Yup, with gems like the "science is settled", which will be wrong until/if the unified theory of everything is worked out, it's no wonder people are turning away from that science. It's also not helpful that many of those who accept the findings of climate science, label those who do not "deniers", shills for "big oil", or at best "skeptics" and largely refuse to discuss any questions about the methodology or conclusions. Is it any wonder that rational people would either avoid or disengage from that debate?

The State of California doesn't pay taxes to the federal government. While the people residing there residents and the in-state only businesses (can't count businesses in located multiple states as "California paying") do pay taxes to the federal government.

The government of the State of California does not provide all those things you mentioned, and you seem to be forgetting that Amazon pays corporate income taxes to the federal government and various taxes to various other states.

Or it may make you want to become a corrupt politician, so you to can get paid for doing the same thing, instead of doing on your own time.

How exactly does one damage dirt? Or damage rocks simply by walking on them?<br>

If "everyone" was hiking were I was I'd go hike somewhere since part of the reason I go is to get away from people.<br>

Also if we take you logic a bit further than the must be strict regulations for breathing since everyone does it, and we have to sure people stop exercising so they they don't emit too much CO2.<br>

You left out two inefficiencies in coal electric generation in your calculations: electric transmission loses and extracting and transporting the coal. Also your assertion that electric cars are 95% efficient appears suspect. A quick search found references to more like 80%. Electric cars still convert a fair amount of the power to heat from conduction resistance and mechanical friction.

Sure I wouldn't mind the State of Nevada building some nuclear plants here in using the profits as part of the state budget. Now if your talking about private plants, suck it up and build them in your own backyard in California.

Research scientists are not monks who have taken a vow of poverty in their devotion to "truth". Research satellites do have an obvious agenda: maintaining funding for their research. Funding is easier to get for research on a topic that people are concerned about than one folks aren't concerned with, so its in the researches interest to ensure concern continues so easy funding continues. As they say, follow the money. There are companies and individuals out there who are economically benefiting from folks who get a warm fuzzy from buying "green" and from CO2 output shifting schemes.

Well first thing I would ask is: What is anti-social speech? And more importantly, who defines it? If a govt wants to silence opposition to its policies, is anyone who speaks out "anti-social"? Or are you talking about child-porn? Because if you're talking about child-porn or cyber-bullying or whatever, then you're talking about crimes among individuals. But if you're talking about free speech issues like petitions or twittering about rallies, then you're not talking about "anti-social" speech, you're talking about political speech. And I think it has been proven over and over again that the dangers of allowing governments to suppress speech of any kind far outweighs the advantages to the society it is trying to "protect". In China, the govt has put in place an enormously powerful system of censorship to ostensibly control "anti-social" speech, but is in fact primarily a tool for controlling political speech. People can't see child porn very easily, but they also can't even see a picture of "tank man" (the guy who stood in front of a column of tanks in Tienanmen Sq). What is "anti-social" about political protest? Isn't that how the PRC was founded? They fought a war with the existing govt and won. Now they don't want the same thing to happen to them. China wants to enforce it's totalitarian system to protect those in power who know that if people are allowed to read and discuss anything they want, they would be thrown out on their asses. If you don't want to be censored, well...you're out of luck.

Ever heard the saying "people get the government they deserve". Your statements above are premised on the assumption that government is separate from society rather then being a part of it. As the authoritarian part of a society, government is the authority on what is anti-social (i.e. against society). What particular moral view do you claim the US is imposing upon you by asking you to pay for something that it's citizens are trying to sell?

The moral view that they have the right to deny the idea to you, through the use of force, unless you pay them for the use of the idea.

What? Who in the world believes that copyrighting one's own work is immoral? I know people who think the laws favor copyright holders too much, but I've never met someone who thinks copyright laws are inherently "immoral".

People who believe it is immoral to monopolize ideas.

Sounds like your okay with governments controlling the internet so long as it conforms to morals, but you don't realize that other people have morals different from yours in which copyright (and enforcing it) is immoral and blocking anti-social speech is moral.

That's because they are capitalists in name only, only wanting the parts that benefit them and not the parts that don't.

They aren't mis-advertising themselves if they don't say that certified per that particular ISO standard. IEEE doesn't have a trademark on Software Engineer any more then PE organizations have one on Engineer.

Sorry, but the professional engineering licensing/certifying organizations do not have a trademark on the word engineer, and the word has been around longer then the said organizations. Software engineers don't call themselves Certified/Licensed Professional Engineers, so I don't see the problem. Certified/Licensed Professional Engineer != engineer and engineer != Certified/Licensed Professional Engineer.

Unless Moses was Akhenaten.