The trick to the Betteridge law is that when a journalist writes a headline as a question, the question is suggesting what most people find improbable; and the improbable rarely happens.

There's some of that. But that's more about choice of subject matter. A journalist ALWAYS needs to write something that is SOMEHOW different from what the reader believes. (If he's just reinforcing what the reader believes, why should a reader bother reading his output?)

The real trick that leads to qusetion-headlines (that are almost always implying something that's wrong) is different.

When a journalist writes a juicy headline as a question, it's because he couldn't find evidence to support the conjecture, but wants to run it anyway.

Usually this is because he guessed wrong. The deadline is approaching, he's got to publish SOMETHING to stay employed, and he just wasted a bunch of time researching something that didn't pan out. Oops! So he runs his orignnal conjecture and the workup he did on it before finding out that it was either wrong (usual) or maybe right but couldn't be supported in the time available (rarely). He just phrases the headline as a speculation rather than an assertion.

That way his credibility isn't wrecked for the future, he gets to publish something, it's interesting and plausible (even though probably totally bogus), and in those rare cases where it WAS right he's scooped his competitors. However it comes out it's a win for the journalist - though it's a bunch of noise for the readers.

No, it is not. Expecting an antenna to be useful without power is absurd

No, it does not. Solar is proven technology. And when a rocket fails to make it to space and explodes, it doesn't spread Plutonium all over Florida.

When will the nuke-nutters stop trying to bankrupt economies with nonsensical dreams of nuclear power being a panacea, when it is the most expensive power source that humans have ever conceived and accordingly has never been even remotely economically viable?

I don't see what the problem is. Its isn't brain surgery.

That's just great, right in the middle of the game. If this messes with the broadcast, they're gonna have some pissed off sports fans that day I can tell you.

I think the more offensive uses of it was recently depicted in the movie "Kill the Messenger:" alleged drug dealer is arrested, and all his possessions, including his house, is confiscated; prosecution fails to convict drug dealer, yet the forfeiture is never returned. In this instance we have the benefit of knowing they were not innocent, so we don't care as much. Except that innocent, truly innocent people are tried and some are convicted and some acquitted, and their property is forfeit and never returned. The problem is not that shady people are getting shafted, the problem is that people found not guilty never see their property again if it was forfeit. This is sort of in line with going against Blackstone's ratio.

Considering even today, only about 13% of power globally is nuclear generated, and it is not clear we will still be generating nuclear fission power in 100 years, or any more than we are now, I agree. Though its easy to trace the bombs' effects in the future, the incandescent light bulb had a far greater impact on society and the population explosion, and industrialization of that time had greater impact on the environment.

Then again, an argument could be made that the fulcrum for the advancement of our species occured with the invention/introduction of true perspective in art, which isn't even technology.

Its epistemology. Plato never heard of post-modernism. What you perceive is not truth! Perception only creates belief, which is not truth, yet belief is one truth-bearer. You may need to take an intro to philosophy course before you can understand the nature of truth.

Sounds to me like a quantum monkey-at-a-typewriter.

NO. You really need to learn what a strawman argument is.

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL

no subsidies, no taxes

ABSOLUTE FACT:

Nuclear power is the most expensive way the human race has ever employed to create electricity.

Its great for submarines, and making fuel for bombs, but in commerce, its a dog. Every single other way to manufacture energy is less expensive, given equal development. Yes, even solar. Had 1/10th the resouces been poured into solar energy development, solar would have been at parity with the cost of generating energy with fossil fuels by the early 70's. As it is, we may have to way another 5 years for that to finally happen.

What makes it true is economics.

A May 2008 study by the Congressional Budget Office concludes that a carbon tax of $45 per tonne of carbon dioxide would probably make nuclear power cost competitive against conventional fossil fuel for electricity generation

Nuclear power is a dog and always has been. What made it so attractive was the need for fuel for nuclear bombs, not the economics of building and safely operating a plant, nor the cost of the power it produces.

Get your head out of your ass. MONEY is what makes nuclear power crap, on the basis of economics alone, it will never compete with alternative power, and that is especially true today when all alternatives are being developed independently, instead of one single massive and massively expensive development by a government with nearly unlimited resources. Without big government money, nuclear power could never have been developed in the first place. Without big government money, you cannot build a nuclear power plant. Not one nuclear power plant in the entire world was ever built that didn't go at least 50% over estimated cost, and thats dozens of millions of dollars

per plant. It doesn't make good economic sense. It never will.

The third paragraph should begin:

Low voter turnout is not a problem.

And that last should be:

Conversely, if you would fight you should vote. Withholding your vote in such a circumstance also makes the election less convincing, increasing the destabilization of the government. An election boycott is a vote for genuine war.

No vote is better than an ill-informed / non-informed vote.

Ya know, I'm not so sure about that. The whole premise of democracy is that we are, collectively, smarter than any of us individually.

Democratic and Repubican forms of government are NOT based on such a premise.

The entire point of such forms is to avoid civil war. They do this by modelling the war - well enough that the faction that loses the election is convinced that, if they try to reverse the result by force of arms, they will lose that, too.

Low voter turnout is . If people don't care enough about an issue to fight for one side or the other, (let alone not caring enough to even examine the sides), not voting for a side picked randomly, or on the basis of name recognition or the like, does no harm.

Voting in such a circumstance may cause a lot of harm. Just like visibly corrupt elections, a visibly frivolous electorate reduces the ability of the election to convince the losers they've really lost. Further, it gives them the idea that they were cheated out of what they "deserved" and could win - giving them an opportunity to start a war AND claim the moral high ground in doing so.

Conversely, not voting when you would fight is a vo

... electronic systems that let people track their own votes can be used by others to track those votes.

The real point, and why it's illegal (in many jurisdictions) to show you how your vote was counted:

If you can prove to yourself your vote was counted for candidate Foo, you can prove to candidate Foo's campaign machine that your vote was counted for Foo, and collect the vote-buying money or other rewards. (Also: Strong-arm operations, like crooked unions, organized crime, and/or political machines, could get you to divulge your vote with various threats.)

But maybe it is time to ditch the secret ballot... at least for some things.

Absolutely not. The point of voting being secret is to keep people from intimidating voters into voting for someone other than their personal choice.

Your argument is fallacious. The inherent danger of or the damage to the environment of any other power source does not in any way make nuclear more attractive, which has the potential to be far more deadly. We make it safe by making it even more expensive. And you're flat out wrong: Nuclear power is inherently more expensive than other sources of power, and always has been.

I think you mean President Carter, the nuclear engineer.

But your strawman (danger) is irrelevant. Nuclear Power fails because of cost, because there is no more expensive way to produce power, not because of how dangerous the waste is once its forgotten about in 200 years.