It is being stalled and will continue to be for a little while longer. No, it's not completely stalled but it could be moving much faster than it is. I have a hard time believing Tar sands is economical at $40 / bl. I've never heard that low an estimate before. I remember when fracking was getting wonderful estimates and they ended up losing $ when higher more realistic numbers came out. (fracking is still cheap... although they leak so much doing it cheaply it does more harm than coal does. responsible fracking is much more costly; deciding on a compromise and transition scheme is tricky and the ideal compromise can't be done because of politics and selfish voters.)

I didn't discuss natural gas or H2.

Fascism is corporatism! Learn some history.
Governments bossing around corporations is at the opposite side.

Furthermore, if you believe it is a democratic government then the government is "we" and therefore "we" collectively are exercising our control not losing it.

Harrison Ford always pimps the movies he is in when they are coming out. Just recall or go look it up. Since it's in the contract and he is essentially PAID to promote it all he can do is soften the required praise he gives. After Indie 4 he probably feels the need for stronger support since his taste is continues to prove not so great.

Killing the messenger:
It still applies just not in a clear way that fits with the name of the fallacy. The body of work has nothing to do with the author's unrelated actions; it would be a red herring except it has an irrelevant connection (the messenger; which is why it's not called, "kill the by-stander." In this case the messenger is his body of work and the message is his personal behavior.)

Parent disagrees with Physics?
Parent acts as if MIT is removing pornography videos. The disagreement is with the professors words online that are NOT in the educational materials taken down. Written materials only have his NAME, audio has his VOICE, videos have his IMAGE. Want to remove an ugly statue? Put his name on it!

I don't want to associate with MIT at all because they had a former Professor who harassed some people. Yeah, nobody wants anything to do with MIT...

The "right" will fight all alternative power like they have ALWAYS DONE no matter what deals you give them today. Extremists don't give up.

With a growing industry with more lobbyists the alternatives sway the "right" (and "left") a little bit. The entrenched powers DO NOT want there enemies empowered; the unequal footing they have must be maintained. The "right" in this case is not actually extreme they are just the most corrupt on this issue. I guarantee they will shift when the $ moves in the other direction.

What needs to be done for progress is to drag the opposition kicking and screaming forward so over time they'll adapt and shift to new kinds of fear mongering after all their nay saying proves false. It has been done before (slavery, civil rights, introducing min wage, banning child labor, weekends off, etc.) Now with civil gay marriage all the straight civil marriages are not ending plus we are not surrounded in bestiality and pedophiles either. After the fear proves empty (and some more old people die) then we'll have gay Republicans will be demanding we ban Atheists from adopting children. It'll happen. History rhymes.

There is no real left or right paradigm; it is an illusion, like in the book Flat Land or the film The Matrix. It's at least 2 dimensional: up/down and left/right. The "far left" today doesn't even get press coverage - the Democratic party doesn't represent them; just tries to sucker them for votes. see http://politicalcompass.org/

Characterizing the correct answer as left/right is ignoring the whole problem and debating empty propaganda.

Keystone helps sell shale oil cheaper. You just buy into the defeatist propaganda of the corporations to stand to gain (along with your so called "right" who were purchased and some "left" also who were purchased. The real reason lawyers make good politicians is they argue whatever position their boss wants like they believe it themselves.)

Higher costs for shale will delay it; hopefully, long enough to address demand with cheaper alternatives or enough sanity to ban it... Asbestos is cheap and we stopped using that! Assuming that oil is going to burn is as foolish as keeping the asbestos mines open in the middle of that debate (which was settled in science years before politics caught up; thank the vested interest lobby...) The cynical and wise strategic move is to STALL it out as long as possible so they don't invest in more expensive alternative routes - making it even less cost effective when keystone is stopped. That strategy does the most to stop them. (note: I'm not saying Obama's clever. It is a really clever plan and he just happens to be doing the same thing, so far.)

Extremists are never happy; don't know why you think giving each something they want is going to change anything!

Removing links is a form of censorship. In theory, nothing online ever disappears completely but it can move into extreme obscurity to rarely ever be seen again. His connection to MIT is historical fact and the products of their collaboration shouldn't be removed to please the thought police. It makes it harder to find or more importantly, much more difficult to DISCOVER when it's censored. Being a university, they are supposed to encourage discovery-- doubly so for a famous University known for discoveries trying to do more than just coast on past success.

EXACTLY. I love subpixel anti-aliasing so I won't rotate the display until that finally works but I've wanted to for years. My 2nd display is 4:3 and I've repaired it twice to keep it going. I'm largely waiting for enough idiots to buy UHD TVs to drive prices down (because those only look good in the store, when you sit 3m away you can't see the extra pixels but as a monitor I can put it to practical use.)

The U.S. might be better than Canada in this example; however, in the U.S. the legal system, due process, and rule of law are mostly just buzzwords with little actual meaning. Snowden's leaks continue to prove it.

So now we've become so extreme that the Universities that were guardians of free thinking have become the thought police and tools for censorship. Aiding vengeance of the political elite (corporations being some of the biggest but that's another topic) upon students it should be defending... I'm specifically thinking of Aaron Swartz where MIT was not an innocent party. Sounds far more governmental than like how a University should function, doesn't it??

I don't care if he was a rapist or serial killer! Where is the philosophy department when you need it?? (The only practical thing they are good for is defending freedom; aside from teaching.) Lets throw out everything NASA ever did under Wernher von Braun because he was a Nazi! If you only forbid work done during the "crime" then you have to throw out all the rocketry work he did for Germany and that kind of thinking would have had him completely passed over for working for NASA at all (because they'd not know his credentials since that info would have gone down the memory hole.)

People now are so fragile they can't even hear unpleasant news. I've been in hostile environments and was severely bullied so naturally most the stuff I see people complain about looks like pathetic wimps wanting attention as victims... appealing to the self righteous egotism of others looking to compensate / cover for their own hypocrisy which they are unable to face (because that again would be unpleasant... no wonder people want drugs over actual therapy!)

Being gay was a crime and to most people it's still a horrible sin against god. That didn't stop computer science; but today one has to wonder if those attitudes prevailed today how much we'd be set back?

How about having the government properly regulate the peoples' bandwidth instead of just acting as an auction house and industry lobbyist. (Wheeler was and the last guy now has his job! tag team!)

Government should digitize and drive everything as packets. Become the infrastructure like the highway system. Charge rates for bandwidth use so anybody could be a cell company - since it just costs for packets over the network. Same with TV as well-- in fact, TV should have been done in a similar way. Sure it would have delayed the transition.... perhaps this is the next generation transition we should be designing today! Wide band devices which can use all the TV and cell bandwidth to send IPv6 packets or something similar. At least we could have physics and science manage the system instead of whatever the owners can hack together in their purchased space.

Note: I realize with the use of the loaded word "socialist" I've just lost most American readers.

Performance pay--- how do you measure performance? It is NOT a simple problem and no matter what you come up with humans are naturally talented at adaptation, they will survive and many will thrive by gaming your system. Seniority is the least hackable metric of all and so simple everybody knows it's inherent flaws - but EVERY metric is going to be flawed.

Online performance is largely measured by CLICKS. The result is the trashy click bait we have today. An earth shattering investigative report which might take a year of a senior journalist's time (a REAL journalist) puts them at the bottom of the scale while some twit pushing rumors/gossip who can't spell has tons of clicked of trash gets to the top (and has the nerve to call what they do journalism.)

Cars are not mass transit; they take too much space and are individualized. Even if they are shared they are still a waste. If you can spend the $ then I can see why so many people prefer them.

Computer managed systems will make smart hybrid solutions possible in ways people apparently are not thinking about. I bet simulations can show their benefits already.

Quite simple: high traffic areas and locations will use bus and cars will handle low volume. Beyond that you have extremely high volume areas that are predictable where subways and trains make the most sense and the TRANSFER between methods. You don't need a local station anymore - bus stops can be figured by how many people need to meet up with the taxis and seamlessly TRANSFER. As long as you combine all 3 methods of transportation and automate the group you can save a lot by shifting the whole system to meet demand at the minimum cost. Everybody putting in their destinations into a smart phone with wireless pay/transfer means you just follow directions when to get on/off the auto along with any GPS you may need when outside the system... could even tie it into walking and bikes so the bus adjusts it's route to make it easier to catch you rather than you missing your stop.

This is the 1st time I've heard of a public school teaching something practical in government. Most American's don't know what the 3 branches are, what the 4th estate is, or even bothered to vote. Not voting led to the arguments against it becoming stronger.

Not volunteering for police is EXACTLY what the ACLU should be teaching kids before they find out the hard way that real world police only care about the statistics used to measure their job performance. They can't waste time doing real work because they get punished for having low performance stats; they have to give you tickets over stupid shit because otherwise management thinks they are sleeping in their squad cars. Plus YOU the public vote for officials who tout empty stats like arrest numbers going up and crime going down .... NYC gained nothing from stop and frisk, the lower crime rate was national and the higher arrests were for stupid shit. The higher abuse, murder, etc didn't harm politicians because everybody thinks "that isn't going to happen to me" and "the victims probably deserved it."

Benjamin Franklin's speech that ended the constitutional convention is often cut short but you will like it. He basically says all democracies fall to despotism and lets end the debate because what we have is good enough for now.

I don't have much faith that if Americans had to read some history that they are capable of learning from history enough to prevent it from repeating. Look at Vietnam and how easily Iraq happened despite a couple generations living thru that history.

The fall of Rome probably has many parallels given it took 100s of years to collapse while the USA is going to do it in less than 100. As far as functional democracy, that already is gone. Widespread success increases the rate of downfall as the citizens shirk their duties for selfish escapism. I bet TV would have tripled speed of Rome's demise.