bascule

IA already covered this: What you learn from building a nuclear power plant (unless it's a breeder reactor) isn't really applicable to building a nuclear weapon. Yes, except the nuclear plants will make more energy for the same amount of manpower and construction time. Also, what problems were those again? Building a nuclear weapon requires extensive knowledge of how to build ultracentrifuges to refine the uranium up to weapons grade, then knowledge of the incredibly difficult task of building an implosion lens, where precisely placed pieces of uranium ore are packed with precise amounts of conventional explosive which must be detonated in the proper order to bring about a nuclear chain reaction. People who work at nuclear power plants are never going to learn how to do this. Because the skills aren't applicable. Someone working at a nuclear power plant isn't going to have any more idea about how to build a nuclear bomb than your average high school student. Because it's less infrastructure to maintain?

America needs as much non-petroleum based energy as it can get right now. More Americans have been killed by wind power (13) than nuclear power (0)

My suggestion would be for the government to create massive subsidies for the construction of new nuclear power plants, and also streamline and modernize the nuclear regulatory process to facilitate a substantially faster approval process for the construction of new nuclear power plants. Also: fully fund the completion of Yucca Mountain.

Well, I guess I have a different generality than you. I think intellectuals tend to weigh all options when making a decision. As for the subgeniuses, well, their approach to decision making is likely far less methodical. Oh, and P.S.: Bob loves you

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6022108&page=1 Two whistleblowers who were formally military intelligence operatives have come forward with claims that "hundreds of everyday Americans" had their private conversations intercepted. He said phone calls that included "phone sex and pillow talk" were often passed around the NSA facility as a sort of amusement for the operators working there. I miss my civil liberties...

What? I think intellectuals have a tendency to rationalize their principles, rather than believing them blindly. I certainly don't think they're unprincipled or believe principles should take a backseat to anything such as performance and efficiency. Freedom of choice is a great principle, but what if your freedom to choose comes at the cost of another person's life or health? There's certainly a utilitarian calculation to be made there, which encompasses both principles and efficiency. I think what intellectuals have a capacity to do is weigh those sorts of things simultaneously, whereas a more ignorant view will generally stem from a single principle or viewpoint about how the world should operate.

Yes, that really is the issue. Yes, this represents the difference between nociception and perception. This was quite clearly outlined by Kant, who I would suggest reading before Penrose. Kant quite clearly articulates the difference between phenomena (events in the physical world) and noumena (our perceptions of them). Global workspace theory suggests we build a model of the outside world inside the thalamus, and is based on neuroscience, not Penrose's quantum consciousness mumbo jumbo. There are published scientific papers on global workspace theory. Can you find a published peer reviewed scientific paper that Penrose has written on the hypothesis you describe?

The EU is paying a total of E1.3 trillion (or $1.8 trillion)

Hmmm, massive rebound today... over 900 points

Most of the issues of CFLs are resolved by LED lighting. LED lights are dimmable (dunno about timers there) and perform even more efficiently than CFLs (up to 12X as efficient as a normal bulb) Of course, they are more expensive up front as well, but the amortized cost is much lower.

There are a multitude of alternatives which are three times as efficient or more: CFL, halogen, or LED. While any of these will save you money in the long run, the up-front cost is higher and thus people are wary of purchasing them. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003590856_lightbulbs27.html

http://redgreenandblue.org/2008/10/11/eu-bans-incandescent-light-bulbs/ How progressive of them. I can only hope that America gets a government who would go for this kind of thing soon...

So concludes the panel investigating "troopergate": http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Palin-Troopergate.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Is this first time in American history where both members of a presidential ticket were found to have violated ethics standards before being elected? McCain blasted the report as a "partisan inquiry run by Obama supporters"... except the panel consisted of 8 Republicans and 4 Democrats: http://donklephant.com/2008/10/10/mccain-campaign-calls-troopergate-partisan-theyre-wrong/ Weird, guess I didn't see the existing thread on this :/

I certainly prefer documents-as-PDFs and ebooks to real books, at least if they're technical references. Being able to search and carry literally thousands of books around with you on your laptop is huge.

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, gas wasn't cheap Your whole argument is based on a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Not to mention one of your premises is false.

You've conveniently omitted the reasoning for that statement. Here, again, is the evidence for mine: The Bush administration was spying on U.S. citizens: a U.S. district court has found him guilty of violating FISA, which is a felony torturing prisoners of war: Bush gave the OK to waterboard, although I'm sure you'd still persist in the "waterboarding isn't torture" line

That's about the most succinct example of your hypocrisy I think I've ever seen Here, let me help you out: "right-wing dictatorship that you want people to believe that we've become" <--- this is a strawman

Well the Dow's down almost 600 points today... to 7882. Eep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/business/worldbusiness/10icebank.html

You know what'd be really awesome Pangloss? If you could actually respond to points I actually make, rather than arguments from the fantasyland in your head. If I didn't actually make the argument, why are you asking me to defend it? I don't speak for those people. I speak for me. Should I ask you to defend why civilizing and Christianizing foreign countries is a good idea? Or how about lynching black people, because it's conservatives who tend to do that? Your kind seem to think women belong in the kitchen, not the workplace. Care to defend that? Oh, those aren't your personal beliefs? You mean there's actually a separation between a particular political stance and personal convictions? Repeating something doesn't make it right, but thanks for responding like a 3 year old. So you think 2004 was about the moderates being contented? 2004 marked a year of extreme political polarization, and elections won under dubious circumstances, most notably elections in Ohio orchestrated by one Ken Blackwell. It wasn't about cheap gas, a growing economy, and ideological programs that had gone too far. Let's see, at that point the Bush administration was spying on U.S. citizens, torturing prisoners of war, and above all else "spreading democracy" in the name of an overarching "war on terror". That's not an ideology gone too far? Can you please point out anything coming out of the Democrats that remotely compares, short of the Vietnam War? Bush's administration was full of ideological programs run amok. He didn't win because people were content. He won because he (and by he I mean Karl Rove) made people too scared to vote for the other guy. This has been an absolutely horrible period in America's history, and the ideology perpetrated on this country by its administration has been terribly destructive across many fronts. I don't know how you can begin comparing any ideologies espoused by Obama and the Democrats to the ones we've seen coming out of the Bush administration and the 106th/107th Congress.

If it's any consolation they didn't get the $3 million to replace the projector

Now's a great time to be selling gold, not buying...

From the debates: $3 million? Can't spend that kind of money, that's PORK! But another $300 billion bailout, some 5 orders of magnitude larger, is just fine! Anyway, $3 million "overhead projector" eh? Well... the scientists have responded: Here's a fun comparison of an actual overhead projector to the Alder Planetarium's Zeiss Mark VI star projector:: Article here: http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/1209674,adlerweb100908.article Here's the official statement released from the Alder Planetarium about McCain's remarks: http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/pressroom/pr/2008_10_08_AdlerStatement_aboutdebate.pdf courtesy BadAstronomy

How? Looks like those fears turned out to be warranted. Perhaps they were founded on more than just an "ideological predisposition." Why is my statement erroneous? I challenge you to justify your positions with reasoning rather than making statements like "you're wrong" with no supporting argumentation. Well, the '90s were great. This decade kind of sucked. You must have me confused with a wingut. I'm a moonbat. We've been ranting about change since Bush got elected, right? Yes, clearly progressive politicking is at the heart of the financial crisis and subsequent bailout *headgib*

Well, all that said... the Dow closed down 7% today, dropping 679 points to 8579 Wells Fargo closed down 14.6%, and Bank of America closed down 11.2% The situation certainly doesn't seem to be stabilizing... can't say I'm surprised