Why don't we see massive solar projects or wind farms or tidal farms being proposed instead off "an old fashioned pipeline". Many more jobs could be created with sustainable infrastructure. It's 2015 for fuck's sake, can't we get off the oil already?
It's not like solar is absent. There are major solar installations coming online in the US and elsewhere, not to mention companies like Solar City and First Solar installing in the personal and business space in the US. Solar is ramping up quickly, but it's not as cheap or easy as oil, which is why so much of the world still consumes it so heavily. Solar technology has only brought the price of power generation down to a competitive level recently, and it will take decades to supplant oil as the major energy source. It just can't be done overnight. |
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This is such a cool subject and all sorts of new data are pointing toward the role of microbes in our lives. For example I like chocolate. Or do I? Maybe my desire is being manipulated by bacteria who like chocolate? http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-mindsP.S. There are several other examples of cross species transfer of DNA. It is not that weird in nature and before multi-cellular life it may have been the norm. I think it's an interesting question to ponder if it actually matters why you "like" something. If you like chocolate because you like the taste of it, or you "like" chocolate because you're manipulated by bacteria which likes chocolate, does it matter in the end if eating chocolate gives you pleasure? |
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The US is not planning to attack Russia. They will only continue their economic attack and proxy war through Ukraine.
Any direct attack mean WW3!
Some "proxy war" when you don't even arm your proxy. McCain: "I'm ashamed of my country" over Ukraine
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said Sunday that the U.S. handling of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine represents a "shameful" chapter of American history.
"I'm ashamed of my country, I'm ashamed of my president and I'm ashamed of myself that I haven't done more to help these people," McCain said in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation."
He also had harsh words for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, whom McCain said "legitimized for the first time in 70 years the dismemberment of a country in Europe."
Merkel and Hollande helped broker a recent cease-fire between Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels in the eastern part of the country. The tenuous agreement has been violated several times already and is at risk of collapsing entirely.
McCain is one of the U.S. lawmakers who is pushing President Obama to provide the Ukrainian military with lethal weapons so it can extract a higher cost on Russia for territorial incursions.
"The Ukrainians aren't asking for American boots on the ground; that's not the question here. They're asking for weapons to defend themselves and they are being slaughtered and their military is being shattered," McCain said. "Some of the best Russian special forces are there and they will continue this aggression for as long as they can get away with it...[Russian President] Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine not to be part of Europe and he is succeeding in doing so."
At a news conference with Merkel earlier this month, Mr. Obama said he has not yet made a decision on whether to send lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military but followed Merkel in continuing to call for a diplomatic resolution.
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Apart from the environmental concerns, I don't think that this pipeline will be viable economically. The crude price has hit the rock bottom. And with the current state of affairs, the US government won't be able to afford it.
Afford the pipeline? I assume TransCanada would be responsible for the building it, since they would own it. I don't think the US government being able to afford it has anything to do with the pipeline. |
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All it will take is one attempted attack on the White House / Pentagon before the media starts getting paranoid about it.
I'm surprised Fox News isn't already running with this angle, how desperate they are to peddle fear for ratings... |
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What economists have feared has now officially begun – a US bank has announced it will begin charging fees on deposits. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, “J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is preparing to charge large institutional customers for some deposits, citing new rules that make holding money for the clients too costly, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the plan.” The article mentions that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which is “the largest U.S. bank by assets, is aiming to reduce the affected deposits by billions of dollars… to discourage certain deposits due to new regulations and low interest rates”. The overall concern is related to the negative impact of negative interest rates. If it is cheaper to hold money rather than pay a bank for holding your cash, individuals will begin to hoard their cash. This will result in the US Government having to print more money to meet the need for cold hard cash. This in turn may lead to a run on the bank or hyperinflation or any number of unintended consequences – only time will tell but most scenarios are not good. The uncertainty of what this means is what may impact the markets the most. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/02/the-beginning-of-the-end-morgan-stanley-to-charge-fees-on-deposits/There are no negative interest rates in the US. This is about large, short-term deposits which are uninsured, and risky for the bank to hold because it can't loan it out or make a profit on it. New capital requirements after the financial crisis require banks to hold enough high-quality assets to cover a bank run. Because these are short-term deposits and uninsured (low quality assets), they're the first to flee the banks in a crisis, but because they're in the banks now, it forces the banks holding them to have sufficient reserves to cover their withdrawal. These large deposits ironically leave the banks that hold them with less money to lend out to turn a profit on, so the banks want them off the books. This has no bearing on retail customers, it affects institutional investors. And it has nothing to do with negative interest rates, of which there are none in the US. The Wall Street Journal reported in early December that J.P. Morgan and several other banks, including Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings PLC, Deutsche Bank AG and Bank of America Corp., had spoken privately with clients in recent months that new regulations are making some deposits less profitable, in some cases telling clients they would charge fees or work to find alternatives for some of the deposits. The moves have thrown into question a cornerstone of banking, in which deposits have been seen as one of the industry's most attractive forms of funding. Since the financial crisis, new rules have been put into place that require banks to maintain enough high-quality assets that could be converted into cash during a crisis to cover a projected flight of deposits over 30 days. Because large, uninsured deposits would be expected to leave most quickly, the rules will now require that banks maintain reserves for those deposits that they cannot use for profitable activities like making loans. That makes it much less efficient or profitable for banks to hold these deposits. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jpmorgan-looks-to-cut-some-desposits-by-100-bln-2015-02-24 |
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We have a multi-party system, not a two party system. Why no third option?
Oh really? How many other parties are elected to national offices in America? |
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I feel as if countries shouldn't be getting ultra militarized. The US has a budget of about $750 billion dollars this year for the total amount of their military budget. Although it makes me feel safe living here I see better opportunities to use some of that money. The US spends more than the other top 14 countries combined.
the amount doesn't equate value. It pretty much does in this instance. |
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Japanese has many allies. There is no need for them to be militarized.
Well thats not always true. How would America come to protect when it will be fighting its own wars ? Japan is the US's most important ally in Asia because they are a counter weight to China, so there's no chance the US will leave Japan out to dry. China can't exert global influence if it's not even the strongest regional influence, which is why the US favors are strong Japan. That's a key point of US foreign policy actually, all our alliances are designed to ensure that no regional power can become a global power. The US hangs on to NATO to counter Russia, Japan to counter China, Israel and Saudi Arabia to counter any Middle East influence, and South America and Africa don't have a regional power to begin with. (Actually, Brazil is probably closest in SA.) Every nation that is friendly to US interests is brought under the umbrella of allies, and any nation that might not be friendly to US interests is left competing for regional dominance against US allies, so can never become a global power. |
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They're playing games with wording. For example, clicking through to their sources, they're very deliberate to point out that antarctic sea extent is increasing, which is true. They use this single data point to prove the world is not warming, but it's not proof of that at all. At the same time antarctic sea ice is extending, arctic sea ice is shrinking...
I don't think this is accurate. I have seen numerous cases where skeptics discuss the overall ice situation, and attempt to generate an overall assessment and draw conclusions from that. Yes we can point to discussions of narrower focus such as just the arctic or just the antarctic, and yes a general conclusion drawn from narrow data is likely wrong. But the exact same statement can be made with the bolded word changed to warmer. It's worth noting that these are intrinsicly chaotic systems, so data points do not translate well into conclusions with knowing the extent of chaos in the systems and how to draw conclusions from chaotic systems. Linear thinking is apt to create wrong conclusions. You're the only one who has posted anything worth responding to, so thanks for having a coherent and well thought-out point and not derping out like everyone else. My only point here is that OPs source is intentionally misleading in that it attempts to "debunk" global warming theory by pointing out that ice in one part of the world has increased over a very finite period of time. First, that selectively ignores larger data sets which render the thesis of ice growth false, and second looking at so few data points can't be described as a study of climate, but of weather. Weather is highly variable, and climate is the weather patterns over very long periods of time. Weather changes one day to the next with high degrees of variability year-to-year, while climate changes over decades or hundreds of years. As you suggested, taking a limited look at a complex system and drawing conclusions based on very limited data points is going to lead to garbage conclusions. Rejecting OPs conclusion here has no implication for accepting the validity of global warming, it's just pointing out that the conclusion doesn't prove what the OP's source claims. |
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A new study by Yale University Professor Dan Kahan confirmed that skeptics of the controversial anthropogenic global-warming theory — or realists, as they often call themselves — know more about climate science than AGW theorists. The latest findings directly contradict the myths, or lies, put forward by man-made warming alarmists about the countless scientists and the majority of the U.S. public that does not accept their theory.
The warmists consistently label those who reject their climate alarmism as “deniers,” “anti-science,” and worse. In reality, however, Kahan’s study, set to be published in the journal Advances in Political Psychology, shows yet again that the skeptics are generally more familiar with the science and the evidence surrounding the climate than warming theorists. Other recent studies have found that skeptics know more about science generally, too. More... http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/20158-global-warming-skeptics-know-more-climate-science-study-showsThey're playing games with wording. For example, clicking through to their sources, they're very deliberate to point out that antarctic sea extent is increasing, which is true. They use this single data point to prove the world is not warming, but it's not proof of that at all. At the same time antarctic sea ice is extending, arctic sea ice is shrinking at a more rapid clip, resulting in overall less ice coverage as the world warms. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/11/antarctic-sea-ice-gains-do-not-cancel-out-arctic-sea-ice-losses-nasa-finds/ Of course, they don't mention arctic ice at all, because it disproves their point. The article laughably points out that "it takes critical thinking skills to question global warming theories" but then tries to pull sleight of hand like this, where only critical thinking skills reveal their attempt at deceit. |
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I can't imagine any group of voters would support any politician that tries to make it legal for police to drug people who are handcuffed, but then again, there are so many police apologists in this country that this is a frightening product.
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When I first saw the title, I thought it was a satire article!
I guess we have to ensure that trades are done only in public places, where you can easily attract attention.
Well, the title is a little facetious. This incident hardly marks a "crime wave." What I don't understand is with how cheap it is to sell online, why anyone would want the hassle or risk of an in-person trade. Every story has two sides, and it just may be that the news carryed out story as they were being told, but the truth may be entirely different. When u think about it for a little bit, the dude was in remote place with bitcoins, its possible that its not the cash he was exchanging for bitcoin , but rather something else that he doesnt want to admit. cheers Could be, but if it's drugs as some people are alluding to, that's really immaterial to me. Drugs are a victim-less crime, but stabbing and robbery are not. If it wasn't a cash trade, that would make sense as to why he would be doing an in-person trade, and why he's not talking about it. Although I don't want to speculate too much into it. |
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This article is from 2012, about how the town of Keane got pissed when they learned the city of 23,000 was planning to buy a Bearcat. Spoiler: the town purchased the Bearcat anyway. Police 'Tank' Purchase Riles New Hampshire Town "We're going to have our own tank." That's what Keene, N.H., Mayor Kendall Lane whispered to Councilman Mitch Greenwald during a December city council meeting. It's not quite a tank. But the quaint town of 23,000 -- scene of just two murders since 1999 -- had just accepted a $285,933 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to purchase a Bearcat, an eight-ton armored personnel vehicle made by Lenco Industries Inc. But those plans are on hold for now, thanks to a backlash from feisty residents. Resistance began with Mike Clark, a 27-year-old handyman. Clark, who said he's had a couple encounters with Keene police and currently faces a charge of criminal mischief, read about the Homeland Security grant in the newspaper. "The police are already pretty brutal," Clark said, claiming he was roughed up in both his encounters with local police. "The last thing they need is this big piece of military equipment to make them think they're soldiers." Clark's father, Terry Clark, is on the Keene City Council, and so far the only council member to publicly oppose the Bearcat. But Mike Clark said he knows how the council works. "They can pass these things without any public discussion," Clark said. "And you don't hear about them until they've already passed. But if you collect enough signatures, you can force them to reconsider the motion." Clark did just that, collecting more than 500 signatures opposing the Bearcat. More than 100 people packed a Feb. 9 meeting of a city council committee, nearly all to oppose equipping the police deaprtment, with about 45 sworn officers, with a Bearcat. One speaker quoted in the Keene Sentinel was Roberta Mastrogiovanni, owner of a newsstand downtown. “It promotes violence,” Mastrogiovanni said. “We should promote more human interaction rather than militarize. I refuse to use money for something this unnecessary when so many people in our community are in need.” Since the 1990s, the Pentagon has made military equipment available to local police departments for free or at steep discounts. This, along with drug war-related policies, has spurred a trend toward a more militarized domestic police force in America. Law enforcement and elected officials have argued for years that better-armed, high-powered police departments are needed to fight the war on drugs. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the war on terror has accelerated the trend toward militarization. Homeland Security hands out anti-terrorism grants to cities and towns, many specifically to buy military-grade equipment from companies like Lenco. In December, the Center for Investigative Reporting reported that Homeland Security grants totalled $34 billion, and went to such unlikely terrorism targets as Fargo, N.D.; Fon du Lac, Wisc.; and Canyon County, Idaho. The report noted that because of the grants, defense contractors that long served the Pentagon exclusively have increasingly turned looked to police departments, hoping to tap a "homeland security market" expected to reach $19 billion by 2014. Until only recently, public and press reaction to these grants and the gear purchased with them has been positive or non-existent. Most towns obtain and use the grants without much discussion or news coverage. At most, the local paper might run a supportive story touting the police department's new acquisition, usually without controversy. But it has been different in Keene, in part because Clark and a group of libertarian activists have made the Bearcat an issue. Jim Massery, the government sales manager for Pittsfield, Mass.-based Lenco, dismissed critics who wonder why a town with almost no crime would need a $300,000 armored truck. "I don't think there's any place in the country where you can say, 'That isn't a likely terrorist target,'" Massery said. "How would you know? We don' t know what the terrorists are thinking. No one predicted that terrorists would take over airplanes on Sept. 11. If a group of terrorists decide to shoot up a shopping mall in a town like Keene, wouldn't you rather be prepared?" Massery said Keene's anti-Bearcat citizens deliberately mischaracterize how the vehicle would be used, and pointed to incidents he said have saved police officers' lives. "When you see some Palestinian terrorist causing problems in Jerusalem, what do you usually see next? You see a tank with a cannon show up outside the guy's house, and the tank blows the house to smithereens. When a Lenco Bearcat shows up at a crime scene where a suicidal killer is holding hostages, it doesn't show up with a cannon. It shows up with a negotiator. Our trucks save lives. They save police lives. And I can't help but think that the people who are trying to stop this just don't think police officers' lives are worth saving." Keene residents opposed to the Bearcat point to a video Lenco uses to market the vehicle to police departments. (See below.) The video doesn't stress negotiation, but shows the vehicle being used aggressively. The video viewpoint is similar to that of a shooter role-playing game, set to the AC/DC song "Thunderstruck." Cops dressed in camouflage tote assault weapons, pile in and out of the vehicle, and take aim at targets from around and behind the vehicle. They attach a battering ram to the front of the vehicle, break through the front door of a house, then inject tear gas. The Keene city council barred Clark from showing the video at the February committee meeting, and LENCO has since removed the video from publicly-accessible pages of its website. "That video is totally irrelevant," Massery said. "We used some Hollywood effects and slick marketing to promote our product. So what?" Neither Keene Mayor Kendall Lane nor police Chief Kenneth Meola returned HuffPost's requests for comment. Many towns have purchased vehicles like the Bearcat, or obtained tanks or armored vehicles from the Pentagon, saying they need to be prepared for terror attacks or school shootings. When the University of North Carolina-Charlotte recently formed a SWAT team, for example, a police spokesman told the campus newspaper that the paramilitary gear and tactics were necessary to prevent another Columbine or Virginia Tech. Despite the heavy media coverage of campus shootings, they're extremely rare. University of Virginia Professor Dewey Cornell, who studies violence prevention and school safety, has estimated that a typical school campus can expect to see a homicide about once every 12,000 years. So, since terror attacks and school shootings are rare, police agencies tend to use their armored vehicles for more mundane police work, like serving drug warrants. "All we do is make trucks," Massery said. "How the trucks are used after the police department gets them isn't something we can control. You'll have to ask the police department or city council and Keene about that." Much of the opposition to the Bearcat in Keene has come from Free Keene, media-savvy libertarians who moved to the town in recent years as part of the Free State Project, a coordinated campaign in which enough like-minded people move to a small state like New Hampshire to change policy and create a libertarian government. Free Staters have clashed with Keene police on several occasions since their arrival, including incidents in which activists were arrested or threatened for recording on-duty cops with cell phones and video cameras. (It is legal to record on-duty cops in New Hampshire). Free Keene is a particularly active branch of the Free State movement. The group has staged acts of civil disobedience, ranging from the generally sympathetic (recording on-duty cops) to antics more likely to inspire eye-rolls and criticism from the town's longtime residents, including "Topless Tuesdays" and smoke-in sessions in the town square, just across from City Hall and a local middle school. "These people are crazy," Massery said. "They hate cops. They hate the government. They remind me of the Jehovah's Witnesses who take on the Red Cross. Why is anyone listening to them?" But Clark, the Keene resident who started the petitions, isn't a Free Stater. And while some of Free Keene's antics have rubbed longtime Keenians the wrong way, the Bearcat seems to have united many old-timers and their newer neighbors. "This is a big topic in this small town, and I haven't met a single person who in favor" of the Bearcat, said Dorrie O'Meara, who moved to Keene 13 years ago. O'Meara owns real estate and several businesses around Keene, including a laundromat, an apartment complex, and Pedraza's Mexican restaurant. "Keene is a beautiful place. It's gorgeous, and it's safe, and we love it here. We just don't want to live in the kind of place where there's an armored personnel carrier parked outside of City Hall. I mean, it's completely unnecessary. But it's more than that. It's just not who we are." Some city council members have said that because the vehicle will be paid for by a federal grant, the town would be foolish not to take it. O'Meara doesn't buy it. "They try to say it's 'free.' Well it isn't free. Taxpayers are still paying to put this militaristic thing in our town. And it isn't about the money, anyway. It's about what kind of town we want to be." The Keene city council will take up the issue again next month. Massery predicted opposition from Keene residents will ultimately be in vain. "We have Bearcats in 90 percent of the 100 or so largest cities in America," Massery said. "This is going to happen. It has already happened. To resist now would be like saying police officers should scrap the Glock and go back to the revolver. It's a fantasy." |
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I wonder why everybody is only talking about death. There are other possible serious side effects of the measles, like permanent brain damage. You also can get measles from the vaccine and can spread it while vaccinated. If you get measles from the vaccine then you get only mild symptoms. And you can't spread it. If this is true... how come the measles outbreak started in California, with most of the infected already having been vaccinated? California has something like a 95% vaccination rate. This proves the vaccine is clearly ineffective. The overall vaccination rate doesn't matter. You need to know the vaccination rate of those infected here in order to draw that conclusion. If all those infected had both doses of the vaccine, then you can draw that conclusion. |
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When I first saw the title, I thought it was a satire article!
I guess we have to ensure that trades are done only in public places, where you can easily attract attention.
Well, the title is a little facetious. This incident hardly marks a "crime wave." What I don't understand is with how cheap it is to sell online, why anyone would want the hassle or risk of an in-person trade. |
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Here is one of those MRAP's:  I am so glad that we still have a free country to be proud of.  A vehicle like that, you could probably conquer the state of New Hampshire. |
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No countries have recognized Sealand and the UK claims the platform as part of it's territory. To the extent that it operates as a self-declared nation is owed to the fact that the UK doesn't care enough to stop them from doing it, but it's because no one takes them seariously anyway. Sealand claims that the UK granted it de facto recognition when a diplomat visited there in the 70's to try to resolve a hostage situation. It's twisted logic. I believe Pirate Bay tried to purchase it at some point.
No countries recognized it because its a joke in the eyes of the world, too little to be taken seriously, but i find the idea fascinating (other than the selling of titles). It would be a perfect getaway for anyone who had enough of this so called democratic world, but it would need to be much larger and greater to be able to provide enough for the self sustaining system. I bet that if someone seriously tries to create some similar project on kickstarter, there would definetly be some takers. Sealand is a joke, for sure. They used to issue passports that you could buy, just for the novelty of it. But in order for something like a kickstarter to work, you'd have to build an island essentially in international waters, because all the current land is claimed by some nation or another. And building an island is kind of cost prohibitive. An interesting idea though, if only to think about. |
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Maybe we should convince Greece to become a Bitcoin economy.
Greece can't even convince itself to be a functioning fiat economy... it's impossible to have a functioning fiat economy. eco 101 it's by design. Notwithstanding the hundreds of functioning fiat economies on the planet, of course. look at the history of fiat miscreant (how many ccy have fallen to 0), a tool to enslave the faithful and believers, those that will put Love over anything. Good, life is short. I apologize with all my Heart to you flsf. Sincerely. edit; why are you on bitcointalk? to promote fiat? You don't have even a position in it... I mean how many B do you move hourly? you don't understand what I wrote, I know... learn humility first, then you can be aggressive as hell, but only if it's hell. And it is. And one of the biggest cause are those mothers and fathers spreading children like cakes for their future income... it ain't possible in a round planet. MARK THOSE WORDS. (and I am not a fiat fan  ). You're making the mistake of me taking issue with your poor logic skills and worthless conclusions to be a defense of fiat. I'm merely pointing out the obviously false conclusions you're peddling as meritless. For example, you said "it's impossible to have a functioning fiat economy." I pointed out there are hundreds of functioning fiat economies. You responded with that in the history of the world, some have failed, as if that proved your point. It doesn't. In order to prove your point, there would literally have to be zero functioning fiat economies. The fact that there are hundreds proves you wrong. If you can't understand the difference between having a bad point, that's on you mate. I'm sorry for you. As for being a defender of fiat, the thing I find most amusing is the most rabid btc supporters think that if fiat fails, btc won't. But btc only has value because it's convertible into fiat. I love btc just fine, but it has no value without fiat because it's use is extremely limited in the real world. All the major merchants who accept btc convert it to fiat immediately because they have no interest in holding btc because it has no value for them, they only offer it as an avenue to bring in the fringe customer who might want to pay with it. Maybe in the future that will change. But the people who were buying btc in 2013 that sent it over $1200 weren't buying because they were believers in btc, they were chasing the bubble because they thought it would make them fiat rich. Now that the bubble has popped, you're left with people like you and me. One of us believes btc will be the secret to surviving the next financial crisis. One of us is just interested in the technology and doesn't assign fantasy superpowers to something that isn't a reliable currency. If you think hard enough, you might be able to figure out which is which. |
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Wow, what a striking image. |
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