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Comment Hope you're right (Score 1) 334

Iranians don't want nukes to attack their neighbors, they want them as a defensive deterrent.

Your faith in the rationality of this Great-Satan-rhetoric-spewing, eschatology-minded, 12th-imam-loving nation is greater than mine.

The guys who cooperated, and gave up their nuke programs (Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi), are dead.

I recall Gaddafi voluntarily handing over materiel, and being much more cooperative with UN weapons inspectors than Hussein. He should have been rewarded with, perhaps, a quiet asylum villa where he could have lived out his retirement. Not this: "The video appears to picture Gaddafi being poked or stabbed in the rear 'with some kind of stick or knife' or possibly a bayonet".

Comment Re:A killer attitude (Score 1) 334

The 250,000+ deaths mentioned in the article are not due to heat getting cut. It's due to people with weak immune systems (mostly elderly) trying to economize by setting their thermostats low, which makes them marginally more susceptible to influenza and other illnesses.

Lower energy prices --> less incentive to economize. An old person dying of a preventable seasonal illness isn't as newsworthy as other types of deaths, but yes it still counts as a tragic human death.

While I was vacationing in the UK, I was surprised to see the resort meter my suite's energy usage, and charge me for it when I checked out. Of course hardcore environmentalists love those kind of policies. (I didn't mind so much... aside from the slight hassle, I guess it's better than assessing an average charge to wasteful and thrifty people alike.) But for immune-compromised tenants, it does give them an incentive to place themselves at marginally greater risk of dying.

Comment The point is... (Score 1) 334

Your assumption that I sometimes buy new cars in incorrect. Cars depreciate about as fast as PCs, and I take great satisfaction knowing that someone else ate that depreciation.

But whether I buy new or used is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. If it's logical for people to buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle when the price of fuel increases (and it is), it is also logical -- not a lack of willpower or other character flaw -- for people to buy a less fuel-efficient vehicle when the price of fuel decreases. Anthony Perl can't have it both ways.

Comment Re:A killer attitude (Score 1) 334

Of course inexpensive energy didn't fix all of society. But it did a lot of social good, and I'm glad you somewhat acknowledge that now.

I'm not opposed to "inexpensive energy" but to subsidize fossil fuels for those who can easily afford it

You seem to have a lot in common with the article I linked. Note the story about the millionaire who protested the fact that the UK government subsidizes his fuel bill.

Comment Re:Bizarre (Score 1) 334

Nobody fears a nuclear Iran more than the Saudis, not even the Israelis.

Is that a rational fear; is an Iranian nuke more likely to be detonated in Riyadh than Tel Aviv? (Or, given that Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terror, transferred to a terrorist cell that floats it on a small boat into New York Harbor?)

Comment Insulting my willpower (Score 1) 334

Whenever I buy a car, I build a spreadsheet to compare Total Cost of Ownership for several different models. One of the inputs, of course, is the price of fuel.

If that variable goes up, I am steered toward a more fuel-efficient vehicle, and according to Anthony Perl, I "have the willpower to stick with the program." But apparently I should banish that factor from my spreadsheet if the price of fuel goes down, lest I be steered toward a less fuel-efficient vehicle, and become guilty of a huge characater flaw.

I mean, an addiction to large overpriced SUVs that never touch dirt or mud is clearly an addiction spiraling out of control that we should probably earmark billions in taxpayer money.

You're being sarcastic, but Dubya took real action toward that end.

Comment Re:Pot erased an average of 8 IQ points (Score 1) 219

That's an excellent question.

Thanks

How about exhaustion from work? Let's ban overtime, and limit daily hours to 4 while we're at it.

In fact, legislators have already dealt with this. The law limits the standard workweek to 40 hours (even shorter in France), working overtime is something that's pretty heavily regulated, and child labor laws prohibit all work for kids under 14.

When adults work and earn income, there is less of a need for kids to work and earn income, but the opposite dynamic exists for controlled substances: when adults gain easier access to them, minors also gain easier access to them. (For most of the people who voted for Amendment 64 here in Colorado, that was an unintended consequence; but for some it was very intended -- "power to the babystoners!") Thanks for making points that support my position.

Where do you draw the line?

I thought I had made clear that permanent loss of an average of 8 IQ points is too high a price to pay for the freedom to get stoned (a freedom that people who have their sobriety don't even miss). Now I ask again, where do you draw the line?

Comment Re:Pot erased an average of 8 IQ points (Score 1) 219

STFU, no one is talking about legalizing pot for minors

LOL, I'm in Colorado where voters decided to legalize pot in 2013 -- nominally only for adults -- and as a result use among minors has increased dramatically. That's one of the reasons Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) called the decision "reckless."

Comment Re:Pot erased an average of 8 IQ points (Score 1) 219

Outlawing pot doesn't reduce pot use? LOL, I'm in Colorado where voters decided to legalize pot in 2013, and as a result pot use has increased dramatically. Now if you had said outlawing pot does not eliminate pot use, I would of course agree with you. But if the goal is merely to "reduce," the law certainly can and has accomplished that.

Outlawing things because we disapprove of them is a stark miss-use of the legislative process. Pass laws because the actual consequences of the law will make the community better off, not because you want to signal disapproval.

I thought that's what I was advocating. People walking around with an average of 8 IQ points missing makes the community worse off, especially because it makes them more likely to need public assistance. Whether I "approve" of having one's brain in that condition is irrelevant.

Comment Rising sea level does NOT cause net loss of beach (Score 1) 264

Look. Sea level has risen about 400 feet since the end of the last ice age. So if rising sea level causes net loss of beaches, that 400-ft increase would have had a far more devastating effect than the puny rise we've experienced in the last 50 years (about 7 cm). When are people going to stop falling for this AGW fear mongering?

By the way, every species that's alive today, including polar bears, survived that 400-ft sea level increase.

And every species that's alive today has survived dozens of glacial/interglacial alternations (i.e, the coming and going of dozens of ice ages).

Comment Brilliant! (Score 0) 219

The way to have less crime, is to criminalize fewer things.

Brilliant! We could have less bank-robbery crime by decriminalizing bank robbery. We could have less illegal wiretapping by decriminalizing illegal wiretapping. Those pesky KKK lynchings? Decriminalize them.

Maybe you meant to say, "I wish things that I personally don't have a problem with would be decriminalized."

Comment Pot erased an average of 8 IQ points (Score -1) 219

Pot erased an average of 8 IQ points. And IQ points are becoming a more valuable commodity, as technology eliminates more and more jobs that used to employ unskilled labor.

So the question is, where do you draw the line -- how many IQ points must a substance erase before you're in favor of banning its use -- 30? 80?

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