This is why programmers (or software architects, or applications developers, or whatever - I prefer "technology professionals" except that some people think that means someone with an MBA who works at a technology company) need unions. Or needed unions, before silicon valley was more or less gutted under the Bush II administration.

  Now, unions would only have provided a temporary respite from all this; the unions would be under constant assault, with promises from management that the union was just getting in the way. "Of course," says management, "we treat you with respect out of our magnanimous appreciation for the good work you do, and the union just muddies up the issue with red tape, and takes your money and..." bleah-de-bleah-de-bleah. But unions would've held the worst of the off-shoring at bay for a few years, which would've kept the industry in much better shape since off-shoring has been on balance a tremendous waste of money. But management likes it (regardless of the impact on the bottom line) because it gives them more power.

What if I'm a petty, vengeful, jealous God?

Is this true? Animal instincts seem very interesting to me. Please correct me if my interests are mistaken.

The military-industrial complex would much prefer to operate with no oversight at all.

  We have a perverse system where such oversight is acceptable only if it does not compromise security (rather than the other way around.)

  So by screwing this up on purpose, the military can plead security concerns and never publish anything at all, because any public oversight whatsoever will be too risky.

  Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence? Well, malice exists, even though incompetence is so powerful it can explain anything.

What is this...desire?

Actually, no.

  China's solar companies are doing well because they get *tremendous* subsidies, as is always the case for nascent, high tech industry.

  if it weren't for massive government subsidies - paying for R&D costs directly, and providing a huge protected market mainly through the defense department - then the computer revolution which drove the 1990s boom WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.

  All you free market fantasists need to get that into your thick skulls - or, you could go love on Ayn Rand's island! Please do, so that we can run our country like sane people. In 10 years, when solar power is viable, it will be the Chinese who are reaping the benefits because free market fanatics in the US aren't willing to make the basic investments required.

Mod parent up.

  However, I wouldn't discount the possibility of a prosecutor doing" the wrong thing, institutionally". The kind of places with an excess of bored civil rights attorneys also have an excess of activist/liberal DAs. So if the Oberlin DA gets such a case he, ight push it just to lose.

Wikipedia has a very good article, actually:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_spies
  With many relevant sources.

  Or you could listen to the Governor of Wisconsin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tr6zX1Z6sI
  Although, in this case, he didn't actually do it.

I exaggerate very slightly; a slight majority of all new wealth is in the hands of the top 1% of the population. The top 0.1% probably only has about half of that, so a quarter of the newly created wealth. Anyway, the details vary slightly from source to source because it depends on whether you are talking net wealth, financial wealth, income, etc. etc. Also it depends on who you lump together, which is a judgement call. It gets "worse" the closer you get to Bill.

  More information than you probably care to know about the topic can be found here:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

  Let's look at table 5a. End of 2001, the S&P500 was at 1,148.08. End of 2007, it was at 1,468.36. The S&P 500 isn't a bad proxy for the total value of the entire stock market.

  So, quick guestimate, 2001->2007, richest 1% went from 33.5% OF 1,148 to 38.3% of 1,468, that's 385 to 562 -> a gain of 178. That's more than half of the total 320 point gain.

  So, counting just the stock market (thus not housing bubbles), roughly 55% of the new wealth created between 2001 and 2007 was in the hands of the top 1% of the population.

No, it has been between Rich and Poor, although the Poor are getting stomped, as much as the Rich might want us all to believe otherwise. If you look at the last 20 years, the vast majority if the *new wealth* which has been created has been concentrated in the hands of the top 0.1% of the population. That's where all the money has gone, not towards social security, not towards Cadillac health insurance for people with jobs in manufacturing. Where is the money to provide pensions and health-care to the share of the population who doesn't have it? It's sitting in Bill f-ing Gates bank account, that's where it is.

  There's a plate with 12 cookies on it, a rich guy, a teacher and a regular working Joe.

  The rich guy takes 11 of the cookies, leans over to Joe, and says "I'd watch out, I think the teacher is trying to steal your cookie."

Why was this modded down instead of up?

What makes you - or anyone else - think there is only one tipping point? What makes you (or this guy in the article you linked, which I'd already read elsewhere) so certain that we've crossed the tipping point that's crucial in determining the average temperature of the globe in the next century?

  Just because we're past the point where the siberian thaw becomes self-sustaining, that means we must be past the point where the same thing becomes self-sustaining in Antarctica?

  Global climate *is* very complicated, very hard to predict, very hard to model accurately. All of that is definitely true.

  This means that WE DO NOT KNOW what the risks are associated with burning fossil fuels, or with how much. It is entirely possible that the best-case scenarios are right, and that given how much CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) we've put into the atmosphere, everything will be fine. It is also possible (albeit much more unlikely!) that we've already pumped so much CO2 into the atmosphere that nothing we do can make things worse.

  Again, the claims of the Gazprom scientists must be viewed very skeptically. But when Kirpotkin talks as if he is certain about what is going to happen, that isn't accurate either. No one really knows. But we *do* know that there is a good chance that continuing to put CO2 into the atmosphere can't make the situation better, and might make it quite a bit worse.

Not only is global warming real (and you don't have to "believe" in it any more than you have to "believe" in that table), but the poor are *expected* to bear the brunt of the harm! So, yes, we should direct our economic resources towards improving the lot of our fellow people, *and*, as part of that, we should reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. If we need to burn fossil fuels to control HIV or Malaria, you do it. Hell, if fossil fuel fertilizer helped to make third world agriculture viable, that would be a worthwhile trade: although, actually, it tends to have the opposite effect.

  Second, it it not true that it is "too late to do anything about it." This is part of the planned FUD from the fossil fuel lobby:
Stage 1) There isn't enough evidence to be 95% sure we've done anything to the environment,
  and
Stage 2) Now that enough evidence has accumulated, it's because we've already changed the environment, so no point in doing anything about it.

  This has been the plan of the oil industry all along, and they've been happy to tell people about it! But apparently, the need for "balance" in the media is so great, that you have to give equal time to someone even if they just sent a position paper out to their stockholders explaining that they were about to go on television and lie.

  Regardless of what anyone "believes", the facts are actually quite straightforward: there is a great deal of uncertainty, but we can be >95% certain that human activity has raised the temperature of the earth somewhere between 1 and 10 degrees C, over the next century or so.

  It's possible that the earth was getting warmer anyway - in which case any human contribution would probably be smaller, but would have a higher impact since going from +0 to +2 degrees doesn't make much difference but going from +4 to +5 *does*.

  On to my other point - the "Stage 2 argument" is complete and utter bollocks. Yeah, we've had some impact - this doesn't mean that we can't do anything to mitigate further impact! Oh, look, I've spilled coffee on my couch. Well, now that my house is dirty, I might as well shit all over the floor and set my curtains on fire, because it makes no difference, now that the house is dirty anyway.