npts2020

Pangloss & Bascule; I would tend to agree with both of you. The fact that our elected representatives haven't been representing us is the point I was trying to make. Both sides have been appointing corporate friendly Justices and I would go so far as to state, that has been the main criterion for their appointment.

In the end it is expected the rules will apply to candidates for office at any level of government. This is the result of what the real criterion for appointing Supreme Court justices has been, their friendliness to corporate interests. The debates about abortion, gun control, etc were merely distractions to keep away from this main goal of appointing corporate friendly justices. I am with Bascule when it comes to granting corporations personhood on par (or above) with that of citizens. This is a large step in that direction IMO.

Pangloss; The last sentence of what you highlighted says it overturns limits for all corporate donations profit and non-profit. Personally I don't think it will have much effect anyway since the process already hinges almost entirely on raising the most money. Seems to me like they are just legitimizing the buying of candidates that already goes on.

I still fail to see how electing Mr. Brown is "throwing the bums out". He is still part of the same Business Party that runs the country so long as democrats and republicans are elected. IMO if it wasn't the democrats proposing the current brand of health care "reform" the republicans would be doing the same thing for their corporate sponsors. Basically the democrats allowed the republicans to water down the bill to the benefit of corporate interests, then didn't even get their support. It is no wonder people dislike and distrust their elected representatives in congress.

Well any solution to having to limit speed of travel because of mixed use (in this case trains and kangaroos) is going to cost money. The real question is whether it is worth it to do so. While it is true that an occasional animal might get into the system and that you will have to incorporate animal bridges and/or tunnels into the design, it would still be an improvement over current design. The alternatives are to do nothing (most probable) or do something else that will likely be even more expensive in order to be as effective.

I misunderstood the first question. They start out by telling you there are three options for answering then only give you two on the very first question.

Compressed air cars have limited range because of the storage limitations of compressed air, i.e. the materials used for the storage tanks will only take so much pressure before rupturing which means you are taking up lots of space just for storage. Secondly, you still have to compress the air. That inevitably means you get less energy from the compressed air than you use in compressing it.

1) AFAIK temperatures have no (or at most miniscule) effect on half life of a radioactive material. Am not sure what kinds of experiments on this have been done at extreme temperatures. 2) Not sure. Somebody else here can answer this with more authority than I. 3) Yes but it would not likely be measurable without extremely sensitive instruments. It also depends on the type of radiation. 4) You have to remember there is more than one kind of radiation. Alpha particles will not travel as far through a typical medium as beta particles which are usually less penetrating than gammas, neutrons are a different matter. Enough air (or any medium) will stop any kind of radiation but it may not be practical to use light-years thickness of air as shielding. 5) I don't know much about this.

Well, it seems to me that Buddhists are the ones most likely to change their views in light of new information. I think this is why many "seekers" end up following Buddhism.

The problem of kangaroos mixing with trains can be solved by enclosing the rail system. I think the best (cheapest effective) way would be to make a cage with something like chain link fencing.

Currently, "they" are working on growing nanotubes in a unidirectional manner on a nonconductive substrate for use as computer chips to replace silicon ones. I know Scientific American has had articles about this but don't have a URL reference off the top of my head.

nicke; I for one would be very interested in the aspects of design that are not apparent in the exploded view or video. I had always thought that the purpose of showing an exploded view was to make the entire mechanism visible.

I don't think it is true. For example maple syrup is more viscous than water but I have never seen it freeze, even at sub-zero F temperatures (the sap freezes at near 32F though).

Nobody knows for sure whether the universe is infinite or not because nobody knows what is outside the range of our observations. What is certain is that it is really, really big in comparison to humans thus far in our history.

Environmentalism is not like religion. Unlike religion, tenets of environmentalism can be proved or disproved by science.

Wind turbines do not kill nearly as much wildlife as roadways, urbanization, or a host of other human activities and IMO is simply a scam by energy producers to see that generation remains highly centralized. Furthermore, it seems to me that the "fix" for it would be much simpler than trying to implement unproven technology.

In translation some of the meaning is changed. What the statement is really telling children is that they are smart enough to figure out their own truths and don't need somebody else to tell them what it is. I very much doubt Galileo would have said that his truth was immutable.

I completely disagree with this statement. From the crusades and inquisitions to modern day abortion clinic assassins and Oklahoma City bombers I am sure we could come up with examples all day long. If the reputation for violence is less than Muslims, it is because of the mass media and not any relevancy of facts.

There are insane individuals throughout the world. Nowhere has a monopoly on them.

""What differentiates man from other animals is perhaps feeling rather than reason. I have seen a cat reason more often than laugh or weep. Perhaps it laughs or weeps within itself-but then perhaps within itself a crab solves equations of the second degree." Miguel De Unamuno

Obviously that issue won't be solved by technology. Technology has already solved it, only narrowly defined self interest of a relative few keep the issue from being resolved, hence my disappointment in progress. Also I am not sure what you mean by "green technology propaganda" but nobody has yet sustained a continuous fusion reaction at a level useful for power generation so building generation facilities seem like a few years away at best.

May I cherish even if I don't fully grok? Where is Mr. Valentine?

"Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, capture slaves, launch armies into war, engage in child labor, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television." Lewis Thomas; American doctor, poet and science writer

Jackson33; I fully understand the reasons of most nonbelievers of the "global warming is an urgent problem" doctrine for doing so and it seems sometimes like the only way we ever know for sure is when has happened. The problem is that when you oppose "spending gadzillions of dollars" on that account, you pretty much rule out doing basically the same things for probably much more quantifiable reasons, like; our trade deficit which will make it increasingly untenable to do any real modernization, coal is dirty despite the notion of "clean coal", nearly the whole national road system is in need of repairs or expansion (not to mention 40,000 deaths, millions of injuries and hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage on them), tens of millions of unemployed people who could be employed doing modernizing work, our electric production and distribution systems are little better than they were when Thomas Edison first fired up his power plant on Pearl street in 1882, we need to manage water better, the petrodollar is what has kept our economy afloat (what happens when oil traders switch to another currency because of a weak dollar?), we are supposedly the only superpower in the world and ought to lead by example, and I am sure I could come up with more. I could also expand on any of these reasons as well but am not trying to write a book with this post. Suffice it to say that we are not going to change each other's minds soon about global warming but I am curious as to what kind of numbers you think it would be worth spending on any or all of the above, most of which would be addressed by a massive changeover of infrastructure, some now in private hands?

I am with Genecks and Bascule on the transportation front. It seems like a system that has 40,000 deaths and $200 billion+ every year in America would be worth a little attention, especially since we now have the technology to actually do something about it. The other thing that is disappointing to me is the lack of progress on making warfare between nations and/or societies and the profiteers associated with it obsolete.