New Mars Forums

That's a pity, because New Orleans is going to need all the donations it can get.  Cobra Commander could still contribute other materials and supplies (besides ammunition) to the effort, however. 

Well, the small picture is that it could be abandoned 50 days from now.  Know any place we can put 1.5 million refugees?

I think that about says it.   :cry:

Yes.  Depleting oil reserves is a bad idea right now.  However...

I suspect that Kenneth Deffeyes is correct.  We are near the point of peak oil production, which means we are at the cusp between a buyers market and a sellers market for oil.  In the world oil market's current economic regime, queing (when you order, where it comes from, and how fast it's shipped) has more effect on price than the interplay of supply vs. demand.  We are now in a worldwide version of "the Market Game", as described in Chaotic Dynamics textbooks.  In that case, a stable source (like the strategic oil reserve) can stabilize prices more than any increase in supply. 

Hurricane Katrina has just halted about a third of US oil shipping for the next month.  If the strategic oil reserve can make up that difference for one month without depleting it, then maybe it should be used to do so.  That one month might keep US gasoline prices under $6/gallon for another year.

However, SpaceNut, I fear that extending that intervention over an entire season might rob us of the ability to do it again.  We should not do that.

If your heating bill gets too terrible, you could consider coming to live in New Orleans.  I hear they'll have lots of room... well, space, anyway.   

LOL!      He's sure got a funny way of showing it!

I have another scenario for the future of Iraq:

The Iraqi constitution passes because it serves and is supported by the two largest cultural groups in the country.  It's infamous "succession clause" turns out to be functionally meaningless, and the kurdish states - already the most economically stable and sitting on a fine oil reserve - become the economic powerhouse of the country.  The shiites play along because they are allowed a legal existence partly independent of secular law (courtesy of the successfully ratified constitution) and are now economically well off again for the first time since Sadaam came to power.  And the sunnis get the political leftovers, because they refused to come to the table when constitutional concessions were being served.

The shiites and kurds come out of it with a country, and the sunnis come out too weak to do anything about it. 

Sunni led terrorism in Iraq continues, but so does Iraq. 

It wouldn't be perfect, but it wouldn't be part of Turkey or Iran, either.

Katrina has weakened to Category 4 at landfall.  New Orleans is still screwed, though.  That city is already getting hurricane force winds, and the closest approach isn't for hours.

Outcoming footage showed flashes of light in their stormy skies.  It wasn't lighting; it was transformers.  The south side of New Orleans is already in the dark, and the rest will be soon.

The worst case scenario is 1 million people homeless by this time tomorrow.  (Florida had worse last year, but it took all year to do it.)  I really feel for those people who couldn't get out of New Orleans, or worse, are now stuck on the coast.

Katrina is now a category 5 storm, the fourth largest ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin.  It is projected to make landfall just south of New Orleans tomorrow morning.  Its projected storm surge is 20ft, with 40ft waves on top of that. 

Like Amsterdam, New Orleans is largely below sea level.  It is protected by an extensive system of levees (dikes), but these can only stop a flood 13 ft high, not 20. 

Every major road to New Orleans has been blocked off by the state police and converted to a one way street leading out.  They are evacuating the city before Katrina turns it into an extension of Lake Ponchartrain.

I've seen this before, I'm afraid.

Apparently being a literalist fundamentalist creationist makes people less likely to reproduce with members of the general population, creating a distinct sexual selection tendency toward people of their own kind. 

We could be seeing the development of a new subspecies.   :shock: ( )

*shrug*  Of the US states that were formerly independent nations and absorbed into the United States of America by treaty, Texas was allowed a clause permitting it to back out of the deal and become an independent nation again.  (It wasn't honored when push came to shove, but it was there.)

There is precedent for this, and it doesn't create any more (or less) danger of an independent Kurdistan than there was before a constitution was ratified.  That token assuagement could keep Iraq together.

And, well, the Kurds and Shiites can steamroll over the Sunni representatives if they get together.  Most of the current Sunni representation in Iraq is by the good graces of the interim government.

Down here, our governor and legislature were publicly praising of the state gasoline tax last year.  It kept the state's coffers full, bringing in fondly greeted revenue for yet another state budget surplus.  We officially adore higher gas prices here in the great state of Louisiana.

After that announcement, the governor ran back to the capital in an effort to get the legislature to promote liquid methane terminals, solar power, hybrid vehicles, fluidized bed coal furnaces, carpooling, kids on ergonometers and any other gasoline conservation measure she could think of as fast as she could think of it. 

Somehow, I don't think the folks over at the capital are expecting the gas tax windfall to last...

Hmm... Sheets of kevlar are already heat sealed onto sheets of PET for balloon gores.  I see no reason this material couldn't be used instead of kevlar.  This stuff could produce balloon fabric of the same strength at a fraction of the weight and thickness.

Cool!   8)

Yes, it is. 

However, I take your point about the dangers of giving bureaucracy free reign.

The mere existence of a bureaucracy within a republic does not cancel out its status as a republic any more than does the existence of a military with a strict chain of command.  However, a bureaucracy allowed to act unchecked by any other branch of government can cause a nation to cease functioning as a republic, just as a military coup can.  Once the decisions of all other component oligarchies cease to matter, a nation is no longer operating as a republic.

Government bureaucracies should have checks and balances just like parliaments and courts do.  Otherwise, they become a liability to the republic.

Sorry, you lost me at "logic of law."   

Seriously, though, a functional system of law is no more perfectly egalitarian than a functional republic is.  As an institution, Law exists primarily to maintain social order.  It serves other purposes from time to time, but has no higher priority.  Equal application is an afterthought.

There seems to be an opinion floating around among non-religious people that religious people don't generally accept the fundamental claim of the evolution of species.  I'd previously thought that charming opinion was limited only to fundamentalists.  What an odd similarity between the two...

We clearly have a common ancestor with present day apes.  Seventy percent of named species are parasites.  The binding energy necessary to assemble complex organic molecules from scratch is also enough energy to completely denature them.  We already have the power to control our own evolution (though Cobra's dreams of godhood might be slightly exaggerated).  Evolution hasn't stopped.  And I'm a religious person.  These are all consistent statements.