Because they, unlike you, find OSX to be slow and irritating. I much prefer Windows' and Linux' UIs to OSX, and my experiences with OSX have not been the blindingly fast euphoric "just works" experiences that iFans and Apple claim they are. I have absolutely no incentive to pay extra for a system that runs a piece of software that I hate and don't need for anything.
Really? I asked a Barnes & Noble to order me a copy of "Big Booty Hustlas Part 4" in paperback and they wouldn't... seriously though, my girlfriend has asked them about certain legitimate photography books and they've said no on the grounds that they believe it to be too inflammatory or pornographic. They were happy to direct us to some places that would sell it, but their management simply decided that they were not willing to sell those books because it would be potentially harmful to their business if they did. They aren't calling for the book to be banned, or restricting others from selling it, they just aren't willing to sell it themselves. it just can't bring myself to the point of calling that censorship, not least because I think doing so would water down what we mean by that term so as to make it trivial.
"Sorry, who is supposed to take this into consideration? The largest bookstore on the planet skews search results towards an approved reading list--and most people will never know--and you're not even a little worried? Amazon doesn't need the aforementioned warehouse (the fact that they have one for their more popular stuff is moot). But when a corporation hides material that some random group has deemed "offensive", I do not find it obvious that everything is OK. We progress by reading and evaluating the opinions of others, not by sticking our heads in the sand. This seems to be Amazon's tacit endorsement of the head-in-sand approach to acquiring knowledge. Not exactly censorship in the strictest sense, but not obviously "not outrageous" either. If there is material that is not appropriate for me to see, do you really think that Amazon is well-equipped to make that decision for me?"
So because Amazon is large, they are forbidden the right to do business as they see fit? Did I fall asleep and not being able to easily locate something on Amazon somehow became tantamount to the Final Solution? They don't even come close to being a monopoly, and people most certainly noticed this change immediately. Heaven forbid I ever open a bookstore and become successful, because when I refuse to sell the latest Ann Coulter Conservative erotica novel or the Westboro Baptist approved biography of the Right Reverend Fred Phelps or the New edition of Mein Kampf now with extra Jew-hate on the grounds that I feel it is simply repugnant to my morals I too will be a censor.
I find the notion that Amazon should ever be forced to sell anything in a way which they do not wish to be far more reprehensible than the idea that they might choose not to sell something based on grounds which are malevolent or ignorant. In response, of course, I can continue to not buy anything from them (my total amount spent at Amazon during the last 12 months: $0.00).
"The main thrust of the pro-gay crusade these days is about gaining favored status ("protected class" listings, tax benefits for "civil unions" and "gay marriage") for gays. At very least, the second half of that qualifies as promotion."
"Protected class" listings implying a favored status I can see... but how is requesting the ability to do something readily available and commonplace for other demographics somehow something that only a "favored class" can do? I see the denial of people the ability to marry on something over which they have no reasonable control (in this case, their biological sex) as putting them into a disfavored class, and our society has reached an overwhelming consensus that disfavored classes are categorically unacceptable (though this is not, in practice, consistently applied).
The main thrust of the anti-gay crusade these days is to demonstrate that homosexuals are inherently dangerous and subversive, that they are frightening, that they harm children, and that this is all a willful act of contrition against the right-minded and morally superior heterosexual Christian majority (obviously I only say this in reference to "the West", and whatever claims might be made to the contrary, the charge here is led by fundamentalist Christians).
In response to some of your other points... whether or not it is culturally acquired, it's still not a conscious choice, and by our normal standards that makes it akin to genetic fact.
There are relatively few people who honestly believe that homosexuality is a matter of pure choice, most at least concede that it is beyond anyone's immediate control (and therefore not what we normally consider "choice") whom or what they find attractive even if they assert (correctly, although it tends not to mean much once that is conceded) that acting on it is. Obviously there are people out there who believe in complete choice on this, but they are really a fringe minority.
The first question is irrelevant, because the second question can only be logically answered as "false". The fact that people answer otherwise just demonstrates that sometimes people make irrational and illogical choices, not that there is any validity to their argument. If an action causes no harm, then it is simply irrelevant why it is taken.
I leave you with one last point: if a racist asks us to consider their views and respect their wants, we do not do so because we feel they are categorically wrong; if a religious bigot demands that we honor his religious views by suppressing all others, we do not do so because they are categorically wrong; if any whackjob with an ax to grind demands that we take some sort of action that is repulsive to our nature and society, we deny them because we feel they are categorically wrong. What honestly differentiates a homophobe (or anti-gay activist, if you prefer)? On what grounds are we obligated to respect and accede to their views and demands if we believe that they too are categorically wrong?
If they chose, as a business, simply not to sell it, would that be censorship? If so, every bookstore that doesn't carry everything ever written is engaging in censorship. Does this seem rational to you?
Sorry, but here in the real world, we have to take into consideration that sometimes not everything is appropriate for everyone to see, and being responsible people we make sure that there are proper safeguards to make sure everything works out properly. It's not evil, it's not censorship, and it's DEFINITELY not outrageous or unusual.
You are aware that the American revolution occurred prior to the French one, right? And that the current US constitution was drafted and put on the way to implementation during the French revolution and the Reign of Terror?
Somehow I doubt our system is based on one that didn't exist until after we worked out ours.
Not that there isn't any influence from French and British Parliament, but the US took it a lot further and gave it a lot more power than either of those systems had prior.
I realize that there are about a thousand other posts saying something similar, but...
I think Wine might be the best thing that can possibly happen to Linux. The fact of the matter is that a small project just isn't likely to have the means of producing functional software on multiple platforms (at least not without sacrificing performance to go with Java or some alternative), and Wine makes it so that they don't have to by creating a target that will work equally on *nix and Windows. While I realize that similar projects exist to allow for Linux-based software to run in Windows, none of them are able to run as cleanly or transparently as Wine, and there just isn't as much demand for software going in that direction. Plus, as it gets better and more software actually performs better under Wine than Windows (I have seen it with a few things), it could become a wedge for FOSS to embrace extend and extinguish on Microsoft, and that's just funny.
Is it really an accident if idiot kids are throwing merchandise around and being stupid? My store doesn't have a break it/buy it policy, but sometimes I wish we did just so we could get the 14 year olds to stop trying to break the expensive electronics.
"Capitalism is about people with capital having the most influence."
Not quite. I think the word you are looking for is actually "plutocracy". One could say that the latter logically follows from the former*, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
"@aurispector, they may also choose to expand productivity to develop that influence but that's not necessarily the case. Consider OPEC, often they can increase their influence by lowering production of a high demand product."
This is a critical flaw in capitalism: it only works properly when a certain set of very specific conditions** are met. I'll leave it to the reader to figure out if those conditions are ever met, or even could be.
"Nor is capitalism about those who are the most productive. It is about those with the most capital, or other source of power, increasing their capital. Sure a by-product can be increased financial efficiency in production within a given company but overall I think it's bad for society."
What? Capital is gained precisely by increasing production and decreasing cost. Your statement of how capitalism works is completely wrong on its face.
*One could also say that plutocracy is the only form of government the world has ever known, with or without capitalism.
**Including, but not limited to: resources must be scarce but never absent, there must be absolutely no form of collusion by any parties at any level of the system (ie. no labor unions, guilds or trade organizations... this covers both Teamsters and OPEC), there must be absolutely no barriers to entry in the market, there can be no government interference in business for any reason, nobody can cheat or violate laws (which probably can't exist) and all parties must have unlimited power to negotiate prices on all things including labor.
""French that is understandable by any English speaker with half a brain" (i.e. the readers of this site)"
Whoa, slow down there cowboy. We don't want to offend people with only half a brain: they've got it tough enough without people implying they aren't smarter than/. readers.
"I keep seeing people clinging to this desperate delusion. So far he's no improvement over Bush's first ten weeks. Not by a long shot."
Really, what exactly did Bush do that wasn't an abomination? I'm honestly drawing a blank on this, I just can't think of anything he actually did well... just a few things he didn't manage to completely fuck up. Please, refresh my memory.
It sounds like 'going paperless" is exactly what he wants. It so happens that his office deals in research materials, but that doesn't really change the objective: stop using unwieldy and resource intensive paper documents in favor of highly indexed digital ones.
Out of curiosity, have you considered a wikiesque system... autolinking titles and keywords between articles and some sort of glossary (but not the "let's have everybody able to edit it because everything is an opinion and all opinions are equally invalid" communal happy horseshit)? It might not be any more useful to the professor as a research tool, but it could certainly be useful as an educational tool, particularly for undergrads who might not remember every term and principle right off the top of their heads or know off-hand what else they should be looking at to help grok what they're reading.
Except that it is also not supposed to be used against combatants. Weapons that are considered to be exceptionally cruel or needlessly destructive of dead bodies are banned from use against all human targets... this includes WP. You aren't supposed to target (note that this provides some leeway for collateral damage and inaccurate fire) civilian populations AT ALL, even with acceptable weapons.
If you are firing WP at people, you are in violation of the Geneva Convention... it doesn't matter whether they are civilians or not.
That's not to say WP doesn't have any legitimate uses, because it does, but none of them involve killing people. It's great for destroying munitions and (unoccupied) armor, it works well for smoke screening large areas, and various other para-combat uses.
I haven't really seen that... I've just seen a lot of anti-Obama types criticizing people who did for their unwillingness to do so before they even say anything.
That said, I'm extremely disappointed by this, I am disappointed that he can't find a single cabinet member who knows to pay their taxes, and I am even more disappointed in these Democrats who are committing tax evasion: I am OK with paying taxes to support social services and the like, and I am willing to accept that a great deal of that money will also, unfortunately, be spent on offense (it's not "defense" anymore when you're invading nations unprovoked)... but supporting such spending and then NOT paying taxes is just beyond contempt. I'm also not thrilled with his continuation of the Bush policy of socializing completely inappropriate industries (banks, autos) rather than ignoring the "too big to fail" bullshit and letting them die like they deserve and get replaced by businesses that know how not to fail.
On the other hand, I'm glad that he's put and end to Gitmo and started to reclaim any sort of American claim to a moral high ground, that he's put us on a path to getting out of Iraq sometime in the next decade (better than never, like Cheney wanted), that's he refocusing the US military into the legitimate military operation in Afghanistan (a lot of us never opposed this war at all, despite what the vocal fringe claims), and that's he's at least giving lip service to the idea that average working Americans are more important than a small number of extremely wealthy ones.
In any event, he's still a dramatic improvement on the last guy. He'd have to work pretty hard not to be.
No, it's not a valid weapon of war. Like wooden bullets, white phosphorous was deemed to simply be too cruel for use as a weapon. There are other, actually more effective, ways to kill people which do not mutilate the corpses or run afoul of the Geneva Convention, and white phosphorous simply should not be used as a munition.
So, to summarize your post... it's expensive and doesn't exist yet. I'm still not seeing what makes this such an appealing short-term energy option.
I'm still extremely skeptical of the idea that producing large quantities of extremely toxic and radioactive waste materials that will become somewhat less dangerous after a few short centuries (seriously, somebody used the words "only 200 years"... wow, what a relief) is even remotely "green", or even not a big deal. As for the potential for a meltdown, I've no doubt that Chernobyl was at least partially caused by recklessness, poor maintenance and inadequate engineering, but I've also no doubt that those are things which still happen today... it just seems like a completely unnecessary risk to take, for another auto analogy: just because cars are built to be safer in a crash and handle better, that doesn't mean you should do 150 down windy roads on a rainy night with no seat belt on.
Jeez, it's almost like the GP was trying to state the opposite of the truth... I mean, not only does TFA say otherwise, but so does the post DIRECTLY above him.
I'm wrong about there only being so much Uranium and it costing a vast amount of money to acquire? Well shit, I guess my rule of thumb: "things that are way at the bottom of the periodic table and are in a state of constant atomic decay are in extremely limited supply" was wrong all along. No, wait, I'm pretty sure it wasn't.
And I guess meltdowns are so disastrous... I mean, 3 Mile Island seemed pretty OK, and Chernobyl certainly didn't cause any long-term problems (that area was always blighted, really).
Don't drink the pro-nuke-aid... it's just not that great an idea.
Also, PDs tend to be located in commercial areas, surrounded by businesses and offices rather than homes. This means that on any given day there is far more money concentrated in those areas than residential ones, and where there's money, there's crime.
Why is it that nukes are believed to be some sort of energy panacea? There is an extremely limited supply of efficiently fissionable fuels, controlled fusion is still pretty much a pipe dream, the waste precipitates are extremely toxic with no safe disposal options, there is virtually unrivaled and potential for large scale disaster to occur, power output per plant is so massive that trying claim it will decentralize energy production is laughable, and every dollar we sink into it is another dollar we won't be putting into more long-term solutions with lower associated risks.
I'm also wondering how a large number of autonomously operating off-shore wind farms can possibly be considered an "easy target" for terrorist attack... do you have any idea just how much coastline the US has? It would be FAR easier and more effective to blow an Alaskan oil pipe (especially since that's hundreds of miles of pipe which can be rendered completely useless, extremely costly AND environmentally disastrous with only a single point of failure), or even to attack a power transmission station outside of a large city. That's like saying that personal automobiles lack heavy armor, so it would be easy for a terrorist to just hit all of them with RPGs and bring all transit to a screeching halt...
So XP is about to blow up? Really? And Vista is the solution to that? What if the transmission's just fine, but the dealership is sending you postcards saying "hey, your transmission is 10 years old now, and even though we know it's been maintained, and we don't really suspect that it's about to break, we think you should buy this expensive new one we came up with that does more stuff and we think is super cool"... should you replace it? There isn't a single right answer to that question, and it's going to depend a lot on how you use the car and what kind financial situation you are in. Since the Texas State Government probably doesn't need the spiffy new features of Vista, and it most likely doesn't really provide any mission critical upgrades (maybe once it too has had years of security updates to lock it down it will, but for now the security advantages are speculative at best), spending a ton of money to upgrade from what they already have working amounts to little more than spending a bunch of money to start over from scratch.
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Because they, unlike you, find OSX to be slow and irritating. I much prefer Windows' and Linux' UIs to OSX, and my experiences with OSX have not been the blindingly fast euphoric "just works" experiences that iFans and Apple claim they are. I have absolutely no incentive to pay extra for a system that runs a piece of software that I hate and don't need for anything.
How's that for a reason not to buy a Mac?
So when a large number of people believed that racism was OK, it was? Sorry, but I simply cannot accept your logic here.
No, the set of integers is larger, but they are both infinitely large.
There are also an infinite number of values between 0 and 1, and a larger infinite number of values between 0 and 2.
Really? I asked a Barnes & Noble to order me a copy of "Big Booty Hustlas Part 4" in paperback and they wouldn't... seriously though, my girlfriend has asked them about certain legitimate photography books and they've said no on the grounds that they believe it to be too inflammatory or pornographic. They were happy to direct us to some places that would sell it, but their management simply decided that they were not willing to sell those books because it would be potentially harmful to their business if they did. They aren't calling for the book to be banned, or restricting others from selling it, they just aren't willing to sell it themselves. it just can't bring myself to the point of calling that censorship, not least because I think doing so would water down what we mean by that term so as to make it trivial.
"Sorry, who is supposed to take this into consideration? The largest bookstore on the planet skews search results towards an approved reading list--and most people will never know--and you're not even a little worried? Amazon doesn't need the aforementioned warehouse (the fact that they have one for their more popular stuff is moot). But when a corporation hides material that some random group has deemed "offensive", I do not find it obvious that everything is OK. We progress by reading and evaluating the opinions of others, not by sticking our heads in the sand. This seems to be Amazon's tacit endorsement of the head-in-sand approach to acquiring knowledge. Not exactly censorship in the strictest sense, but not obviously "not outrageous" either. If there is material that is not appropriate for me to see, do you really think that Amazon is well-equipped to make that decision for me?"
So because Amazon is large, they are forbidden the right to do business as they see fit? Did I fall asleep and not being able to easily locate something on Amazon somehow became tantamount to the Final Solution? They don't even come close to being a monopoly, and people most certainly noticed this change immediately. Heaven forbid I ever open a bookstore and become successful, because when I refuse to sell the latest Ann Coulter Conservative erotica novel or the Westboro Baptist approved biography of the Right Reverend Fred Phelps or the New edition of Mein Kampf now with extra Jew-hate on the grounds that I feel it is simply repugnant to my morals I too will be a censor.
I find the notion that Amazon should ever be forced to sell anything in a way which they do not wish to be far more reprehensible than the idea that they might choose not to sell something based on grounds which are malevolent or ignorant. In response, of course, I can continue to not buy anything from them (my total amount spent at Amazon during the last 12 months: $0.00).
"The main thrust of the pro-gay crusade these days is about gaining favored status ("protected class" listings, tax benefits for "civil unions" and "gay marriage") for gays. At very least, the second half of that qualifies as promotion."
"Protected class" listings implying a favored status I can see... but how is requesting the ability to do something readily available and commonplace for other demographics somehow something that only a "favored class" can do? I see the denial of people the ability to marry on something over which they have no reasonable control (in this case, their biological sex) as putting them into a disfavored class, and our society has reached an overwhelming consensus that disfavored classes are categorically unacceptable (though this is not, in practice, consistently applied).
The main thrust of the anti-gay crusade these days is to demonstrate that homosexuals are inherently dangerous and subversive, that they are frightening, that they harm children, and that this is all a willful act of contrition against the right-minded and morally superior heterosexual Christian majority (obviously I only say this in reference to "the West", and whatever claims might be made to the contrary, the charge here is led by fundamentalist Christians).
In response to some of your other points... whether or not it is culturally acquired, it's still not a conscious choice, and by our normal standards that makes it akin to genetic fact.
There are relatively few people who honestly believe that homosexuality is a matter of pure choice, most at least concede that it is beyond anyone's immediate control (and therefore not what we normally consider "choice") whom or what they find attractive even if they assert (correctly, although it tends not to mean much once that is conceded) that acting on it is. Obviously there are people out there who believe in complete choice on this, but they are really a fringe minority.
The first question is irrelevant, because the second question can only be logically answered as "false". The fact that people answer otherwise just demonstrates that sometimes people make irrational and illogical choices, not that there is any validity to their argument. If an action causes no harm, then it is simply irrelevant why it is taken.
I leave you with one last point: if a racist asks us to consider their views and respect their wants, we do not do so because we feel they are categorically wrong; if a religious bigot demands that we honor his religious views by suppressing all others, we do not do so because they are categorically wrong; if any whackjob with an ax to grind demands that we take some sort of action that is repulsive to our nature and society, we deny them because we feel they are categorically wrong. What honestly differentiates a homophobe (or anti-gay activist, if you prefer)? On what grounds are we obligated to respect and accede to their views and demands if we believe that they too are categorically wrong?
If they chose, as a business, simply not to sell it, would that be censorship? If so, every bookstore that doesn't carry everything ever written is engaging in censorship. Does this seem rational to you?
Sorry, but here in the real world, we have to take into consideration that sometimes not everything is appropriate for everyone to see, and being responsible people we make sure that there are proper safeguards to make sure everything works out properly. It's not evil, it's not censorship, and it's DEFINITELY not outrageous or unusual.
You are aware that the American revolution occurred prior to the French one, right? And that the current US constitution was drafted and put on the way to implementation during the French revolution and the Reign of Terror?
Somehow I doubt our system is based on one that didn't exist until after we worked out ours.
Not that there isn't any influence from French and British Parliament, but the US took it a lot further and gave it a lot more power than either of those systems had prior.
Nope, nor is a pound of lead any heavier than a pound of feathers... but it IS a lot more convenient.
I realize that there are about a thousand other posts saying something similar, but...
I think Wine might be the best thing that can possibly happen to Linux. The fact of the matter is that a small project just isn't likely to have the means of producing functional software on multiple platforms (at least not without sacrificing performance to go with Java or some alternative), and Wine makes it so that they don't have to by creating a target that will work equally on *nix and Windows. While I realize that similar projects exist to allow for Linux-based software to run in Windows, none of them are able to run as cleanly or transparently as Wine, and there just isn't as much demand for software going in that direction. Plus, as it gets better and more software actually performs better under Wine than Windows (I have seen it with a few things), it could become a wedge for FOSS to embrace extend and extinguish on Microsoft, and that's just funny.
You mean the jazz standard? Does anyone even own the copyright to that?
That's some bullshit.
Is it really an accident if idiot kids are throwing merchandise around and being stupid? My store doesn't have a break it/buy it policy, but sometimes I wish we did just so we could get the 14 year olds to stop trying to break the expensive electronics.
"Capitalism is about people with capital having the most influence."
Not quite. I think the word you are looking for is actually "plutocracy". One could say that the latter logically follows from the former*, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
"@aurispector, they may also choose to expand productivity to develop that influence but that's not necessarily the case. Consider OPEC, often they can increase their influence by lowering production of a high demand product."
This is a critical flaw in capitalism: it only works properly when a certain set of very specific conditions** are met. I'll leave it to the reader to figure out if those conditions are ever met, or even could be.
"Nor is capitalism about those who are the most productive. It is about those with the most capital, or other source of power, increasing their capital. Sure a by-product can be increased financial efficiency in production within a given company but overall I think it's bad for society."
What? Capital is gained precisely by increasing production and decreasing cost. Your statement of how capitalism works is completely wrong on its face.
*One could also say that plutocracy is the only form of government the world has ever known, with or without capitalism.
**Including, but not limited to: resources must be scarce but never absent, there must be absolutely no form of collusion by any parties at any level of the system (ie. no labor unions, guilds or trade organizations... this covers both Teamsters and OPEC), there must be absolutely no barriers to entry in the market, there can be no government interference in business for any reason, nobody can cheat or violate laws (which probably can't exist) and all parties must have unlimited power to negotiate prices on all things including labor.
""French that is understandable by any English speaker with half a brain" (i.e. the readers of this site)"
Whoa, slow down there cowboy. We don't want to offend people with only half a brain: they've got it tough enough without people implying they aren't smarter than /. readers.
"I keep seeing people clinging to this desperate delusion. So far he's no improvement over Bush's first ten weeks. Not by a long shot."
Really, what exactly did Bush do that wasn't an abomination? I'm honestly drawing a blank on this, I just can't think of anything he actually did well... just a few things he didn't manage to completely fuck up. Please, refresh my memory.
It sounds like 'going paperless" is exactly what he wants. It so happens that his office deals in research materials, but that doesn't really change the objective: stop using unwieldy and resource intensive paper documents in favor of highly indexed digital ones.
Out of curiosity, have you considered a wikiesque system... autolinking titles and keywords between articles and some sort of glossary (but not the "let's have everybody able to edit it because everything is an opinion and all opinions are equally invalid" communal happy horseshit)? It might not be any more useful to the professor as a research tool, but it could certainly be useful as an educational tool, particularly for undergrads who might not remember every term and principle right off the top of their heads or know off-hand what else they should be looking at to help grok what they're reading.
Except that it is also not supposed to be used against combatants. Weapons that are considered to be exceptionally cruel or needlessly destructive of dead bodies are banned from use against all human targets... this includes WP. You aren't supposed to target (note that this provides some leeway for collateral damage and inaccurate fire) civilian populations AT ALL, even with acceptable weapons.
If you are firing WP at people, you are in violation of the Geneva Convention... it doesn't matter whether they are civilians or not.
That's not to say WP doesn't have any legitimate uses, because it does, but none of them involve killing people. It's great for destroying munitions and (unoccupied) armor, it works well for smoke screening large areas, and various other para-combat uses.
I haven't really seen that... I've just seen a lot of anti-Obama types criticizing people who did for their unwillingness to do so before they even say anything.
That said, I'm extremely disappointed by this, I am disappointed that he can't find a single cabinet member who knows to pay their taxes, and I am even more disappointed in these Democrats who are committing tax evasion: I am OK with paying taxes to support social services and the like, and I am willing to accept that a great deal of that money will also, unfortunately, be spent on offense (it's not "defense" anymore when you're invading nations unprovoked)... but supporting such spending and then NOT paying taxes is just beyond contempt. I'm also not thrilled with his continuation of the Bush policy of socializing completely inappropriate industries (banks, autos) rather than ignoring the "too big to fail" bullshit and letting them die like they deserve and get replaced by businesses that know how not to fail.
On the other hand, I'm glad that he's put and end to Gitmo and started to reclaim any sort of American claim to a moral high ground, that he's put us on a path to getting out of Iraq sometime in the next decade (better than never, like Cheney wanted), that's he refocusing the US military into the legitimate military operation in Afghanistan (a lot of us never opposed this war at all, despite what the vocal fringe claims), and that's he's at least giving lip service to the idea that average working Americans are more important than a small number of extremely wealthy ones.
In any event, he's still a dramatic improvement on the last guy. He'd have to work pretty hard not to be.
No, it's not a valid weapon of war. Like wooden bullets, white phosphorous was deemed to simply be too cruel for use as a weapon. There are other, actually more effective, ways to kill people which do not mutilate the corpses or run afoul of the Geneva Convention, and white phosphorous simply should not be used as a munition.
So, to summarize your post... it's expensive and doesn't exist yet. I'm still not seeing what makes this such an appealing short-term energy option.
I'm still extremely skeptical of the idea that producing large quantities of extremely toxic and radioactive waste materials that will become somewhat less dangerous after a few short centuries (seriously, somebody used the words "only 200 years"... wow, what a relief) is even remotely "green", or even not a big deal. As for the potential for a meltdown, I've no doubt that Chernobyl was at least partially caused by recklessness, poor maintenance and inadequate engineering, but I've also no doubt that those are things which still happen today... it just seems like a completely unnecessary risk to take, for another auto analogy: just because cars are built to be safer in a crash and handle better, that doesn't mean you should do 150 down windy roads on a rainy night with no seat belt on.
Jeez, it's almost like the GP was trying to state the opposite of the truth... I mean, not only does TFA say otherwise, but so does the post DIRECTLY above him.
What a dumbass.
I'm wrong about there only being so much Uranium and it costing a vast amount of money to acquire? Well shit, I guess my rule of thumb: "things that are way at the bottom of the periodic table and are in a state of constant atomic decay are in extremely limited supply" was wrong all along. No, wait, I'm pretty sure it wasn't.
And I guess meltdowns are so disastrous... I mean, 3 Mile Island seemed pretty OK, and Chernobyl certainly didn't cause any long-term problems (that area was always blighted, really).
Don't drink the pro-nuke-aid... it's just not that great an idea.
Also, PDs tend to be located in commercial areas, surrounded by businesses and offices rather than homes. This means that on any given day there is far more money concentrated in those areas than residential ones, and where there's money, there's crime.
He has paranoid conspiracy theories... who needs evidence?
Why is it that nukes are believed to be some sort of energy panacea? There is an extremely limited supply of efficiently fissionable fuels, controlled fusion is still pretty much a pipe dream, the waste precipitates are extremely toxic with no safe disposal options, there is virtually unrivaled and potential for large scale disaster to occur, power output per plant is so massive that trying claim it will decentralize energy production is laughable, and every dollar we sink into it is another dollar we won't be putting into more long-term solutions with lower associated risks.
I'm also wondering how a large number of autonomously operating off-shore wind farms can possibly be considered an "easy target" for terrorist attack... do you have any idea just how much coastline the US has? It would be FAR easier and more effective to blow an Alaskan oil pipe (especially since that's hundreds of miles of pipe which can be rendered completely useless, extremely costly AND environmentally disastrous with only a single point of failure), or even to attack a power transmission station outside of a large city. That's like saying that personal automobiles lack heavy armor, so it would be easy for a terrorist to just hit all of them with RPGs and bring all transit to a screeching halt...
So XP is about to blow up? Really? And Vista is the solution to that? What if the transmission's just fine, but the dealership is sending you postcards saying "hey, your transmission is 10 years old now, and even though we know it's been maintained, and we don't really suspect that it's about to break, we think you should buy this expensive new one we came up with that does more stuff and we think is super cool"... should you replace it? There isn't a single right answer to that question, and it's going to depend a lot on how you use the car and what kind financial situation you are in. Since the Texas State Government probably doesn't need the spiffy new features of Vista, and it most likely doesn't really provide any mission critical upgrades (maybe once it too has had years of security updates to lock it down it will, but for now the security advantages are speculative at best), spending a ton of money to upgrade from what they already have working amounts to little more than spending a bunch of money to start over from scratch.