I also share this sentiment. Since processing this DNA costs money, to minimize the cost, police should use whatever features there that indicates an individual would be more susceptible to crime.

As another example, the number of samples of men are also probably a lot larger than women. That isn't discrimination - it is statistics.

I remember visiting a baseload gas fired plant in Rhode Island a ways back. It was brand new, and very cool. The gas turbines always running.

That is funny. In most countries gas is used as peak power supply since gas is more expensive than coal. (Gas is also often used when the grid is too small – it is faster to build one than a coal power plant).

Except for solar, I thing they all need maintenance. And even solar needs to get cleaned from dust occasionally.

Fair enough. But it is easier to maintain one generator than 1000 mounted on poles (as is the case for wind power).

The thing is, what we need most is power during the day and wind happily mostly blows during this time, since it is after all a solar effect. A baseload plant is great, but only about 1/3 of the power is needed at night.

In many countries, the peak power is reached at night (when people start cooking). Baseload is also higher than 1/3. In many countries there are industries (e.g. metallurgy) that use power 24 hours of a day. Many other industries also run in the night (because of the cheaper power).

With some good computers and weather models, they can tell whether one needs to fire up the oil/gas/coal peak load plant or not.

All of those extra plants is an additional capital expense.

Coal is a lot cheaper than gas. That is why gas generators are usually not baseload generators. Many countries (Germany) do however prefer gas since it burns cleaner than coal. But it is a lot more expensive though. Countries such as the USA, China, Australia, Russia and South Africa have huge reserves of cheap coal. For those it makes sense to use coal power plants.

But nothing compared to a nuclear power plant. Even John Kerry tried to stop a wind farm on the Cape.

A nuclear power plant has much less space – so it directly influences a lot less people. The flexibility in placing a nuclear power plant is much greater than for example wind farms, solar farms or coal power plants.

Opposition to nuclear power usually comes from ill-informed enviro-terrorists.

The largest US single wind farm "Horse Hollow Wind Energy" is 735.5MW. Which is slightly shy of 1/2 of a massive nuclear power plant.

The largest windfarm in the USA is actually Roscoe Wind Farm. You quoted the installed capacity. Because the wind does not always blow at full strength, the wind farm never runs at full capacity.

The generation of a wind farm should therefore be multiplied by a capacity factor. For wind farms, it is usually 20-40%. If we assume (the optimistic case) of a capacity factor of 40%, the wind farm is 5 times smaller than a nuclear power plant. A nuclear reactor’s lifetime is also between 40 and 60 years (two to three times longer than a wind farm). A wind turbine also has the problem of its gearbox that needs constant maintenance. A 1600MW nuclear power plant is also not massive – it is actually pretty small (when compared to a wind *farm*).

It requires no 100 mile evacuation plans and sirens, nor does it make nuclear waste... etc...

Only small parts of the country are suitable for wind generators. This means that incredible long power lines should be laid. Also, because the energy is unpredictable (because of weather patterns) you have to connect far flung regions to maintain a constant supply of electricity. This is no easy task.

Btw, wasn’t there complaints from neighbours about the Horse Hollow wind farm?

On the contrary, they are very feasible. We can convert entirely, yes entirely, to wind, water, and solar power, and we can do it in 20 years, and thereby head off further global warming. No need for coal or nuclear. But don't take my word for it. Read about it here [scientificamerican.com].

Again, it is a pipe-dream. That is one article that tries to explain this pipe dream. I urge you to look at McKay’s “Global warming without the hot air”. The numbers (and cost) for renewable energy simply doesn’t add up. The only feasible method is hydropower (in certain areas). A nuclear power plant is 1.6GW. How much power does a solar plant generate? Or a wind turbine. (Even the largest solar farms doesn’t come close to one tenth of a nuclear power plant).

Saving the environment is NOT diametrically opposite the economy, but you repeat that lie as if you halfway believe it.

Yes it is. Heavy industry requires large amounts of cheap electricity. (A good example is aluminium smelters). Energy produced by expensive and unfeasible “renewable sources” are too expensive. The result is usually that heavy industry is exported to a country with a more sensible energy policy (e.g. China).

The big lie is Obama (and other politicians’) “Creation of green jobs”. But they say that if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed.

Lots of green jobs setting up all those windmills and solar panels.

This is the broken window fallacy. Money (and therefore jobs) is removed from productive areas of the economy to “create” the green jobs. The end result is a loss of jobs.

And after, the economic good continues as manufacturing enjoys cheaper power, and it will eventually be cheaper.

There is no evidence whatsoever that renewable energy will be cheaper. Wind turbines uses technology that is almost a century old, and improvements will be doubtful. Solar power is limited by the cost of land and the amount of energy that reaches the Earth. Even if solar magically reaches 50% efficiency at no cost, the area that would be required is about 6400000 square meters to be equivalent to a nuclear power plant. That is about 640 hectares under solar panels. Oh, and it only runs while the sun shines.

If you want to use solar power or wind farms, why don’t you pay for it instead of forcing it on other people? Nothing is stopping you (and other people) from having a dual system (where you pay 10 times the amount for your electricity bill and we pay normal price). If solar and wind farms is so cost effective, **why isn’t there a single one being built without relying on government subsidies**?

We have not even started talking about how the environmentalists destroy the environment with bans on elephant culling or trade in ivory. Then there is still the issue of the hypocrites trying to ban the hunting of Mink whales (by bribing 3rd world land-locked countries). Mink whales aren’t even close to endangered (there are 700,000+ of them).

And then there is also the question of enviro-terrorists-hypocrites attacking nuclear power plants and disrupting industry.

AFAIK Chevron-Texaco is also pretty good.

There were two main reasons why we developed that particular piece of technology. The first was that both communists (USSR) and the liberals in the west hated us and wanted us destroyed. The second reason was that we have plenty of cheap low grade coal.

(We rather did the research than attack Middle Eastern countries).

We have a radical fringe, just like the Dems and the Repubs.

The radical fringe of the environmentalists composes 80% of the environmentalists. I deeply care for the environment, but it seems like no-one sensible is allowed to call themselves an environmentalist.

More of us are interested in coal being a problem than nuclear plants.

Now you are. The hot topic/semi-religion now in environmentalism is “global warming”. 20 years ago it was nuclear power. The arguments against nuclear power were mostly scare tactics and fallacies of reasoning. The environmental movement (to me at least) lost all credibility after that.

At least the founder of Greenpeace (Patric Moore - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html ) had the intellectual honesty to admit that he and the organisation was completely wrong about nuclear power.

The problem with nuclear plants are that they don't behave well, and leave nasty poo that doesn't become safe for about 300,000 years. Look it up.

Firstly, coal powerplants spew nasty radioactive waste directly into the atmosphere (on the same order of magnitude as nuclear power plants). Oh, and they spew a lot of other nasty shit in the atmosphere too. This causes a lot of unseen health problems (cancer, lung disease). Millions of people die each year because of the effects of coal power stations (and more than 5000 in coal mining accidents alone).

Secondly, you may never have heard of reprocessing of nuclear fuel or fast breeding reactors. With any of these steps the amount of nuclear waste left is minute, and its half-life is about two centuries. But no, they would rather prefer acid rain and global warming.

Unfortunately it seems as if environmentalists want to destroy the economy in addition to the environment with their coal power plants and unfeasible and extremely expensive “renewable energy” pipedreams. Neither wind nor solar are feasible. Their bio-fuel (ethanol from maize or sugercane) pipe dream destroys the environment at such a rate. But they would rather we chop down rainforest to plant sugarcane than to use oil.

That said, you can scrub anything. It depends on how much it costs as to whether it's practical. Coal burning plants are difficult to scrub.

Carbon-Dioxide recapturing in coal power stations is also something of a pipe dream. I suspect that they are only doing it to try and get money from the government.

Oh, yeah. Why do they hate GM foods? Would they rather see people starve? Nobody forces them to eat GM foods. GM maize may just lessen the wholescale environmental destruction that their bio-fuel pipe dreams create.

--- Sorry for the harsh tone, but environmentalists is really one group that (for me at least) is one of the most harmful hate groups of modern society.

The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage.

A much bigger cause of Carbon Dioxide, Sulphur Dioxide, particulate pollution and other nasties is coal burning in power generation.

But that sure didn't bother environmentalists when they ensured that no-one built nuclear power plants. Now they are moaning about global warming caused by the carbon dioxide in their coal power plants. And their preferred solution (wind generation and solar panels) are a pipe dream (that is a consequence of those hippies smoking too much pot).

Environmentalists is the reason why we can't have nice things.

In my country, pre-existing conditions just mean that you can't claim anything for 12 months after joining.

So, I guess, welcome to the 20th century!

This is really stupid. This means that you can sign up for a cheap health-care plan, and as soon as you have a chronic illness, you sign up for an expensive one. Isn't this completely stupid? This means that those who joined the plan while they are still healthy have to pay for those who joined because they are sick.

I'm anti abortionist, yet even I know that abortionists actually reason that it is before the brain develops that should be allowed. If you want to be treated fairly, treat people fairly. Most people would recognise that without a brain the fetus is not viable.

Viability is actually defined as the capability of a baby to live outside its mother. It has nothing to do with brain development. Abortion is usually legal until 22-26 weeks (there have been premies born before 22 weeks who survived, but the survival rate is low).

The biggest killer of babies born prematurely (and the reason they struggle to survive at 20 weeks) is the development of their lungs (they thus have severe difficulty to breathe).

A fetus is nothing special. Because a human is nothing special. It is very arrogant to think that we're oh-so-special. We're not. Life in itself is nothing special.

I see human life as special. This may be because I am human and therefore extremely subjective.

I am sure that when an alien race lands on earth they will be a lot more objective than us.

This paper:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/252560-overview

states: Fetal indications for abortion

... The most common fetal anomalies encountered in abortion counseling include most **fetal cardiac anomalies**; trisomy 21; open and closed neural tube defects; limb, face, or cleft abnormalities; esophageal

It is funny that your post is modded as insightful. I think you and I both know what this technology will be used for.

This is just a screening process. So foetuses that will have any sign of cardiovascular abnormalities will be aborted. It will become just another in a round of tests that determine if a foetus will be aborted or get to live.

Yet somehow you pre-emptively blame people who are opposed to abortion (because you imagine that it is they who will use this technology).

You would think there would be at least one well know case in the wild by now of a linux virus spreading to other linux machines in a sustained and ongoing manner.

Have you ever thought about how viruses spread? A lot of Windows users get viruses or adware by downloading a program from a website (e.g. P2P programs, games, etc...). Most Linux users get their software via official repositories - which removes that method in which viruses spread. When last did you download a Cracked Copy of a Linux game of software package?

I notice you didn't sufficiently motivate your government to stop the US government from invading Iraq, yet you talk as if you think you're not just as responsible as I am for what happened.

I am an ethnic minority who can’t even stop the government from destroying my language and culture.

I don't have a cartoon episode to reference to help illustrate my point though, so I suppose that might not be quite up to your standards.

I made the point in a light-hearted fashion (although it is still a valid point IMHO).

Let me rephrase my point – only in modern (industrial times) such a great amount of people died in wars. The reason for that is diverse – the population is higher, better technology exists and wars became more globalised (Before industrialization it was difficult to have “World Wars” since a large section of the world wasn’t even discovered).

In the middle Ages wars were limited to the armies that the ruling elite could raise – and therefore they weren’t as big and as vicious. This changed in a large part with Napoleon who raised extremely large armies by conscription.

In any case, the economy globalized to such an extent and with the introduction with nuclear warfare, wars between major powers became extremely rare. In the past half century major powers just fought proxy wars against each other.

But that doesn’t mean that we have become more moral – I personally think that we have become less moral. We have fewer wars because of economic and other factors – not because of a change of heart.



About the cartoon episode – I think that it proves a point. The USA lacks a collective guilt over its foreign policy. I am not saying this is a bad thing. Citizens of other countries and groups do however have a collective guilt (or expected to have) over things that they had no direct influence in (e.g. Germany in WW2). This is clearly not a good thing.

A lot of us were opposed to the Iraq war.

That is what I like about the USA. They can go to war and still not be responsible for it. It is exactly like this South Park: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_a_Little_Bit_Country

No. 620,000 [answers.com] people died in the american civil war, over 60 million people [wikipedia.org] died in world war 2.

I am talking about a long long time ago.

I suppose you might count WWII as a modern war, which would be fair. But the people who believe the world is in moral decline say it started around the '60s, not before WWII.

You are also conflating morality with the number of people that dies in wars. There are a lot of other reasons why less people dies in war (nuclear weapons, a globalised economy, etc). That doesn’t mean that the world is more moral.