Moonlapse

I'm not sure what point you are making. This is what I said in this thread in January: "One thing I'm absolutely convinced of after studying economics is that if governments restrict energy usage to the extent required to reverse or even cap CO2 production, it will surely result in economic ruin. In fact, I think we are headed that direction anyways, but thats besides the point." The price of oil is a symptom of our economic problems, not the cause. The price of oil is not drastically high at the moment if you adjust historic oil prices for inflation, or if you price it in terms of other commodities. Even if oil prices were the cause of our economic problems, it would only serve to prove my point. The level of artificially high fossil fuel prices that would be caused by the required caps of CO2 emmisions would only exacerbate existing problems even to the point of collapse. Shouldn't people be glad that oil prices are rising? Isn't that essentially what they expect when they agree to let the government control the use of fossil fuels in order to reduce CO2 emissions? The higher they go, the less people will use them and the more they will turn to efficiency and alternatives. If business is so good for green alternatives, why would we harm that business by causing collateral economic damage? But, in the current conditions we do know that extremely high energy and food costs will absolutely cause widespread suffering and death. We don't have to sit on our hands, many people and businesses are acting freely and pro-actively, and within their sustainable limits. This is the most direct way to find solutions. Do you know how unbelievably complex the process is to create the desktop computer that you are using? Why is it that the prices of computers drop? Not because of the government, thats for sure. Reducing CO2 emissions will require technology, and the fastest route to developing that technology is the same route that computers have taken - through free competition and free choice. By its very nature, this free action selects the most effecient and cost effective technology. Government control is guaranteed to cater to special interests and breed inefficiency and unsustainable costs. Trust me, I see it with my very eyes every day when I go to work for the government. Given all that, the housing bubble still required the Federal Reserve to drop the federal funds rate very low for an extended period of time in order to force an artificial recovery from the 2001 recession, much the same way that they are current trying to force and artificial and unsustainable recovery from our current problems. If the government is so irresponsible with the economy, as you've implied, why should you expect matters to be any different with energy? The government will serve the same people that they've been serving and not the people. If I have to choose between more regulation or less special privileges and granted monopolies, I will always choose the latter. I would be comfortable with police forces who are responsible for protecting my rights. Consider drug prohibition or prostitution. Smoking dope or making a mutual arrangement to trade money for sex don't violate anyone's rights, yet they are prohibited. Has this made the situation better? I think not. It has only created violent and unsafe black markets which are impossible to stamp out. Is the criminalization and death of many more people than before an acceptable trade off for allowing the government to restrict these activities? Many policemen, including a member of my immediate family, consider these prohibitions to be the most corrupting force in law enforcement. It also channels vast sums of money to violent criminals, instead of putting it to far better uses, and gives them the opportunity to purchase political power. The same thing will happen with energy. A violent black market will arise and many people will be criminalized and killed because of restrictions on fossil fuel energy. Huge amounts of money will drop into this black market, which will be used to influence and further corrupt the system. This is only one of the many unintended consequences. If the government absolutely must do anything about the situation, I say it would be much more responsible to use the money that would be lost to energy restrictions and black markets to build up levees and other infrastructure, create better emergency response systems, help people move away from the riskiest areas, etc. Let companies on the leading edge of alternative energy continue to do their thing and compete for profits and let consumers choose the most viable options without destroying the economy.

Salve, As far as "supranational controls" go, international efforts (The Montreal Protocol, for one) on reducing ozone depleting gases are beginning to have an effect. If there is no backsliding on adherence, ozone levels will return to 1980 levels by the year 2068. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depleti...ozone_depletion We have a responsibility to do all we can to soften the impact of CO2 on the only planet we can survive on. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/micro/...4islandlost.htm I was referring specifically to CO2 controls, which are essentially energy controls. Ozone control does not correlate well to the current situation with CO2. The island story is certainly sensational, but river delta areas such as the one referred to in the article are usually right at sea level and can become inundated with the most miniscule rise in river or sea levels. In fact that island has been inundated for 20 years. Sediment that slowly compacts under its own weight tends to do that. No one seemed to make a big deal when it disappeared back then, and its not as if it suddenly disappeared in 2006. That area, like every other major river delta has a long history of disappearing and eroding islands. I consider the article to be completely subjective to the authors agenda and it has no meaningful scientific relevance. Explicitly answer those last 2 question in my quoted post, if you would. I'd really like an answer to those two. What I'm concerned about here, is what will happen when governments and unelected global groups take control of the world's energy. Forget the euphemisms, that is what will happen. Are you comfortable with inevitable corruption and corporatism that will follow? Do you think a system like that will ultimately make the population of the world better off? Will it even begin to make more than a negligible difference in anthropogenic CO2? Even if a worst case scenario were predicted with incontrovertible evidence, I would still think that the worst plan possible would be to put control of energy in the hands of pandering politicians and bureaucrats, regardless of how noble they appear to be on camera. Do you see how biofuels are creating an increased artificial demand on food, which is scarce for many people in the first place? Is it alright that some people in the world will have to go without food and die so that Archer Daniels Midland can thrive on government subsidies? The unintended consequences, along with the supposed benefits, of the fantasyland cure-alls spewing from a thousand different political agendas are what we should really be paying attention to. Take housing, for example. The government tried to make houses more affordable with cheap credit (among many other things). The result was sky-high home prices, a housing bubble, and the inevitable bust. Now Joe Schmoe is wondering why he's out of work, why can't pay his mortgage anymore, why his retirement fund is drying up, and why everything costs more than it did a year ago. High five, Uncle Sam!!! BTW, if you are actually making significant sacrifices in your lifestyle in order to reduce your CO2 usage, then you have my respect. I've seen very few people actually act on their global warming beliefs.

Do you have no desire to carry on a discussion beyond issuing condemning blanket statements or is it that you cannot define capitalism and privatization?

http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/

First of all, if you'd like my personal answer, define capitalism and privatization explicitly. I'm fairly sure that I agree with you, not on the literal statement (since our subjective definition of terms probably do not coincide) but on the idea you are expressing. I don't want to get too specific before I understand exactly what you are stating. You can PM me if you like, so that we don't derail the thread.

I'm definitely looking forward to it.

I guess I forgot to add that I also found it hilarious. Preferable to what I usually see on TV over here.

Heh, I'll have to add a blog entry on the subject...

I haven't read any of this, but I'm wondering, have you guys have read the book yourselves? I assume it just hit the press?

I saw this skit from The Mighty Boosh a while ago and it thoroughly creeped me out. Old Gregg

Just a heads up that the courses have completed.

Very nice, I'm envious of your skill.

That has to be one of the better films that I've seen recently. If you liked Pan's Labyrinth, I'd recommend a French film called The City of Lost Children (La cite des enfants perdus).

The Cult of the Presidency

It shouldn't be a problem if you have an antivirus that auto-updates.

What video card? When I installed it on a laptop with ATI graphics and I had to install xserver-xgl. It also did not display the splash screen because of the laptop's uncommon screen resolution, so I updated the setting in /etc/usplash.conf So far I've found all the information I've needed here: http://ubuntuforums.org/

Well, its a little complicated to explain, but only visiting safe websites is only a small part of computer security. There are lots of different network type connections that your computer is capable of using and web surfing uses only one of them. It depends on whether your computer is connected directly to your internet connection or is run through a firewall-router, whether you have firewall software, whether you have programs on your computer that have known vulnerabilities to network attacks, etc.

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I love Linux too! I dual boot to Ubuntu with Compiz Fusion and it runs faster than XP but has nicer graphics and effects than Vista. Plus, antivirus and anti-malware are unnecessary! It's all free and it works excellently. Concerning your old computer, yes: "It will run on old, or "obsolete" hardware, such as a 386 processor, 32Mb of RAM, and 300Mb hard disk. But if you plan on using some of IPCop's features, such as the caching web proxy, or Intrusion Detection Logging, you are going to need more RAM, more disk space, and a faster processor." http://www.ipcop.org/1.4.0/en/quickstart/h...quirements.html You can probably run the basic setup with the snort intrusion detection. You really don't need much more than that. You might be limited to ISA network cards (which usually only support an absolute maximum of 10 mbps) if your Pentium 1 motherboard doesn't have PCI slots. So if you have a good firewall router already, you might want to stick with it, unless you like to build stuff like this and have a lot of detailed control over your network. With my computer's specs I was able to run an addon HTTP filter which blocks any detected viruses, browser exploits, phishing attempts, and blacklisted sites before they even get to my computers. Woooo!!

z?

I've had an ancient eMachines computer sitting in the closet for who knows how long, along with a bunch of near obsolete computer parts. While doing some spring cleaning the other day, I pondered how I could put it to any use. It would be too slow to tolerably use as a personal computer with its 9 year old Celeron processor (even though I managed to scrounge up 256MB of PC133 RAM to replace its measly 32MB) and its 4GB hard drive would be nearly filled to capacity if Windows XP or 2000 were to be installed on it along with the requisite software. I then recalled that there is a Linux distribution designed to turn old obsolete PCs into first rate firewall/routers called IpCop. As it turns out, I had two unused network cards which were to provide the 'in' and the 'out' ports required to use the PC as a firewall/router. Yay!!! I burned the install CD, loaded it on the old clunker (as per directions), configured my old basic router to function as a switch, hooked it all up, and it's working GREAT. It is far more secure and has far more options than my old $30 router. If you have an old computer, I would definitely recommend not throwing it away. Put it to good use protecting your newer computers. It may sound daunting but its actually pretty simple if you can read directions. Everything you could possibly need to know is in the instructions or just a Google search away. The best part is that its free!!

I'll take an Ariel Atom 500, please.

Hahaha! You're the lowest form of life on earth! You're not even human fucking beings! You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit!

It's Leach Cross, The Fighting Dentist. http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2333657724/ http://www.boxrec.com/media/index.php/Leach_Cross I found the picture and the person interesting.

Oh, come on. You'll have to do better than that to get banned.