Balance of Trade Improvement ??

I'm sure it made the air cleaner. It was noticeably cleaner by the early '70's.

Sno-o-o-ort ;-)

...Jim Thompson

But not nearly enough:

But again, nature is fixing that problem. The weak Dollar is making our exports more attractive, and making imports more expensive.

This is a good discussion, and I think it should continue, but it is way off-topic here and perhaps we should move it elsewhere.

Yes, I'm a bit (tiny bit!) radical on population... My utopian society is about the smallest that anyone would ever consider.

I don't think it is a case of "we can make it work" but a case of "If we control our population, then some of the problems we have today will cease to be problems".

You see a happy future, I'm a bit more pessimistic however.

You should be more concerned about the population of Africa. What are you doing about that ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

Only fairies and leftist weenies believe in utopia and man-caused global warming ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Jim is reliably gaga. Only lunatics believe in utopia. Quite a few sensible people of most political persuasions believe that human- caused global warming is real - there is evidence is that it started when agriculture got underway, a few thousand years ago, and stopped the next ice age in its tracks.

The chain of evidence for this argument is a little too long for most right-wing nitwits to follow, so by and large they don't believe in anthropogenic global warming, but then again they do believe in a utopia - the way they thought the world was when they were growing up

- and they seem dedicated to putting the clock back to those happy (if deluded) years.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Treating people like cattle only seems 'better' to those who fancy themselves cattle barons.

That's pretty amazing -- insulation and double-pane windows don't seem to be very en vogue in the US yet. Add to that the fact the considerable building surface area per inhabitant (single houses vs. apartment buildings) and do the math.

In Germany they're now introducing a mandatory "energy passport" for homes which states the heating energy consumption. A good idea in general, but, as usual, it has been ground to a pulp in the fight between rivaling lobby organizations. Now it a bureaucratic monster of little practical value, but at least a step in the right direction, especially in view of exploding energy costs.

robert

The neocons definitely believe in Utopia - they believe that if they can force everyone on the planet to do what the neocons tell them to do, and _only_ what the neocons tell them to do, then the neocons will have achieved the neocons' version of Utopia.

Cheers! Rich

The pro-"life"rs believe that women are cattle. In their twisted little version of reality, if a woman becomes pregnant, she no longer has any rights - only the fetus has rights.

Gawd, I hate pro-lifers. >:-[

Thanks. Rich

It might be a utopia for neocons, but utopias are normally understood to be places where poverty and misery (amongst other social evils) have been eliminated

while neocons seem to believe that poverty and misery are necessary spurs to to the lower orders to keep them working for noecon employers at economically realistic (aka starvation) wages.

The noecon aversion to effective trade unions is another aspect of the same mind-set.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Here in San Francisco, double-glass windows and skylights, serious insulation, and efficient space and water heaters are mandatory, and most of the houses are in side-to-side contact. And nobody that I know has residential air-conditioning. We have larger than average 3-level house, and our gas+electric bill averages about $120 a month.

John

So you think child endangerment laws should also be repealed?

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

No, of course not!

Once it's out, it's been "born", and is therefore entitled to citizenship rights (namely, all of them), which is delineated in amendment 14.

But a fetus is not a person. The person who is gestating it is. And also, she is its owner, just as you are the owner of your own body and all of its contents. This isn't explicitly spelled out in the Constitution, but it's one of those that _should_ be self-evident, to anyone who has more than two neurons to rub together.

Hope This Helps! Rich

Of course it will be. All they need to do is purge all of the poor and miserable people. Poof - Utopia!

Shudder!

Unfortunately, the Socialists seem to believe in mandating equality by making any individual differences illegal.

Feh.

Bottom line, they're both statists, who are enemies of Freedom.

The only thing standing in the way of worldwide peace and prosperity is too much government. WAY, WAY too much government.

Thanks, Rich

insulation

The "new" house we are in (~14 years now) is about the same size as our previous house (3650 sq.ft.) but subsists on roughly half the energy due to MUCH better insulation AND double-pane (and coated) windows throughout.

But we average about $300/month energy cost... it's so warm in Arizona you don't want to move here... stay away... stay away ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Don't be silly. If they did that, who would clean their houses, do their washing and so forth.

You have the same distorted ideas about socialism as John Larkin, probably because you both get them from the US mass media, whose owners don't seem to fancy this particular political philosophy.

Modern socialists believe in equality of opportunity. Once you've got your opportunity, you can do what you like with it. There was a period when socialist governments in the U.K. and Scandanavia did go in for consfiscatory income tax levels on very high incomes, but they gave up on that some twenty or thirty years ago.

In practice, hardly anybody paid tax at the highest rates because it was worth their while to pay skilled accountants and tax consultants to reorganise their income in ways that avoided the high rates of tax, which meant that the highest rates didn't collect very much money.

In the U.K. the highest rate of income tax is 40% and that only on income above 34,600 pounds per year ($68,612 at the current rate of exchange).

Rubbish.

Your idea of worldwide peace and prosperity is kind of strange - in practice "no government" really means government by the local criminal gangs. The "protection racket" theory of government says that the government is just the biggest protection racket in town, but even so, getting rid of the biggest protection racket in town just means that whoever was previously number two in the pecking order just takes their place.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

The "micro loans" look like a promising place to "invest" in the world too. Unfortunately, many countries don't have the minimum freedoms/rights needed for such things to work.

insulation

Where do you get your "information"? While not being required, double-glazed windows were normal when I was a kid.

Shouldn't the buyers of those homes care a bit about their energy costs? Aren't they the ones with the incentive to improve things? Should government be mandating silliness (like the &$(#@#$#$ flushless toilets)?