A Lid for the Can of Worms. Good Heavens, We'll Freeze to Death! 41

[ornerynorsk]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/09/09/arctic-sea-ice-up-60-percent-in-2013/

Take that, Mr. Gore.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[cranky108]

They even ask for an ID to pickup your mail at the postoffice. You can't get Social Securty with out a social securty card. And most job applications ask for your identification (at least the fast food places). Most schools need to know your state of residence to know if you are in-state, or out-of-state.

And to tell me that students don't have ID's for college, or don't work so they don't have ID's. That retired people don't have ID's and don't collect Social Securty. There is no way your numbers about how many people don't have ID's can be correct. And I say this from a non-R or D perspective.

Besides, if these people were really interested in voting, just have them bring in there last income tax form, a utility bill (like the DMV requires), or other paper work.

The greatest voter supression is not counting military mail ins. Or black panthers standing outside the polling place, and apperently that is legal (no processucations yet despite the vidio).

And someone was right, why do I vote when the choices I have are crap. At least by writeing in Mickey Mouse I know I am voting for something I can believe in.

I say, if they don't have an ID, it's because they don't want one, not because they can't get one.

 

[rconnor]

Regarding the “R v D thing”,

I should clarify that I was not saying that this should be discussed from an R v D standpoint and I certainly don’t want to reinforce the false dichotomy that is prevalent in the US. However, the fact of the matter...ok my opinion on the matter is that the rationale behind voter ID laws are, unfortunately, a political R v D thing. Conservative activist Phyllis Shlafly, in a column she wrote, stated “The reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important because early voting plays a major role in Obama’s ground game”.

Furthermore, if there was some actual merit to the law (besides being effective at disenfranchising Democrat voters) then it would actual have to be effective at preventing significant voter fraud. No one has addressed anything that I said in the first charge so it remains an ineffective solution to relatively non-existent problem (10 cases over 12 years of major elections). Even without debating any of the “counter-points” to the second charge, I’ll concede to you that “this law is likely ineffective but, hey, it’s *maybe* not racists...that’s a plus!”.

I do agree with people that this should not be an R v D thing. The democratic process should not be a partisan issue but it abhorrently has become one. Look at the recent government shut down as another example. The republicans have been attempting to undermine Obama at every turn, throwing the entire country under the bus with him. The democrats, and Obama, have shown they will promise all these nice things and then switch to “business as usual” once they get in office (and I was a big fan of Obama in 2008). It’s time to, like Cajun said, toss them all out. Vote independent! Tell the oligarchic state you’re down with the BS.

However, don’t skip over the biggest issue which is the corporate control over government due to campaign financing. A great rundown of this issue is given by Lawrence Lessig in “Republic, Lost” (a talk on the subject can be seen here). The issue is not about politicians or parties, the issue is systemic.

(Also, a little side note TGS4, Stalin’s Soviet Union was not communism; it was totalitarianism. It was proclaimed as communism in the west to create a fear of far-left ideology (and it worked amazingly well…I mean look at this thread). It was pronounced as communism in USSR to blind the citizenry to the fact the government was actually creating a totalitarian state)

 

[cranky108]

Without a voter ID requirment, there is a belief that voter fraud is possible. That in itself is a discuragment to some voters (why wasen't that studied as a percentage of population?)

So when we talk about discurageing some voters, we should also talk about voters that are being discurged by the present system (45%???)
My feeling is people who can't take basic steps to get a free ID, probally don't have any business voting.

Question: Why does the DMV take two pictures, if only one is on my drivers licence? I would assume to verify who I am in case I loose it, but apperently not.

Is it really corporate control over goverment, or billinare control? PAC's and non-profits should be banned from political contributions, because that is how they get around the disclosure laws.

Back to the carbon thing, why is the goverment limiting lumber cutting on federal lands, and cutting back on funding for fighting wild fires? Maybe one can pay for the other, and provide more access roads for fire fighters.

 

[TGS4]

rconnor - very good point in your aside. Tyrants do a really good job of creating an us-vs-them mentality in the populace - in order to keep increasing their control over the populace to protect from the "them". It doesn't happen overnight, but takes time - Stalin wasn't an overnight tyrant.

I sure am glad that my American friends will never ever give up their hard-won freedoms and liberties in exchange for protection against a "them". They know much better that such is the path to tyranny. And certainly no one would vote for anyone who would suggest or do such a thing.[/sarc] Oh wait: the Axis powers, Communism, Drugs, Islamic Terrorism. Damn it - does nobody follow history?!?!?!?!?

For curiosity - although the term gerrymander(ing) has been used, is anyone else familiar with the history of it?

 

[JohnRBaker]

You want to see where the real outrages are in this whole issue of 'voting' here in America:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caging_(voter_suppression)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[hokie66]

John,
That one seems to have been suppressed. I didn't do it.

 

[JohnRBaker]

It appears that Eng-Tips does not like links which with a closed-parenthesis, ")".

The see the article copy and paste the string below and then remove the "***"...

http:***//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caging_(voter_suppression)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Perhaps this deserves its own thread over in one of the plastics forums, but I just saw this on weather channel this morning. I had never heard of it before. Quite interesting. Relevant to the carbon sequestering/capture aspect of the discussion.

http://www.rdmag.com/award-winners/2013/08/carbon-negative-plastic

http://www.newlight.com/air-to-plastic-process.php

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[imcjoek]

Frankly, the very mathematics of First-Past-The-Post means it will always be R v D, gerrymandering will always be a valid tactic, voter turnout will always be pathetic, and therefor we'll always be incapable of solving our most basic problems.

It’s time to, like Cajun said, toss them all out.

"Throw the bums out" isn't mathematically possible. It's isn't a question of will. Or a question of overcoming stupidity. Ironically, FPTP means that voters doing the "smart" and "safe" thing, leads to exactly the disaster we see.

Oh wait: the Axis powers, Communism, Drugs, Islamic Terrorism. Damn it - does nobody follow history?!?!?!?!?

I suspect a lot of people follow it, and are concerned about it. But what do you do?
Write your representative? He isn't.
Vote? The math means it doesn't matter.
Armed rebellion? No sane individual wants to be the first to start shooting.

 

[KENAT]

imcjoek, the UK has first past the post for national parliamentary elections and they have more than 2 parties, though historically there have usually been 2 dominant parties at any one time. Now I'm not throwing the UK out at a panacea but just a datum point.

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[beej67]

Frankly, the very mathematics of First-Past-The-Post means it will always be R v D, gerrymandering will always be a valid tactic, voter turnout will always be pathetic, and therefor we'll always be incapable of solving our most basic problems.

If more people understood this, then we could start to actually solve our problems. If our Founding Fathers had known what we now know about game theory, they could have avoided this. As it is now, nobody is in a position to fix it except the people who've risen to power out of its brokenness.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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[Compositepro]

Ornerynorsk, carbon capture by making plastic out of CO2 is silly concept similar to making gasoline from CO2. Sure it can be done but it is completely illogical. We only have a CO2 "problem" because we need energy and thus use fossil fuel. To make plastic from CO2 will consume more energy than was obtained from the fuel that made the CO2 in the first place. It really bothers me when universities start promoting perpetual motion. It seems to be happening a lot lately. There is no peer review with press releases, but that seems to be part of the problem with the global warming discussion.

 

[cranky108]

Why not make coal out of CO2?

Just wish we could make wood out of CO2.

 

[CheckerHater]

Just wish we could make wood out of CO2.

We can. The technology is called "trees"

 

[beej67]

So few people realize that wood burning stoves are "carbon neutral."



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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[BiPolarMoment]

I wonder if you could get a petition signed for endorsing widespread forest fires simply by phrasing it as "the largest carbon neutral project ever attempted."

 

[KENAT]

They're carbon neutral assuming the mass of foliage burnt is replaced by equivalent mass of new growth.

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[beej67]

No, they're carbon neutral because every atom of carbon released into the atmosphere by burning wood originated in the atmosphere in the first place.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[zdas04]

That is just a timing issue. The carbon was extracted over some number of years (decades in many cases) and is released in hours, absolutely carbon neutral on a geologic time line, maybe not so much in a single year.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[KENAT]

"No, they're carbon neutral because every atom of carbon released into the atmosphere by burning wood originated in the atmosphere in the first place."

Wouldn't the same apply for fossil fuels - at least on geologic time scales?

I mean by that logic the only major non carbon neutral process is volcanic activity that emits CO2?

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