The rule is one of several strict guidelines set by organisers to protect the exclusivity rights of sponsors such as Coca-Cola, Visa and McDonald’s and prevents ambush stunts from rival non-sponsors. It means that athletes are prevented from endorsing their individual sponsors throughout the event.

Athletes found in breach of the laws could be fined and disqualified from the Games, although this has never happened.
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/olympians-hit-back-over-sponsor-ban-rule/4003014.article

Safe nuclear refers to many different new gen4 reactor units that rely on passive safety instead of engineered safety. The real difference comes with a slight bit of understanding of how nuclear tech works now, and why that isn't optimal.

Let us first consider this, even with current nuclear technology, the amount of people that have died as a direct and indirect result of nuclear is very low per unit energy produced. The only rival is big hydro, even wind and solar have a great deal of risk compared to nuclear as we do it and have done it for years. The main difference is when a nuclear plant fails, everyone hears about it...but when a oil pipeline explodes and kills dozens, or solar panel installers fall off a roof or get electrocuted and dies...it just isn't as interesting.

Pound per pound nuclear is already statistically very safe, but that isn't really what we are talking about, we are talking about what makes them more unsafe compared to new nuclear techs. Well, that has to do with how normal nukes work. So, firstly, normal reactor tech uses solid fuel rods. It isn't a "metal" either, it is uranium dioxide, has the same physical characteristics as ceramic pots you buy in a store. When the fuel fissions, the uranium is transmuted into other, lighter, elements some of which are gases. Over time, these non-fissile elements damage the fuel rod to the point where it can no longer sustain fission and need to be replaced. At this point, they have only burned about 4% of the uranium content, but they are all "used up". So while there are some highly radioactive fission products contained in the fuel rods, the vast majority is just normal uranium, and that isn't very radioactive (you could eat it and not really suffer any radiation effects, now chemical toxicity is a different matter). The vast majority of nuclear waste, as a result of this way of burning uranium, generates huge volumes of waste products that aren't really waste products, just normal uranium.

But this isn't what makes light water reactors unsafe compared to other designs. It is all about the water. Normal reactors use water to both cool the core, extract the heat, and moderate the neutrons to sustain the fission reaction. Water boils at 100c which is far to low a temperature to run a thermal reactor on, you need much higher temps to get power. As a result, nuclear reactors use highly pressurized water to keep it liquid. The pressure is an amazingly high 2200psi or so! This is where the real problem comes in. If pressure is lost catastrophically, the chance to release radioactivity into the environment increases. This is further complicated by the lack of water then cooling the core. Without water, the fission chain reaction that generates the main source of heat in the reactor shuts down, however, the radioactive fission products contained in the fuel rods are very unstable and generate lots of heat. So much heat over time, they end up causing the rods to melt if they aren't supplied with water. This is the "melt down" you always hear about. If you start then spraying water on them after they melt down, it caries away some of those highly radioactive fission products with the steam. This is what happened in Chernobyl, there was also a human element that overdid all their safety equipment, but that just goes to show you the worst case.

The same thing didn't happen in Fukushima. What happened in Fukushima is that coolant was lost to the core and they started to melt down. The tubes which contain the uranium are made from zirconium. At high temps, water and zirconium react to form hydrogen gas. Now modern reactor buildings are designed to trap gases, usually steam, in the event of a reactor breach. In the case of hydrogen, that gas builds up till a spark of some kind happens and causes an explosion. These are the explosions that occurred at Fukushima. Both of the major failures and dangers of current reactors deal with the high pressure water; but water isn't needed to make a reactor run, just this type of reactor.

The fact that reactors have radioactive materials in them isn't really unsafe itself. What is unsafe is reactor designs that create a pressure to push that radioactivity into other areas. A electroplating plant, for example, uses concentrated acids along with high voltage electricity in their fabrication processes. It "sounds" dangerous, and it is in a certain sense, but it is a manageable danger that will most likely only have very localized effects in the event of a catastrophic event. This is due mainly to the fact that there are no forces driving those toxic chemical elements into the surrounding areas...they are just acid baths. The same goes for nuclear materials, they aren't more or less dangerus than gasoline (gas go boom!), if handled properly.

I think one of the best reactor designs in terms of both safety and efficiency are the molten salt reactors. They don't use water as a coolant, and as a result operate at normal preasures. The fuel and coolant is a liquid lithium, fluoride, and beryllium salt instead of water, and the initial fuel is thorium instead of uranium. Since it is a liquid instead of a solid, you can do all sorts of neat things with it, most notably, in case of an emergency, you can just dump all the fuel into a storage tank that is passively cooled then pump it back to the reactor once the issue is resolved. It is a safety feature that doesn't require much engineering, you are just using the ever constant force of gravity. This is what is known as passive safety, it isn't something you have to do, it is something that happens automatically. So in many cases, what they designed is a freeze plug that is being cooled. If that fails for any reason, and you desire a shutdown, the freeze plug melts and the entire contents of the reactor are drained into the tanks and fission stops (fission needs a certain geometry to happen).

So while the reactor will still be as dangerous as any other industrial machine would be...like a blast furnace, it wouldn't pose any threat to the surrounding area. This is boosted by the fact that even if you lost containment AND you had a ruptured emergency storage tank, these liquid salts solidify at temps below 400c, so while they are liquid in the reactor, they quickly solidify outside of it. And another great benefit is they are remarkably stable. Air and water don't really leach anything from them, fluoride and lithium are just so happy binding with things, they don't let go!

The fuel burn up is also really great. You burn up 90% of what you put in, and if you try hard, you can burn up to 99%. So, comparing them to "clean coal" doesn't really give new reactor tech its fair shake. The tech we use was actually sort of denounced by the person who made them, Alvin Weinberg, and he advocated the molten salt reactor instead. I could babble on about this for ages, but I think Kirk Sorensen explains that better than I could...hell most likely the bulk of what I said is said better by him



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw

But the real question is why. Why use nuclear and not solar, for instance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

This is the answer. The power of the atom is a MILLION times more dense that fossil fuels...a million! It is a number that is beyond what we can normal grasp as people. Right now, current reactors harness less that 1% of that power because of their reactor design and fuel choice.

And unfortunately, renewables just cost to darn much for how much energy they contribute. In that, they also use WAY more resources to make per unit energy produced. So wind, for example, uses 10x more steal per unit energy contributed than other technologies. It is because renewables is more like energy farming.

http://videosift.com/video/TEDxWarwick-Physics-Constrain-Sustainable-Energy-Options


This is a really great video on that maths behind what makes renewables less than attractive for many countries. But to rap it up, finally, the real benefit is that cheap, clean power is what helps makes nations great. There is an inexorable link with access to energy and financial well being. Poor nations burn coal to try and bridge that gap, but that has a huge health toll. Renewables are way to costly for them per unit energy, they really need other answers. New nuclear could be just that, because it can be made nearly completely safe, very cheap to operate, and easier to manufacture (this means very cheap compared to today's reactors as they are basically huge pressure vessels). If you watch a couple of videos from Kirk and have more questions or problems, let me know, as you can see, I love talking about this stuff Sorry if I gabbed your ear off, but this is the stuff I am going back to school for because I do believe it will change the world. It is the closest thing to free energy we are going to get in the next 20 years.

In reply to this comment by ReverendTed:
Just stumbled onto your profile page and noticed an exchange you had with dag a few months back.
What constitutes "safe nuclear"? Is that a specific type or category of nuclear power?
Without context (which I'm sure I could obtain elsewise with a simple Google search, but I'd rather just ask), it sounds like "clean coal".

>> ^Payback:

Animators should use this for cues to animate big things breaching the water.


Yeah right, I can hear it now: "I loved that movie, but the iceberg moved so slow. It was totally unrealistic."

Animators should use this for cues to animate big things breaching the water.

I changed the embed back to the previous version until I find a better one. If anyone knows an alternative link, please let me know.

In case you cannot see a Tenacious D video here: http://vimeo.com/41375334
Unfortunately, I'm not able to embed the vimeo version.

>> ^alien_concept:

>> ^Lilithia:
>> ^alien_concept:
I'm not sure if I'm missing a joke, but this is just a Hoff advert?

You're not able to see the Tenacious D video after the ad?
[Edit] I changed the embed to a dailymotion version.

No, but maybe others could as they already upvoted it. The new embed says it's been removed "due to a breach of the terms of use". I'll upvote it cos I know I'll love it anyway

>> ^alien_concept:

>> ^Lilithia:
>> ^alien_concept:
I'm not sure if I'm missing a joke, but this is just a Hoff advert?

You're not able to see the Tenacious D video after the ad?
[Edit] I changed the embed to a dailymotion version.

No, but maybe others could as they already upvoted it. The new embed says it's been removed "due to a breach of the terms of use". I'll upvote it cos I know I'll love it anyway


Of course it was removed 10 minutes after I embedded it. -.-

>> ^Lilithia:

>> ^alien_concept:
I'm not sure if I'm missing a joke, but this is just a Hoff advert?

You're not able to see the Tenacious D video after the ad?
[Edit] I changed the embed to a dailymotion version.


No, but maybe others could as they already upvoted it. The new embed says it's been removed "due to a breach of the terms of use". I'll upvote it cos I know I'll love it anyway

I agree with quite a bit of what you said, and I should have been more clear. Democrats for the most part do not acknowledge that Affirmative Action is not improving racial tensions. I haven't seen any credible reports that demonstrate it is helping. But they generally insist it is.

And it is a fact that the US military capability is significantly reduced when funding is cut by significant amounts. That may be an acceptable outcome for you, and if so, we can agree to disagree about differing opinions. I'm talking about the Democrats who often say to do it, and then pretend it won't have an impact on military capability. Cutting defense funding for example would have very likely precluded the US from taking Bin Laden out because it took a lot of resources that likely wouldn't have been available. Good chance we wouldn't have had the intelligence, the Seals personnel available to pull it off, basing rights necessary, etc. etc. That stuff gets conveniently forgotten. I'm fine with a disagreement about if more of an isolationist policy would be beneficial for the US, that kind of thing. But some liberals pretend they can have it both ways. We can have just as robust and capable military/intelligence unit with significantly less funding if it's cut too much.

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. But I do agree with you - the definition of a conservative is narrowing to absurd proportions, and they're broadening the definitions of liberal, socialist, and communist. Obamacare isn't socialism, or communism. It's a few ticks to the left of what we currently have.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^heropsycho:
The only thing that proves is the Democratic party is more splintered, and the GOP is more disciplined. There are plenty of facts the Democrats flat out reject. One issue for example I'm against the Democrats on is Affirmative Action. I think it was a necessary instrument to force racial integration in the beginning, but now it's doing more harm than good. Affirmative Action doesn't seem to be doing a much good, and the cost is having whites constantly assuming a minority only got the job because of a quota, even when it's not true. Yes, there's still racism in the workplace and hiring, but Affirmative Action isn't the way to combat that any longer.
I think most in the Democratic Party are against cutting social safety net spending in the long run even though it is necessary. The cuts in military that would be necessary to prevent having to do that would result in a military that both the Democrats and Republicans would find unacceptable whenever the crap hits the fan. The Democratic Party does also seem to gloss over how bad social programs get gamed by those who don't truly need it.
Both sides are guilty of choosing the facts that suit them.
But, I will agree it's significantly worse on the GOP side. That's why I feel like they're pushing me to vote Democrat. You can call me a lot of things, but it's disingenuous to label me a liberal or conservative. But it seems that the definition of conservative is narrowing as it's pushed farther to the extreme right, and what is labelled liberal is ever expanding.
Obamacare as a perfect example - it's deemed to be an extremely liberal/Socialist policy, and I for the life of me can't see how. It's a very mild liberal reform. It's not the gov't option, or single payer. It's a few clicks to the left on the dial from where we were. Raising the top income tax bracket rate a few percentage points makes this country socialist? Please.
>> ^NetRunner:
At least you recognize there's some asymmetry, but "both sides" aren't guilty of the same thing.
It's sorta like saying punching someone in a bar, and committing murder are the same thing. Technically they are a breach of the same moral edict (don't harm people), but the difference of intensity is so large it puts them into qualitatively different criminal categories.
For example, can you name anything that's the left's equivalent to global warming denial?
Keep in mind, it has to truly be equivalent -- it has to be a belief contrary to an overwhelming majority of experts, and has to be believed (or denied) by virtually everyone who calls themself a liberal. Furthermore, it needs to be a core belief of the liberal movement. It needs to be an issue where saying the (heretical) truth about an issue could get you drummed out of the Democratic party and the broader political movement.
I can't name any issue like that. Can you?
>> ^heropsycho:
I'll agree it's more so on the right, but both sides are guilty of this.
>> ^NetRunner:
It's this kind of behavior from the right that really has me worried. It's one thing for people to be skeptical about information from a particular source, but what we're seeing from the right today is a blanket rejection of all information that comes from outside their own partisan network of sources.



Your two examples of "facts" liberals reject are actually opinions.
This is a statement of fact: "Hiring quotas are illegal in the U.S."
This is a statement of opinion: "I think it was a necessary instrument to force racial integration in the beginning, but now it's doing more harm than good."
And of course, some liberals agree with you. Possibly even several Democrats with seats in Congress.
My point is, conservatives frequently deny verifiable factual information, which is different from spin. Everyone "spins" for sure, but that's minimizing and rationalizing facts that seem to contradict a larger political argument. Conservatives are fond of simply denying the facts themselves.
Conservatives spinning global warming would sound like "Global warming won't be so bad, think of the boom in agriculture when you can grow bananas in Ohio!" Liberals denying the facts on Affirmative action would sound like "Affirmative action doesn't negatively affect any white people, and anyone who says otherwise is part of the vast right-wing conspiracy to reinstate slavery!"
And to your point about cohesiveness, some liberal somewhere saying something like that doesn't mean that liberals and conservatives should be considered equally guilty. Most liberals don't feel that way, whereas the cohesiveness of the conservatives means it's hard for me to find one who doesn't think global warming is some sort of hoax perpetrated for liberal political gain.
A big frustration for me as a self-proclaimed liberal is that I'm already a moderate in the middle. I'm not the left pole in hardly any political debate. And yet there are a ton of people (more in media than around here) who self-consciously try to position themselves "in the middle" by staking out positions to the right of me, and to the left of the Republicans. But doing that doesn't land you in the middle, it lands you way out on the right...because these days "liberal" just means "not a conservative", not that you're some sort of real left-wing ideologue.

>> ^heropsycho:

The only thing that proves is the Democratic party is more splintered, and the GOP is more disciplined. There are plenty of facts the Democrats flat out reject. One issue for example I'm against the Democrats on is Affirmative Action. I think it was a necessary instrument to force racial integration in the beginning, but now it's doing more harm than good. Affirmative Action doesn't seem to be doing a much good, and the cost is having whites constantly assuming a minority only got the job because of a quota, even when it's not true. Yes, there's still racism in the workplace and hiring, but Affirmative Action isn't the way to combat that any longer.
I think most in the Democratic Party are against cutting social safety net spending in the long run even though it is necessary. The cuts in military that would be necessary to prevent having to do that would result in a military that both the Democrats and Republicans would find unacceptable whenever the crap hits the fan. The Democratic Party does also seem to gloss over how bad social programs get gamed by those who don't truly need it.
Both sides are guilty of choosing the facts that suit them.
But, I will agree it's significantly worse on the GOP side. That's why I feel like they're pushing me to vote Democrat. You can call me a lot of things, but it's disingenuous to label me a liberal or conservative. But it seems that the definition of conservative is narrowing as it's pushed farther to the extreme right, and what is labelled liberal is ever expanding.
Obamacare as a perfect example - it's deemed to be an extremely liberal/Socialist policy, and I for the life of me can't see how. It's a very mild liberal reform. It's not the gov't option, or single payer. It's a few clicks to the left on the dial from where we were. Raising the top income tax bracket rate a few percentage points makes this country socialist? Please.
>> ^NetRunner:
At least you recognize there's some asymmetry, but "both sides" aren't guilty of the same thing.
It's sorta like saying punching someone in a bar, and committing murder are the same thing. Technically they are a breach of the same moral edict (don't harm people), but the difference of intensity is so large it puts them into qualitatively different criminal categories.
For example, can you name anything that's the left's equivalent to global warming denial?
Keep in mind, it has to truly be equivalent -- it has to be a belief contrary to an overwhelming majority of experts, and has to be believed (or denied) by virtually everyone who calls themself a liberal. Furthermore, it needs to be a core belief of the liberal movement. It needs to be an issue where saying the (heretical) truth about an issue could get you drummed out of the Democratic party and the broader political movement.
I can't name any issue like that. Can you?
>> ^heropsycho:
I'll agree it's more so on the right, but both sides are guilty of this.
>> ^NetRunner:
It's this kind of behavior from the right that really has me worried. It's one thing for people to be skeptical about information from a particular source, but what we're seeing from the right today is a blanket rejection of all information that comes from outside their own partisan network of sources.




Your two examples of "facts" liberals reject are actually opinions.

This is a statement of fact: "Hiring quotas are illegal in the U.S."

This is a statement of opinion: "I think it was a necessary instrument to force racial integration in the beginning, but now it's doing more harm than good."

And of course, some liberals agree with you. Possibly even several Democrats with seats in Congress.

My point is, conservatives frequently deny verifiable factual information, which is different from spin. Everyone "spins" for sure, but that's minimizing and rationalizing facts that seem to contradict a larger political argument. Conservatives are fond of simply denying the facts themselves.

Conservatives spinning global warming would sound like "Global warming won't be so bad, think of the boom in agriculture when you can grow bananas in Ohio!" Liberals denying the facts on Affirmative action would sound like "Affirmative action doesn't negatively affect any white people, and anyone who says otherwise is part of the vast right-wing conspiracy to reinstate slavery!"

And to your point about cohesiveness, some liberal somewhere saying something like that doesn't mean that liberals and conservatives should be considered equally guilty. Most liberals don't feel that way, whereas the cohesiveness of the conservatives means it's hard for me to find one who doesn't think global warming is some sort of hoax perpetrated for liberal political gain.

A big frustration for me as a self-proclaimed liberal is that I'm already a moderate in the middle. I'm not the left pole in hardly any political debate. And yet there are a ton of people (more in media than around here) who self-consciously try to position themselves "in the middle" by staking out positions to the right of me, and to the left of the Republicans. But doing that doesn't land you in the middle, it lands you way out on the right...because these days "liberal" just means "not a conservative", not that you're some sort of real left-wing ideologue.

The only thing that proves is the Democratic party is more splintered, and the GOP is more disciplined. There are plenty of facts the Democrats flat out reject. One issue for example I'm against the Democrats on is Affirmative Action. I think it was a necessary instrument to force racial integration in the beginning, but now it's doing more harm than good. Affirmative Action doesn't seem to be doing a much good, and the cost is having whites constantly assuming a minority only got the job because of a quota, even when it's not true. Yes, there's still racism in the workplace and hiring, but Affirmative Action isn't the way to combat that any longer.

I think most in the Democratic Party are against cutting social safety net spending in the long run even though it is necessary. The cuts in military that would be necessary to prevent having to do that would result in a military that both the Democrats and Republicans would find unacceptable whenever the crap hits the fan. The Democratic Party does also seem to gloss over how bad social programs get gamed by those who don't truly need it.

Both sides are guilty of choosing the facts that suit them.

But, I will agree it's significantly worse on the GOP side. That's why I feel like they're pushing me to vote Democrat. You can call me a lot of things, but it's disingenuous to label me a liberal or conservative. But it seems that the definition of conservative is narrowing as it's pushed farther to the extreme right, and what is labelled liberal is ever expanding.

Obamacare as a perfect example - it's deemed to be an extremely liberal/Socialist policy, and I for the life of me can't see how. It's a very mild liberal reform. It's not the gov't option, or single payer. It's a few clicks to the left on the dial from where we were. Raising the top income tax bracket rate a few percentage points makes this country socialist? Please.

>> ^NetRunner:

At least you recognize there's some asymmetry, but "both sides" aren't guilty of the same thing.
It's sorta like saying punching someone in a bar, and committing murder are the same thing. Technically they are a breach of the same moral edict (don't harm people), but the difference of intensity is so large it puts them into qualitatively different criminal categories.
For example, can you name anything that's the left's equivalent to global warming denial?
Keep in mind, it has to truly be equivalent -- it has to be a belief contrary to an overwhelming majority of experts, and has to be believed (or denied) by virtually everyone who calls themself a liberal. Furthermore, it needs to be a core belief of the liberal movement. It needs to be an issue where saying the (heretical) truth about an issue could get you drummed out of the Democratic party and the broader political movement.
I can't name any issue like that. Can you?
>> ^heropsycho:
I'll agree it's more so on the right, but both sides are guilty of this.
>> ^NetRunner:
It's this kind of behavior from the right that really has me worried. It's one thing for people to be skeptical about information from a particular source, but what we're seeing from the right today is a blanket rejection of all information that comes from outside their own partisan network of sources.

At least you recognize there's some asymmetry, but "both sides" aren't guilty of the same thing.

It's sorta like saying punching someone in a bar, and committing murder are the same thing. Technically they are a breach of the same moral edict (don't harm people), but the difference of intensity is so large it puts them into qualitatively different criminal categories.

For example, can you name anything that's the left's equivalent to global warming denial?

Keep in mind, it has to truly be equivalent -- it has to be a belief contrary to an overwhelming majority of experts, and has to be believed (or denied) by virtually everyone who calls themself a liberal. Furthermore, it needs to be a core belief of the liberal movement. It needs to be an issue where saying the (heretical) truth about an issue could get you drummed out of the Democratic party and the broader political movement.

I can't name any issue like that. Can you?

>> ^heropsycho:

I'll agree it's more so on the right, but both sides are guilty of this.
>> ^NetRunner:
It's this kind of behavior from the right that really has me worried. It's one thing for people to be skeptical about information from a particular source, but what we're seeing from the right today is a blanket rejection of all information that comes from outside their own partisan network of sources.

@dystopianfuturetoday I'd like to help you visualize what I understand a free market is or ought to be. When you say free markets are impossible, I tend to compare that to someone saying, "free speech is impossible" while holding an extreme or maybe unrealistic interpretation of what free speech ought to be as well.

Imagine when freedom of speech was first proposed, "What if we had a society where people could say whatever they want without fear of censorship or oppression?". Before we had a country where freedom of speech was in the first Ammendment of its Constitution, I'm pretty sure we didn't have freedom of speech anywhere, or mostly in any time in history. Someone could have replied, "A free speech society is impossible, which is why one has never existed, and why you were unable to come up with any working examples". Sure, because there would almost always be some asshole, usually a king, a despot or church, telling people what they could or could not say, and punishing them for it.

Now, do we enjoy absolute freedom of speech today? Not at all, and I'm fine with that. There are laws against libel, hate speech, obscenity, incitement to commit crimes, etc., which are all restrictions imposed on that very freedom.

However, all things considered, I think freedom of speech is mostly free. I don't know of anyone who advocates "restricted speech" or "highly regulated speech" as an ideal. More importantly, whenever censorship is reported or witnessed, everyone is instantly indignant and sometimes outraged, because we are all aware of how essential freedom of speech is to a free society, a freedom that should be cherished and protected.

Now let's take a look at the dynamics of free speech in society.

Just because people can say whatever they want, doesn't mean there won't be millions of people lying, deceiving each other, spreading ideologies that are COMPLETELY WRONG, etc.

Does that mean we should have laws banning ideas that are wrong? Not easy to do, because it is common sense that no one has absolute authority over truth, so such laws would hardly be fair.

Instead, we resort to letting ideas compete, letting people select for themselves what is true or not. That might doom society to eternal stupidity and ignorance or to a gradual process where truths will be preferred, and lies will tend to be exposed or ignored. Which outcome do you think is more likely? It takes time, but a free society matures with such freedoms. When abuses happen, society learns and deals with them without immediately resorting to laws and restrictions, because that would be considered censorship, and, therefore, usually unfair.

Now when it comes to economic freedom, liberals treat it as a whole different ball game, when I don't think it should be. First off, "free markets" = obscenity. They learn to understand it like you do, "absolutely free of government intervention, chaos everywhere, society is doomed", when in fact the proponents of free markets recognize that the State is necessary to enforce contracts, punish fraud and protect private property.

Liberals are mostly influenced by the socialist interpretation of capitalism as an inherently unfair system. Whenever any perceived abuse happens in an economy, they see it as resulting from an imbalance of economic power, so they rush to demand laws and regulations to forcibly correct them.

How about letting these abuses happen, and let society learn to deal with them, select them, and evolve? Just like what happens with free speech. Sure, if it's blatant fraud, theft, breach of contract, etc. the State can and should step in. Otherwise, let people come up with their own solutions. It will be a painful process, but it's better to let a free society mature by itself than oppressing it into behaving well.

Besides, if you think about it, politicians aren't any better than anyone at judging what economic practices are right or wrong. So the laws they make are usually unfair. They have the same kind of presumptuousness of someone who would claim authority over truth, and want to create laws censoring "wrong" ideas. Like keynesian economists who try to plan and steer economies because they have little theories where they claim it's smarter to use other people's money than letting people make decisions with their own money.

We would never put up with people trying to engineer society/culture through censorship. Why do we put up with that when it comes to economics?

About the thought experiment (hoping it's not a trick question), I don't see why there should be a limit on how much property a person can own, as long as the property is honestly obtained.

I don't think it's an injustice when someone owns more than others, maybe there are other factors to be considered? Forcibly redistributing property is usually more unfair than just letting society deal with any problem arising from someone having property that others want or need.

Americans Elect is Shady

-They refuse to disclose most of their funding.
-The funding that has been disclosed comes mostly from Arno Consulting, a far right organization that has been involved in 5 different voter fraud cases.
-Chairman Peter Ackerman is an investment banker with connections to Koch Industries and the Cato Institute. (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/relationship.asp?personId=662219) (http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cato_Institute)
-There is no oversight or transparency to their process.
-The way the site is run could easily push the results in the direction that the secret funders want it to go.


Arno Political Consultants Controversies (from wiki).

-In 2004, APC hired JSM who hired YPM who is accused of tricking people into registering to vote as a Republican.[2]
-In 2004, APC is accused of forging signatures on a petition to legalize slot machines in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.[5]
-In 2005, APC has come under fire for allegedly fraudulent ballot petitioning strategies, particularly pertaining to a Massachusetts anti-gay marriage proposal as put forth by the Massachusetts Family Institute.[6][7]
-In 2007, APC hired JSM, Inc. who hired independent contractors who gave snacks and food to homeless people in exchange for signing petitions and registering to vote.[8]
-In 2009, proponents of a payday loan veto referendum sued APC in Franklin County for breach of contract and negligence. 13,000 signatures were thrown out because the Form 15's had not been appropriately filled out. They were seeking $438,000. [9] Both parties reached an undisclosed settlement agreement on July 29th, 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Political_Consultants

Very clever! Just like... people. Notice how they cover their tracks? That implies cause/effect reasoning ability, although most likely a learned behavior passed from adults to young after generations and generations of happenstance trial and error. It's a stretch, but the strange noises they were making could almost be likened to language of some sort. I suspect they could even be taught to sign. Amazing they have been able to overcome barriers very similar to those even the very clever dingos of Australia have yet to breach. One can almost imagine us hundreds of thousands of years ago, migrating with the seasons, learning to cooperate as communities, the strongest of our ancestors surviving the harshness of a truly natural life and passing their genes to the generations to come as we began our long, slow journey toward ignorance, arrogance, and indifference.

>> ^cosmovitelli:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world..
Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault...
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well.

Exactly. Without war America goes back to the 30's - California's border closed, 400,000,000 acres of farmland turned to dust by greed and lack of regulation, stillbirths due to malnutrition, bank of America paying people (WHITE People!) 5c a day for picking lettuce and beating them in some cases to DEATH for demanding a liveable wage (it was 25c before the excess labour turned up from the dust bowl).
Then corresponding communist organisation by the workers, FBI involvent in repression via total constitutional breaches, etc etc.
Without WW2 it looked like civil war - or reduction to a slave force for big east coast finance. Then the massive battle fleet parked off the coast of Japan mysteriously provoked an attack - and whammo - a job for everyone, a new massive industry (still what America spends half of all it's money on to this day), and a border extended effectively all the way around the globe, allowing the cycle to start again except on a much bigger stage.
What happens now when the organisms reach the edge of the petri dish? Well, better stick some of that annual $1 trillion into FTL research cos we're going to need a new planet.
The choice - face up to it, or shout boo at anyone who tries to tell you the truth.


Welcome to the world of bullshit for people who only speak and know bullshit -- that's everyone, FYI. And it's going to be that way for all of time, whether it's at the workplace of 2012, politics in 3012, or Sunday school at the Grand Cabal's Science Center for Observable Theological Theory in the year 100,012. I already have FTL drives and I keep em powered up wherever I go.