is violating his professional duties and committing perjury too? And that all other employees handling and preserving of official records are in on the conspiracy to hide the non-existence of the birth certificate?
Honestly - if this wasn't sufficient evidence to settle the matter then something other than concern for adequate evidence is at play here. I'll be willing to stipulate that racism is not an necessary explanation - the bizarre chimera of the fake White Water "scandal", the fradulent "Swift Boat" attack, etc. provides good evidence that bizarre, false smears are simply standard right wing operating procedure.
Notice that the map shows Bin Laden's compound and Kakul - the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA). As you travel down Awami Road the distance from the corner of the walled Bin Laden compound to the apparent corner of the PMA grounds you traverse no more than mere 600 meters (2000 feet)! This compound was specially built in 2005. It is impossible for me to believe that the Pakistani military was not protecting this man.
"we can cut defense spending " I love this argument, "just cut defense spending!" You do realize we're the World Police, right? ...
I'm checking my sarcasm meter, but something's wrong, it's not going off. This poster can't possibly be serious... can he?
Currently we spend nearly half of the entire world's defense spending, and the majority of the remainder is spent by our allies, this is not even counting our extra war and homeland security spending which aren't counted as defense. Ya don't think we can cut this back maybe a little?
But, heavens, what if we - as world policemen - hadn't invaded Iraq? What then? Well, we would have 4500 soldiers still alive (call that one and half 9-11s), between 50,000 and 100,000 soldiers who aren't maimed, and a trillion extra dollars to do good stuff with, and another trillion in war-related commitments we wouldn't have to spend. We would also have a weaker Iran - a more serious threat than the emasculated Saddam Hussein regime was.
I don't think it is a fear of chemicals that is the issue, I think it is the fear of lawsuits. We have parents who see every kid's boo-boo as a chance to win the courtroom lottery. ...
The funny thing about this fear is that no lawsuits of this kind appear to have ever been filed. It is fear of a non-existent threat.
The nearly complete disappearance of access to common chemicals seems to have occurred after 9/11, but not just due to terrorism fears. The DEA has become increasingly aggressive at prohibiting the sale of chemicals that have application to drug manufacturing - which means almost all chemicals. They started decades ago with exotic organic chemicals that are specialized precursors of popular intoxicating drugs, and has been working its way down the chain of synthesis and is now banning - err "controlling" - once common inorganics and solvents. It is now impossible to buy iodine in the U.S. for example, even in small quantities for medical use.
What's false above? Smaller businesses, inventors, workers, etc are all greedy people.
Ah so! Greedy people = everybody. So you choose to "win" the argument by emptying your claim of all content, thus completely trivial. Well done sir!
Of course this is wholly irrelevant to your original attempt to refute the observation that large corporations, and individuals only motivated by their own desire to acquire, can wreak a great deal of harm on others (which has the defect in Libertarian eyes of being 'theoretically inadmissable' though easily demonstrably true).
More like the Diamond Age to me.
Incidentally I wonder how these blimps would go if they were suspended entirely by hot air. The idea would be to use an envelope which traps heat. Hot air in the envelope generates lift. Should work well in a hot climate.
The concept of the "hot air balloon" depends on the air inside the balloon being much hotter than the air outside the balloon, thus making it lighter and generating lift. In a hot climate balloons must be much hotter inside to generate the same lift they would have produced in a cold climate. Very hot air creates various problems - shortening the life of materials, possibly actually raising the amount of heating fuel required. Hot air balloons work best in cold climates.
This reference book on urban design gives the average albedo of urban areas as 15%. The point is - it is a small fraction of the light energy directed at the ground, so it has little effect compared to the light emitted into the sky.
Take a look at this data http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albedo-e_hg.svg. Notice that the albedo of dry earth ranges from 22 to 35. Snow is up to 85. The number 10% is very low.
The main issue with this article is that it does not articulate what is causing the problem. It just tries to measure it an inaccurately at that.
10% is perhaps a bit low on average, but not very low. It is in the normal range for asphalt, damp soil, water surfaces, grass, forest, and even entire urban areas.
The "Eye-Pod" commercial was dead-on!
How could they possibly pass up a trip to Hanny’s Voorwerp? The gags almost write themselves.
When light is directed downward at the ground some of that light is reflected upward again. Otherwise we could not see what is on the ground. How do you stop light being reflected by the ground?
You don't, and that's okay. The reflectivity of stuff on the ground is on average fairly low (like 10% or less), whereas for directly emitted photons it is 100%. One doesn't need to entirely eliminate every part of a problem to deal with the major part of the problem.
There is developing evidence that light pollution actually exacerbates air pollution - it appears to inhibit dark reactions (that's what they are called) that break down air pollution at night, thus increasing it in the day also. See Nighttime photochemistry: nitrate radical destruction by anthropogenic light sources
but if you ever visit a gated community with proper lighting you can see that traffic areas (walkways, streets, etc) are well lit and very safe, but the sky is still quite dark.
Because gated communities pay the high-priced lighting design experts, due to wanting it to be aesthetically perfect, and have the money to pay for that?
The OP used a poor example by citing a wealthy community (though an available one). He could of cited the entire city of Tucson which has used such lights since 1972. Using non-light-polluting fixtures (which can also be described as "more efficient fixtures") doesn't require high priced "lighting design experts", it only requires that you buy the fixtures.
Lights pointed to the sky tend to cause glare, which is not all that aesthetically pleasant in a nice gated community area.
And everywhere else also. Kinda the point. Why should every one else have a glare blighted sky, at considerable electrical cost?
Why are parking lot lights often aimed at a 30* angle, emitting much or most of their light skyward?
Probably something about using as few lights as possible. If they pointed them straight down, a lot more lights would be required to achieve the same illumination. If they put them closer to the ground, the lighting would be easily blocked, or people would have to contend with the lights being distracting.
Probably not. The energy inefficient, glare producing area illumination actually are already also pointed "straight down" (only the downward radiating photons illuminate the area in question. The problem is that the upward radiating photons aren't blocked or (preferably) reflected back to Earth. The efficient lights cover exactly the same area. The point about "upward pointed lights" actually refers to sign illumination, you know, like highway sign illumination at the sign base sending most of their photons up into the sky. Top mounted downward pointing lights illuminate the sign just as well, and some of the roadway as well - a plus.
Why are huge flood lights used to illuminate flags and signs, when a small spotlight would be more environmentally friendly and more efficient?
Because this was done by the lowest bidder? The businesses owning the parking lots spent as little in the design of lighting as possible, and want good safety margin to ensure the flag/sign will be lighted; even when some worker or bad whether dicks up the position of the flag or light a bit?
Because the issue never came up and they are buying what every one else is buying? Properly shielded lights actually cost about the same as a non-shielded fixture.
Let's see. Everyone yells at AT&T because they can't provide the coverage and bandwidth iPhone users need. AT&T tries to install more towers but ridiculous levels of regulation and red tape either limit their ability or make it take such a long time it's the same thing. AT&T sees a competitor with towers who is losing money and wants to sell. AT&T buys said competitor as the only way to provide the support customers demand.
Customers immediately become furious with AT&T rather than the ridiculous government regulations keeping AT&T from providing desired services and demand (wait for it) more government regulation to ensure we all have crappy coverage within the United States.
People then step in and blame all the problems not on too much regulation but on deregulation. (And yes, I agree it's not just an issue of deregulation or regulation but smart regulation - however let's be honest. How often do politicians pass laws with smart regulations?)
After a bit of Googling over the issue of how "ridiculous levels of regulation" and "red tape" are obstructing needed AT&T tower expansion - all I can find is that local communities, where the towers are physically placed, insist on public feedback and local government approval - which indeed can take significant time to work through.
I guess if corporations could build what they want where they want without having to consider what local communities want they (the corporations) would be much happier.
Anyone acquainted with any of the literature in radiation exposure up through the late-1990s (including classic and still standard works like The Effects of Nuclear Weapons by Glasstone and Dolan) will have encountered discussion of radiation exposure in terms of rems, not sieverts. It is useful to know that a centisievert (cSv) is essentially identical with a rem, so expressing doses in cSv terms allows direct comparisons with the large body of older but still relevant literature.
It does, however, in this case correctly indicate that it has not been exhaustively proven...
The "Theory of Evolution" is the theory about how evolution operates - just as the "Theory of Gravity" is the theory about how gravity operates. In neither case is the subject of study - evolution or gravity - a hypothetical one, the evidence for each is immense, multi-disciplinary, with mutually supporting. There is no significant question about whether either topic of study is real.
... and anyone who says otherwise is more ignorant of science than those they would malign.
Attempting to preemptively declare universal victory without even presenting an argument is so lame it doesn't even qualify as a fallacy. As Wolfgang Pauli used to say this assertion "is not even wrong".
For 72 years - from 1845 to 1917. The Leviathan of Parsonstown was a telescope with a 72 inch (diameter) mirror built by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse on his estate, Birr Castle, at Parsonstown. He was a gentleman astronomer who wished to conduct scientific research from his estate, which explains why such a large instrument was built at such an unsuitable site.
Astronomers have a saying, the three most important features of a telescope are aperture, aperture and aperture. Having the biggest telescope in the world gives you real advantages, despite the lousy weather, and Rosse (nobles being referred by their landed title) discovered the spiral structure of distant galaxies as well as naming the Crab Nebula.
I tend to agree. In reality, however, it's never those kinds of leaders you have to worry about. The reason Brutus and Co. were freaked out about Julius Caesar wasn't because he was such a shitty, evil autocratic leader, but because he was an incredibly competent, popular autocratic leader.
I'd be more worried about some future FDR than I would about a GWB or a Nixon. The latter type of leader always self-destruct one way or the other. The popular, charismatic leaders, those are the dangerous ones.
MOD UP AS INSIGHTFUL!
Or they might do it via cell phone, so you should shut down all cell phones too...
Give the man a cigar! You have nailed this scenario right to the ground with a pile driver. Disposable cell phones are how bombings are coordinated and triggered right now. Not "twitters" via the Internet.
If this is really the problem they want to solve then blanking out all cell phone access is where they should be starting. Since it isn't, one can reasonably suspect that they really don't care about this scenario at all, it is simply a stalking horse, and want the powers for other reasons.
... Say we get hard intel that sometime later that day, someone will be using Twitter or Gmail to issue timing commands to a bunch of people ready to drop off backpack bombs on metro trains in half a dozen large cities around the country. The "kill switch" mechanism doesn't shut down the internet. It allows the counter terror people to ask the administration to use that legal power to get on the phone with Twitter and tell them what needs to happen to prevent such use.
And I am sure a scenario very like this is being offered to justify it by its proponents (only in the scenario it will be a nuke, not some measly London-subway TATP devices).
The "ticking bomb" scenario is an old warhorse of an argument used to justify all manner of extra-legal activities and authoritarian measures. Problem is - these scenarios seem to only exist in hypothetical arguments and techno-thriller plots. But the extension of legal powers made under their cover quickly become standard "tools" that are used routinely, and furthermore serve as precedents the next time new coercive measures are considered. That mythical ticking bomb keeps stealing liberties without ever actually existing.