Riddle me this Tree Choppers!

[Neuling]

Originally Posted by harborlady

The bolded addition- coal can never be clean. It can only achieve cleaner/ higher efficacy levels. It's a continuation of the zero sum game mentality because it's a finite resource. It will eventually, inevitably, perish. Just not today because green energy isn't up to the task yet. That's the gauntlet challenge that deserves R&D investment from academics, commerce and gov't in the same spirit of determination that put us on the moon. This time, however, our lives (and world peace) literally depend upon it.

As for nuke it too is only going to buy us time. How much plutonium does this earth have? Finite resources are the tension belt that animates the profiteers of strife/ misery. How long will the world's uranium supplies last?: Scientific American
I'm no rocket scientist, but when I read up on some of this with layman's eyes believing we had the option to go to an alternative radioactive material like plutonium-- it's created by manipulating uranium. It's another zero sum game that at best can only buy us time. At worst it can deliver untold damage (deliberate malice of terrorism or reckless application via sociopaths in commerce) to the environment destroying our species chance of survival. It takes one careless employee in Alabama to ruin Alabama's best interests for how long? Refer to link about nuke accidents, 1984. Dig into the story and see the moral imperatives absent in deference to short term/ short sighted goals. Killing your kids to make a living is not a living. That's the bittersweet irony of WV economics.

Sure, no coal power plant is really clean, but with the latest filter technology they can be pretty clean compared to those of the past.
I am all for saving energy and pushing green energy, but I know a lot of people especially in the US don't like either. They want things to stay the way they have always been. And in that scenario I prefer coal power plants to nuclear ones.

[hilgi]

Originally Posted by harborlady

I'm not sure that could ever be rectified 100% because it's the nature of leadership roles to be taking calculated risks. If you shoot every General who lost his troops you'd run out of generals in short order. Tying things exclusively to $$$ you'd be all but guaranteeing that only an oligarchy class could hold office (possessing sufficient funding to match the liability), and even then, under tremendous peril of incessant litigious review by rivals (see Koch/ Murdoch/ Scaife's abuses of power). Should Bush jr be held libel for war crimes in Guantanamo bay or should Rumsfeld (who authored the memo under direction of Bush)? Should Clinton be held libel for not killing Bin Laden for an unfathomable pre-crime when nothing in American law gave him permission to exercise that use of deadly force in pre-defense of a pre-crime against America? All of this a sticky wicket. The cure for one thing causing 5 other diseases isn't a cure. Back to the drawing board we go.

Of course, nothing could ever be 100%, that is the problem, so many people assume government can cure all ills. I don't look for utopia, just and even playing field with an unbiased referee.

We must add not just financial but criminal risk in the mix also.

All of the defense issues mentioned would not be an issue had we not followed Hearst and gone to war with Spain. If we stay home, we keep out of a lot of trouble.

Originally Posted by harborlady

I like that example but I'm not sure that's practicable for all things. EPA being prime example because it's tasked with crossing over many disciplines and all industries, not just a single one focused on electrical safety. As for competition, UL has no competition and most local codes/ NFPA indirectly promote UL by insisting on their standard being applied. It's a definitive standard bar none. So was Arthur Andersen for accounting once upon a time. Accounting scandals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ig Nobel award 2002...
?

Sounds like we are spending money we don't need to spend if they are just taking UL and adding bureaucracy to it. In many cases government create monopolies, that should be ended.

Originally Posted by harborlady

How would you compare the performance and (seeming) imperviousness to corrupt forces between UL's seal and the USDA seal? What protects UL from deep pocketed malevolent forces revising standards? What protects USDA from deep pocketed malevolent forces revising standards??

What it should be is liability. I don't know how many protections UL has (I am sure many) but USDA has many.

Originally Posted by harborlady

Agreed but I'm afraid it's much worse than you suspect. So- called competitors own each other creating a united front monopoly in a given industry. There are elaborate ways of writing off liability by pushing it off onto a scapegoat company you intend to bankrupt after having profited from all their dirty work up front. The old boy network is back in the board room. Under the guise of 'doing it for the shareholders', the shareholders realize the least profits of a corp. relative to it's board room. Isn't that an odd distribution of wealth scheme? That would be the motive behind Buffet and Koch keeping their companies baffled away from publicly held ownership. That self protective mechanism can be used for intended purpose shielding off raiders or to hide their own malevolence from public scrutiny. Good luck figuring out which is which.

Under old style charters that would not happen, corps could not own other corps. Plus if they did not have government granted liability they could go to jail for the fraud you mentioned.

There would be no Berkshires.

Originally Posted by harborlady

Sounds good on paper but trying to imagine it in real life gets gruesome. What would that translate to be if implemented wholesale? If we privatized US mail there's a good chance a Christmas card to my buddy in Alaska would cost $15 and a card across town would remain the same, but we'd have the 'benefit' of 200 mailmen operating at wildly variable levels of anti terrorism compliance. Fly by night operations are profitable because they reap rewards up front for goods and services they aren't compelled to deliver without a gun to their head. Caveat Emptor enjoys a considerable amount of legal protection in US law and the price of eroded business standards is a cheapening of the US brand. Unfettered capitalism doesn't reward quality or excellence or it would be the inventors having profited the most. It rewards those geared towards maximum exploitation/ smoke & mirrors and once disconnected from long term health/ community ties/ allegiance to it's host nation it rewards sociopaths the most.


The privatized systems are leaning on US mail to compensate for substantively less than 100% coverage. IE US mail is doing their lesser profitable business, but without this uniform US mail system, rural communities/ lesser economies across America would be (cost prohibitively) out of service. Whatever losses US mail is operating, that cost is born on high speed economies that should be realizing a substantial savings for proximal & volume delivery. Cost shifting is acceptable in that case, or never acceptable adhering to purist ideology? This is why I look at all poli positions/ orgs in terms of what they mean to protect. Each criticism has some validity, but all parties concerned lose benefit of better solutions prevailing when competing negatively with one another.?

I don't see what that has to do with people being criminally and financial liable for their actions?

Originally Posted by harborlady

Agreed. I hope Texas keeps him in congress because someone needs to counter the rapscallions. They require considerable supervision.
At the same time I would hope libertarians own the fact they're being exploited by malevolent forces to financially benefit an oligarch class not unlike the Tea party. To ignore this fact is to willfully aid and abet those inflicting financial warfare on America's monetary, judicial & legislative systems.

Irony of ironies that very same oligarch class claiming they're 'wealth creators' never worked a real job a day in their lives. Everything hinged on their inheritance they never understood and embraced organized crime in place of legit commerce. America has a scourge upon the land I'll dub the SRBS. Spoiled Rich Boy Syndrome. Much as I dislike his unscrupulous tactics, to his credit Bill Gates saw that danger to his own progeny and limited the size of their trust funds. Paris Hilton isn't the fate he wants for his own. Or this fate for Belinda...

I think more people use the term libertarian to discredit the ideas of liberty than those who actually promote liberty. It is easy to do when you see a Palin using the same words and phrases. Libertarians suffer more from a lack of marketing skill than anything.

Back when I was a Libertarian we made this video and we used to do live seminars regarding how to present liberty properly.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=056C4wM9niQ

As I say, add in having corps pay for limited liability and tax privilege, it would be a great system to promote.

Originally Posted by harborlady

I can agree with all of the above but rooting currency in material world is a tough nut. There's insufficient gold on the planet to match the volume of commerce in world theater. Whatever material chosen it has the potential to be the lynchpin that gets manipulated by commodities market, which only reads to me as the necessity of having thousands of lynchpins. "Commodities" traders are something of a misnomer. They thrive on scarcity, not on abundance, so the system in place needs confrontation. It obscenely rewards crony markets/ monopolistic practices. No elected official can be trusted to monitor anything without cutting the financial cords through drastic campaign finance reform. Without simultaneously addressing these two other elements making the meat grinder run, the same corruption will only reorganize itself around this new version of monetary reform.

I am not calling for rooting currency in gold or anything. I want the exact opposite. Gold is owned and controlled by the elite, especially the banks.

Here is a short explanation.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VaSh8MMo34

Originally Posted by harborlady

Accountability was the whole point of regulations. Purchasing electoral, judicial and legislative was how they got around those regulations. Restoring the health of checks and balances as proscribed by founders is the logical solution.

I think we are better off creating accountability fro the ground up, not through politics and compromise. Going back to checks ad balances is a big key.

Originally Posted by harborlady

Today is a fresh slate. Don't spare me your disagreement out of politeness. I can take it so long as it's truthful. BTW, I'd like to thank you for raising the bar in discussion. ?

I am a happy wine drinker, my brain wasn't working right.

Originally Posted by harborlady

I acknowledge you're against nukes for dozens of good reasons. I wish you'd consider the concept of what appropriate application of nuke would look like. Radioactive materials are present in X-rays/ MRI's and I consider that technology crucial to the well being of humanity, yet at risk of being insanely priced for the majority of global citizenry if regulations/ insurance requirements are permitted to be too ham handed. This is my reasoning for demanding higher engineering standards. Reducing the probability of product mishandling/ interface mishaps yields a significantly lesser insurance liability. All of the above predicated on the assumption there's anything honest left in actuarial science that hasn't been corrupted the same way accounting standards have.

Fully self insured/ liable is one major criteria. I've brought up keeping nukes distant from population centers and concentrating attention on higher end engineering designs. Specifically I think they need the ability to surrender toxicity deeply into the ground (heavily partitioned from eco system) in-situ style as part of worst case scenario management. What else constitutes safe management?

I am not against them outright, I just don't like it being called the cheapest form of energy. It only is with government help. I do agree with your solutions, that would help.