This sort of thing happens -- albeit on a MUCH smaller scale -- all the time. When a town is courting a large industrial company, there are frequently negotiations to temporarily forgive property taxes and things like that; it's assumed that the added jobs will more than make up for the temporary loss of tax revenue from the industrial company's new plant.

Actually, considering Stalino, Mao, and Pol Pot didn't perpetrate their atrocities *in the name of* atheism, you're wrong on this one. And there is *plenty* of religious fuckery in the world: genital mutilation, subservience of women, murder over which imaginary friend you hallucinate, etc.

Just saying, there may be good Christians, but that doesn't mean that their religion isn't full of shit... ;)

Actually, her criticism isn't of the vaccine itself, it's of the mandatory innoculation of young girls.

When the doctor says, "this is a severe allergy," you should say, "rerun the rests"... just saying, since those tests aren't *that* bad >.>

5 times the global average, or 5 times the American average?

and 1% of the solar power available, right now, would require ~1% of the planet's surface. Barring ocean installation, which means we'd have to use ~3% of the land surface of the planet. And that's only if we have 100% efficient panels. Panels now are, what, 50% efficient? So we'd need 6% of the land surface of the planet in order to harness 1% of the solar power available...

If my math or assumptions are waaaaaaay off, please let me know.

Also, I rather like your sig.

The big problem is that every technology has a downside. Solar requires large areas of land; hydro requires us to block off rivers; coal pollutes; oil... also pollutes; nuclear is the biggest target of NIMBY-ism I can think of; geothermal is expensive and hard to do properly.

We can't magically fix our energy problems. There is only so much energy capacity in the world. We can only build so many solar panels, so many hydro plants, so man coal or oil plants, so many windmills. The better solution to fixing our energy problems is for us to look into increasing efficiency of existing technologies, using them where necessary, and reducing our energy consumption in general. If our consumption continues to grow, we will eventually be unable to generate enough to power all our stuff.

Seriously, does grandma, who only watches youtube videos of the kids and e-mails her bridge club, need a PC that draws 700W? Does Uncle Bob really need a 63" LCD display when his whole apartment is 10 feet wide? Do we really need to *drive* to the grocery store for a gallon of milk when it's actually quicker to get there by bike?

We can save a *lot* of energy -- and money -- by thinking about our choices.

I'm 22... I like knowing how things work, too, you know. Was watching a thing on the History Channel last night, tracing from the telegraph to the internet, and I started asking questions (like how twisted pairs of wires reduce interference, things like that).

However, lots of older people are the same way -- "I only care about the computer at all because I need it" is a common refrain, trust me. Younger people just aren't encouraged to actually investigate any more :\

Hey, not every Liberal likes every tax, you realize? I find sales tax in general to be regressive; I find income taxes to be too high considering the constant "need" to cut everything *but* defense and tax breaks for the rich.

If my tax dollars were going to education and health care, instead of re-education and murder in foreign countries, I'd be pretty content with the tax rates as they are now.

I haven't had to sign for delivery in 4 years of buying stuff from Amazon. Over 100 orders, and I've *never* had to sign for a single thing. Not even a computer.

And Borders' selection was never all that great. If I'm already near a bookstore, I'll go in, look around, see what looks fun, might even buy something; but if I have to go out of my way to get to a bookstore, screw it, that's what my Kindle is for. Guaranteed inventory vs. hopeful inventory -- which one do you think makes me feel less like I wasted my time?

Tragedy of the commons at work?

"I don't need to vaccinate because of herd immunity" is pretty damn close to "I can keep grazing my animals on this little plot of public land"... eventually, the whole thing breaks down, and you have *no* grass for your animals -- or immunity in society.

God, I wish it was ALWAYS this way...
Local Christian radio network (they have like 25 stations around PA and NY) puts everything on hold every 6 months for abut 3 days, and the 2 weeks before that, every other sentence is "we need money, the giving time is coming!". So, for 3 days straight, when I ride with my parents, I get to listen to "we need moar money!" constantly. I really wish these people would just fold already >.>

Exactly. One of the prescriptions I was one a while ago was 800/month without insurance.

No snowflake in an avalanche has ever looked back and said, "Look what I did!"

If if you want to ban violent media sales to children by law it better be all media. There is no legal force behind movie ratings.

Because it was decided a long time ago (I think back in the days of Sears being *one* giant building and a mail-order catalogue) that mail-order purchases were only taxable if the catalogue had a facility operating within the state of purchase. What is Amazon, other than a *really* fast mail-order catalogue, essentially?