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It's the only current launch system that can take some satellites down.
Actually I believe the Air Force's X-43 is slated to have some capacity in this regard.
And more importantly, it would mean end of religions, unless we want to fool ourselves now on new, grandiose scale.
How do you figure? I don't recall any religions based on the tenant that arsenic-based life is impossible. Even the Catholic Church's official position on sentient alien life is that there's no reason it can't exist. It just introduces a bunch of largely philosophical questions about whether Jesus's sacrifice was just for us or for all sentient life and whether we have to start proselytizing. Read C.S. Lewis's space trilogy if you want a Christian perspective on alien life.
This is why I would love to see the government sue people who grossly underbid contracts.
Governments typically ask companies to bid on things that may or may not be possible, then force them to put a price on it. Now you want them to be sued as well?
I can believe that companies keep using the same methodologies to make these bids, but don't understand why the government doesn't turn a wary eye to these predictions and multiply the given amount based on historical data. Then again, if nothing like this has ever been attempted it's hard to rely on historical data. No two projects will be over cost and over budget in the same way.
I don't know where you buy your CFLs from, but the ones I have come on like any normal incandescent light build does.
I guess you either live somewhere that's warm all the year round or you heat your rooms 24 hours a day. In winter mornings my room temperature is about 5 degrees C and it takes a minute for the CFLs to reach normal brightness. My wife insists that we keep the stairway light on all night so that the stairs are well lit, so I am not exactly sure we save any energy.
Cripes man! It's 5C in your house and the LIGHT is too slow for you? It'll take an hour to heat that space up.
I haven't had any trouble with the Sylvania Instant-On bulbs - get them in 2700K 'temperature' and they're just like incandescents. Then again, I live in Florida and it doesn't usually get that cold here.
Otherwise, it's the same 'I've got mine so screw you' attitude that the greedy owners are taking.
Unless you're self-employed, if it wasn't for those "greedy owners", you'd be begging on the streets. That's why the anti-business mentality is so idiotic - without businesses the majority of people would be unemployed.
I agree with you entirely, but we must remember that when unions feel the need to organize to fight for something it's usually because whoever is running the business is being a bit too greedy. It doesn't apply to all businesses.
That being said, I am working towards setting up my own business and although I consider myself an enlightened person I find myself thinking very greedily. The whole purpose of setting up a business for me is 1) follow my passions and 2) get really really rich while doing it. The prospects for getting really really rich by just being a worker for 30 years are nil, even if you're an engineer, thus my reason for going into business.
I do want to do things like institute rules that are equitable, such as 'No employee may make more than 5x what the lowest paid employee makes.' But then a little voice inside of me says 'To hell with that, I want a million dollar salary and I'm not paying my plebes 200K a year! They don't deserve it! How complicated are their jobs!? *I* DESERVE IT DAMNIT! I TOOK THE RISK OF STARING MY OWN BUSINESS BLAH BLAH BLAH...'
The truth of the matter is, business owners/runners are not of an entirely different breed than workers. Most small business/entrepreneurs are people who don't see themselves as taking a risk - they know their target market/product well enough to realize their chances. And most of them don't use their own money to finance their business - they sell stock, borrow from banks, etc. And since their business is a corporation they just get to shut down when things get bad and creditors get 50 cents on the dollar if they're lucky. Then they can start a new business. The workers carry the same amount of risk as the owner for the most part. The only real risk to the owner is legal/civil proceedings. And the answer to that is - don't be a scumbag and you get a lot safer.
Of course, if most businesses could handle NOT being scumbags there'd be much less call for unions....
Just remove the monetary incentive. Fines are a stupid idea for a punishment even in a capitalist system.
Perhaps the system could be fixed significantly if the money from the ticket didn't go immediately back to the town in which the ticket was written, instead perhaps being given to the state and channeled equitably to the various towns and areas with police forces.
Those health insurance and retirement benefits won by the union?
So.. in your estimation unions shouldn't be fighting for the betterment of all workers, rather, good treatment is a benefit for those who pay for it.
I'd rather have real good guys in the fight for me - someone who fights for the better treatment of all workers, not just their friends. Otherwise, it's the same 'I've got mine so screw you' attitude that the greedy owners are taking.
Excuse me, but aren't those things criminal? It looks like you're confusing unions with the mob.
It is, sadly, a close thing in some places/lines of work. Try garbage pickup in New York city. I've heard of businesses whose employees were required to take home a bag of garbage every week because the contracted garbage company didn't pick up the garbage. Of course, it was either required legally or 'in your best interest' (for whatever reason, be it intact kneecaps or doing it allowed you to deal with other unionized labor you needed) to choose this company to be your garbage collector. No matter what they did or didn't do, you have to keep them on. And it happened to have unionized labor.
There are such things as good unions. The handle contract negotiations for their members (where I live they apply equally to non-members, who tend to be quite happy about that). And when they call for a strike, I think they even reimburse non-members for their lost income (non-members will have to chose whether they join the strike and lose income, or go to work and sit there on their own). Good unions do not demand any kind of exclusivity, and personally I think any kind of exclusivity contract needs to be illegal. (Unfortunately it rarely it.)
This is very true, and I wish it was more prevalent. Sadly, when a lot of money is concentrated in any one place, even
Vote anarchist.