I guess Detroit would clearly know what arrogance smells like, that's true.

Protected garden industries occasionally need to get overturned.

Now, I disagree with them. The first time someone books with Uber and gets murdered/raped/whatever, the formal, licensed taxi services will enjoy a renaissance.

Right now, however, they simply don't appear to justify their premium - particularly when so many cabs are disgusting, greedy*, etc.

*note: I personally believe that taxis THEMSELVES are rarely as greedy as they appear, and this leads me to my main point: the cities are more concerned about their monopoly license REVENUE than any industry per se, and to that extent, fuck them.

You're going to stick your USB *where* again?

A Boston public park bench USB port?

I'm not sure which kingdom of virii would be more nasty - animal, or electronic.

Do they have USB condoms?

Story about wind energy's return on investment, along with skeptic review of the numbers.

Slashdot comments?
16 comments rated 5
of which:
- 5 comments are regarding the calculations, or relevant thereto (3 are on one thread)
- the rest are ENTIRELY ad-hominem attacks against wattsup as climate-deniers, idiots, etc.

I agree fundamentally: Wattsup *does* indulge in ...creative... (likely deliberate) misunderstanding. Asserting that "in effect a wind turbine over it's life span can power 500 homes for free" is patently NOT the same as "you can power 500 homes with a wind turbine".

The attacks here, however, are mainly without substance, just "he's a CLIMATE DENIER!!" - smacking more of an accusation of apostasy than logical flaws.

I would only point out one further thing: if one posts an asserted fact, and then posts the opposing viewpoint as someone entirely biased and easily dismissed...I'd call THAT a strawman as well.

All Americans can travel to Cuba.
There are constraints and restrictions, but they're mostly bureaucratic and pretty much trivial.

...don't understand how important it is to follow scientific fads.

That's funny, because every time there's some freak weather (or even normal weather that's mildly unpleasant) I could easily post 10+ articles from major public media sources that assert "this is an effect/indicator of climate change".

Strangely, I don't see all the 'weather isn't climate' folks posting then....

But the destructive/addictive behavior was likely their choice to START with (& considering that most addictions aren't "instant", it involved repeatedly performing the behavior).

I haven't read a lot of stories about people held down and forced to drink alcohol until they became raging alcoholics, have you?

Their ability to choose may be gone...because THEY gave it away.

How is including myself in this "high and mighty"? That doesn't even make sense.

In any case, essentially, your entire post basically says that you agree with my point, anyway.

Please, stop calling everything that's unhappy a "TRAGEDY". Do you even know what the word means?

Don't want to die of this? Stop drinking. Not rocket science.

For the majority of cases, obesity is not a tragedy, neither are drug-use deaths, nor AIDS-related deaths nor is DRINKING YOURSELF TO DEATH.

All of them are 95% or more self-inflicted. Pathetic? Yes. Sad? Yes, probably, at the very least on a personal level. But tragic? No. Tragedy implies some sort of impersonal force, or a fate one can't fight against. It entirely absolves people of their own responsibility.

Stop trying to milk sympathy from the general public for entirely avoidable results of peoples' life choices.

If you *do* believe this is tragedy, then you deny people their very basic humanity - their right to make choices for themselves, and suffer/enjoy those consequences. The moment you dismiss peoples' right to make their own important choices, you're logically condoning everything from compulsory abortion (or denial of same) to arranged marriages.

Everyone - bar none, and including myself - who claims that they "work 60 hour weeks" might indeed be AT WORK 60 hours a week, but they do things like post /. comments at quarter after two in the afternoon or spend hours playing farmville, solitare, or updating their facebook posts.

....since I suspect it's based more on consensual delusions & back-scratching within the industry than actual data.

Does Nike *actually* get $3 million more profit if they have a superbowl ad, than if they didn't? If they don't, then do they really need to pay that cutie-pie that is the assistant to the assistant director $85k/year to fetch donuts and sort the mail? Or the still photographer an annualized contract rate of $160k/year to shoot the 'making of the commercial' art book pictures? Aside from the shlubs who sling lights and mikes and do the tech work, the media industry is generally staggeringly overcompensated. I wonder when someone will notice?

....if it comes to patents that they want to use but don't hold, the Chinese will likewise lead in the number of graphene patents IGNORED.

IP = not a big deal for China....unless they hold it.
It's so much easier to compete when the rules apply only to everyone else.

The choice is:
- term limits, and a relatively fresh crop of legislators with little to no experience bumbling along while a class of essentially-permanent bureaucrat mandarins run things because they actually understand how all the shit works

or

- no term limits, and a permaclass of legislators who can be the target of massive donor investment because they know how to work the system, get things done, and have long, long times in office to accomplish it. The flip side is that they can at least run the country, aside from the bit that they're skimming for themselves.

Ether a bumbling government, or a corrupt one?

I'll take bumbling, because corrupt has gotten so greedy that they aren't really even performing any of the basic functions of government.

I rather believe that the Founding Fathers made this choice clear - they assumed that people were venal and corruptible, and a regular changeover at the top was critical to preventing *exactly* the sort of sui generis nobility that we seem to have.

" All the reactors we have now were designed in the '50s. "

And why's that? Because the ecology-fanatics brought a complete halt to civil nuclear development.

And who is telling us we need to get rid of coal now?