GREGLONDON,

We're talking two different things here: panels on buildings and massive reflectors in the desert. Individual property owner issue versus infrastructure issue.

@85 Antinous

Currently, solar panels are generally not cost-effective even with 75% government subsidies. The other major problem with solar is the state of the silicon commodities market. A big increase in the demand of solar panels could drive up prices enormously, making them increasingly less cost-effective (not to mention the effect on microprocessors). The economics simply don't work, and it isn't because of evil building owners.

This is precisely the plot of Stephen Baxter's novel Manifold Time. Very interesting read.

Whether or not we are causing global warming is irrelevant. All that matters is to what extent we can and should attempt to change it. Right now all of our measures are wastes of money. The entire green campaign is largely just corporate marketing. I'm tired of the holier-than-thou attitude from people driving Priuses, who I actually blame for the real crime that is being committed. Conservation without innovation is essentially procrastination. Replace every American's car with a Prius and all we've done is push back the problem less than 10 years and waste massive amounts of money that could have been spent on real solutions. While we in the West operate more inefficiently (a.k.a. green), China, India, et al. don't, and all we do is economically handicap ourselves.

The problem is the quality of the data and analytic techniques, not the quantity. Bigger, faster computers won't help sift through garbage. People who collect data rarely give sufficient thought to how it will be used.

@9: Your view on profiling sounds made-up to me. Reviewing the published literature on the subject shows that broad use (e.g., traffic stops) may not be effective. However, I see no evidence that it is ineffective for highly specific use. This information is extremely helpful when used to predict behavior in all kinds of areas: consumer behavior, health behavior, etc. So the idea that it is helpful in predicting criminal behavior is not unreasonable. Whether those with the data have the capability to use it effectively is an entirely separate issue (and where the true concern should be).

I will pay a full dollar for this book. Cash money. Right now. But only if it is still sealed. I don't want to mind-enslaving goodness all dried up.

Whenever I see large, filled bookshelves in someone's house, I love to scan through them to see what jumps out. At my house, my libraria (too small to be a library, so it's a library area or libraria) is almost always a conversation-starter. People love to identify which books you have in common, and that gets you talking about books in general--one of my favorite topics.

Besides my principle-based disgust for this decor-only use, I have an even bigger practical issue: you look like a moron when people examine your phony library, which they will certainly do.

I think some of you are missing what is most impressive about this. Whether she's perfect or not on any given accent is besides the point. Switching between them like that is exceptionally difficult.

I'm very good with accents myself, but one thing I simply can't do is switch between relatively close accents without taking a while to purge the previous one from memory. Try it. They all get mangled and mashed together.

Hardy Heron > Vista

Ninja Warrior > American Gladiators

That is all I have to say.

@dbot
I wonder if you are concerned that he doesn't seem to understand the capital gains tax.

I'm not sure that he fails to understand them. He simply doesn't seem to care about the real impact of his policies beyond simply what sounds good from an ideological viewpoint. It's pretty clear that he would raise capital gains taxes out of "fairness" even at the expense of lower revenues and a worse performing economy. That's scary.

@kevink
I think we got a ourselves another handful of losers again.

Amen, brother. The Republicans are untrustworthy and controlled my religion. The Democrats have a nonsensical platform.

On Topic:
I hear that the Dallas, TX, version of this book will have the subtitle: "Now Momma Will Look Good for the Rapture."

Slightly Off-Topic:
I go back and forth on what I think is the single worst invention of western society: breast implants or ready-made greeting cards. The former warped the way we look at ourselves and others, making us feel that variations from a plastic doll standard are necessarily bad. The latter killed almost all reason to communicate formally with real emotion.

@pahool

There have been many suicide bombings in both Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years which are largely against military targets. [...] I think if you are going to make an assertion like you've made, you need to back it up with facts.

Largely against military targets? Nope. From the Independent:

"Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 13,000 men, women and children – our most conservative estimate gives a total figure of 13,132 – and wounded a minimum of 16,112 people. If we include the dead and wounded in the mass stampede at the Baghdad Tigris river bridge in the summer of 2005 – caused by fear of suicide bombers – the figures rise to 14,132 and 16,612 respectively."

Total coalition military deaths are a small fraction of this total. The targets are largely civilians.

@pahool

What's interesting to me is that "suicide bombing" which is a tactic, has become culturally synonymous with "terrorist attack targeting civilians."

The most common examples in the last twenty years, by a wide margin, have been Palestinians targeting civilians in crowded areas seeking to maximize loss of life. Like it or not, that connotation is largely accurate.

@Marja
However, the news doesn't distinguish between suicide bombings by uniformed soldiers/militia against military targets and suicide bombings by non-uniformed personnel against civilian targets.

When was the last time you saw a suicide bombing by uniformed soldiers? What are you talking about?

@antinous

Says you. I would have thought that our ability to cooperate defined our evolutionary successes, such as the development of complex language.

The process of evolution is competition--between individuals, societies, and species. Why do we cooperate? What do we use language for? Prehistoric man did nothing out of desire to achieve self-actualization. He did it to get the most healthy mate and the best food source, in direct competition with his fellow man. Like it or not, the ones who weren't easily satisfied, who always wanted more, were the ones who procreated more successfully. We are defined more by our competitive nature than any other thing. All else is a result.

@flamingphonebook

This is why I am such an ardent capitalist/libertarian: because if you want to form a ParEcon subsystem within a capitalistic system with willing participants, you can. But under no system will you be allowed to form a capitalistic subsystem. That tells me that capitalism is the most fair system.

Nicely put. That's a way of looking at things that I don't think I would've considered.

@CastanhasDoPara

This whole Marxist-type ideology just isn't for us humans, who, after all, have succeeded as a species due to our competitive nature. Those who aren't satisfied innovate and thrive. Even a basic understanding of game theory is enough to see why some goofy scheme like ParEcon will break down.

@NICK D

MYTH 1) "America's the only place where people are free to get as rich as they want, they just have to work hard."

I'll wait for all you millionaires out there to stop tittering before I go on.... What? You say you're not rich? Lazy moron!

No intelligent person would say that hard work alone must lead to wealth. It is typically necessary but not sufficient. A third of all millionaires in the world live in the US. In my home town of Austin, Texas, about 1 in 50 households have wealth of a million or more. In the US, you are surrounded by people who have found a way to succeed.

@PYROS

You may dislike American market-based sensibilities, but western Europe relies on adopting American practices. German economists in the journal ISPOR Connections:

Furthermore, the majority of developments in organizational or funding issues in health care finally are to some extent rooted in the US market. Topics from recent European history include disease management programs for chronic conditions, managed care or integrated health care concepts. Another example is diagnosis related group (DRG) systems for hospital services which were enacted in most European counties (like Germany) very recently. Europeans, especially German health politicians, tend to look exclusively to the US for new concepts having cost containment in the back of their head. The United States in the 80’s and 90’s undoubtedly was the laboratory for new health care concepts for the rest of the world.

We try things out that don't always work. Someone has to take on the responsibility of trying new things. Most of your "things to consider" in #5 are half-truths at best. For one, the definition of infant mortality differs substantially country by country. In the US, a baby born after only five months of gestation is likely to receive exceptionally costly heroic care. If it dies, it is considered infant mortality. In most of western Europe, the heroic care is unlikely, and it is labeled a miscarriage.