I'm not sure if it will smoke since according to the article the stuff won't actually "burn"'

There, it will be heated in a low-oxygen atmosphere. This will cause its chemical bonds to break (without the material actually burning), releasing their carbon and hydrogen content to form what's known as syngas. This will in turn be cleaned up and converted into chemical products and biofuels – such as methanol and ethanol.

Either way if the emitted chemicals are what you're looking for you're not just going to dump them out a smokestack.

The province is conservative but Edmonton is fairly liberal (as are most cities). I actually took a tour of the waste treatment plant a few years ago and it was pretty impressive (and smelly). Back then they were talking about grinding up the non-recyclable/compostable bits and using them for asphalt filling as a way to get over 90% non-landfilled, I'm not sure if this is any of the same material they're talking about here, I don't think I'd want my highways degrading.

On the contrary although this plant is new they've been doing stuff like this for years, and it makes economic sense.

The problem with garbage is you have to put it somewhere. Landfills fill up quickly and use up otherwise useful land, and the further you ship it the more expensive and polluting it is to transport. The waste reclamation centre drastically reduces the amount you need to dispose of.

Eco-stations claim a lot of the electronic waste, the company that gets the material actually turns a profit on breaking them down.

Compostables get turned into topsoil, traditional recyclables get pulled out and turned into economically useful items, etc.

If your city thinks shipping wealth away burying it with all the resulting externalities is a better alternative then they can keep with their current setup. I prefer the Edmontonian model.

We also treat our sewage rather than dumping in raw into the ocean like some coastal cities.

Great news if you want to live in the holocene.

Not so good of news if you think a significant environmental change in the middle of a mass extinction is a bad idea.

So what is the appropriate role for Obama in this? It seems odd that he would be expected to act as a passive administrator when he was elected with a policy based mandate to a much greater degree than congress.

I propose a new bill.

Doesn't Infringe the First Amendment Copyright Act: Whereby the government will only grant copyright to works of art that endorse the ruling party.

Still think it's not a free speech issue?

Until I hit this paragraph I actually thought you were actually going in a completely different direction.

The thing you're missing is words have context.

If I call a good friend moron it's a term of endearment, we both understand I'm not actually calling him dumb, if I call a stranger moron I'm potentially starting a fight.

Alec Baldwin calling someone a cocksucking fag as an insult is homophobic. Buddy Cole using fag is not homophobic. We call fag homophobic because it's most commonly used in a homophobic context, but that's not always true.

The context of the Redskins is the term was denigrating when it was chosen as the name, the team was notably against black integration, Native American discrimination is still rampant, and the name and logo conjure a stereotype of a native warrior. Not everyone will find it racist but some obviously will. Would the Washington Poles be racist? Probably not. Would the Washington Jews? Maybe. Would the Washington Bankers with a Jewish mascot? Definitely.

It's deserving of an investigation but it's too early to jump to conclusions.

How widespread were these poor data retention practices? Is this something that affected only Lerner and the other investigated officials, or is it part of a wider problem in the IRS of managing email records.

There's no evidence that Obama has actually done anything. Even assuming Lois Lerner is guilty she was in that position since '06 and there's no evidence it went above her.

Surely you can see the difference between a president caught on tape in a criminal conspiracy and an IRS manager whom may not be guilty of anything more than incompetence.

I think that's an important point. The hybrids aren't peaking because people aren't interested in fuel efficient vehicles. They're peaking because there's so many fuel efficient vehicles available.

Fine.

Develop an ideology that demonizes every government employee and agency except for the military.

Now motivated by said ideology and a desire to fight corruption introduce a massive number of regulations that make it impossible to do things efficiently.

Finally head said agencies with political appointees instead of the best available candidates with applicable experience.

Now reap your reward. A bloated ineffective inefficient government, and a government that regularly fails to properly implement basic things like proper record keeping because there's so many regs it's hard to fail at only the unimportant ones.

No government organization is flawless, heck, no organization period is flawless. But there's a reason that the US more than others manages to be really bad at it.

Anyone holding a Turing Test isn't really holding a true Turing Test. Turing didn't define a duration but it's pretty obvious that five minutes isn't long enough to hold a conversation, it's only long enough to ask a series of questions.

To hold an actual conversation you'd need an hour, maybe more. To last that long the bot would need to learn things about the interrogator just like we learn things when we talk to eachother. A bot that could do that could obviously do a lot more as well.

That's not to say the current Turing Test isn't useful. A successful bot could be applied to customer support systems and give insights into language. But it's misleading to indicate that the current incarnation of the Turing Test is testing what Turing intended.

Well I had a long established routine of using running as my method of commuting. I definitely lost my recreational runs when the depression really hit but I maintained a level of ~6km of daily running just going to school and back.

I think that's brings up an educational/environmental aspect of weight loss that gets underrated. If I had ice cream in my freezer it would be partially eaten. If there were doughnuts in easy reach right now I would be eating one. We choose the path of least resistance so it's prudent to make that path a healthy one.

On my worst days I could barely get out of bed, but once I was out of bed I'd run into campus without thinking because it was just an effort free part of my commute. It would actually have taken more effort to take a bus because I'd be breaking the routine. Similarly with food I kept fairly healthy food around, so despite the fact I'd overeat, I'd only overeat rice or pasta instead of ice cream and cookies.

If it's a mental condition it's one with a strong genetic component.

“Obesity is one of the strongest genetically influenced traits that we have,” says O'Rahilly. Classic twin studies in the 1980s and 1990s, which relied on pairs of identical and fraternal twins, suggest that 40–70% of variation in body size is due to genetic factors.

Mental health can be an issue, I know I put on ~5 kg over two years when dealing with depression, but fat-shaming has always struck me as a failure of theory of mind.

If you're thin it's convenient to assume that it's just a matter of your willpower, you eat healthy because you're disciplined, you eat less because you're responsible. But it's also possible that fatty sugary food is just that much more appealing to other people, that hunger is a much stronger force, that their metabolism is slower so they gain fat much more easily.

I don't dispute for a moment that any of them could lose weight if they tried hard enough. But some people have to try a heck of a lot harder than others.

What was in those caverns beforehand? Did God kill the Morlocks after he killed the humans?

I continue to believe the madness of the Tea Party is due to the lack of party discipline. Can you imagine the Republican Party running on a unified Tea Party platform?

What's the solution to health care? Vote against Obamacare hundreds of times and then shutdown the government.

What's the solution to illegal immigration? Build a fence then maybe deport everyone?

What to do about global warming? All the scientists are wrong so dig more coal.

The problem with the system is they don't have to deal with reality. Their Obamacare shenanigans are a perfect example. An obvious question to their current approach is "ok, you somehow accomplish a repeal, then what?". But because the party couldn't lock into an alternative plan even if they wanted to, there's no alternative approach to evaluate. As a result they never have to answer the question and can just claim the alternative will fix everything. The AGW denialism is a side effect of this. They're so used to bad populist arguments that an elite opinion from scientists is hard to swallow.

Without party discipline only hyper-partisans bother with the individual arguments and they're the ones who choose the candidates. If you want the parties to reflect voters then you need to enforce strong discipline. When that happens the Democrats and Republicans will need to choose one cohesive platform to market to the country as a whole. Do that and you'll have a platform that's reasonable and well thought out. Keep the current system and they still vote as a block, the block just ends up being run by nuts like the Tea Party and Fox News.