Reason Morning LInks: Hypocritical Labor Activists, House To Vote on Health Care Bill, Gates' Plan To Subdue Hurricanes

- House moves to vote on health care bill.

- Bill Gates has a plan to slow down hurricanes.

- Social Security Administration spends $700,000 to send employees to conference at a swanky Arizona hotel.

- California officials estimate that legalizing marijuana would bring in $1.4 billion in state revenue.

- Ralph Nader-founded advocacy group sued for underpaying and overworking young activists.

Comments

[SugarFree]

Hypocritical Labor Activists

Aren't there journalistic rules about redundancy in headlines?

[Cabeza de Vaca]

"Ralph Nader-founded advocacy group sued for underpaying and overworking young activists."

Karma it is a bitch.

[SugarFree]

Money quote from the Hurricane link:

"From a scientific and political standpoint, (the Gates plan) looks fanciful," Quinn says. "But the physics is real and like a lot of things, the question is whether the damage you prevent is worth the money you would spend to develop something so massive."

Silly meteorologist! We can never pause to weigh the costs and benefits when it comes to the environment! You are so not part of the consensus anymore! Get out!

[SugarFree]

Quinn isn't a meteorologist. I read the attribution wrong. I'll be in my shame corner.

[Ben Kenobi]

Didn't the House already vote on the health care bill?

Oh yeah, that was the climate change bill. I'm getting my massive, evil, ill conceived, ineffective bills mixed up.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

"The patents describe a system for strategically placing turbine-equipped barges in the path of storms to chill sea surfaces with cold water pumped from the depths."

Even if this would work I think this would kill lots of fish. Enviromentalists aren't going to let this happen.

[Kevin]

Great to see the word "swanky" come up. We should use it more often.

[SugarFree]

Cabeza de Vaca,

You're missing the hidden benefits: Fish get sucked up, shredded into chum and sprayed on the surface of the water. This attracts lots of sharks. The hurricane picks up the sharks and carry them inland. Hilarity ensues.

Gates has a sick sense of humor. I like it.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

SF,

Newspaper headline.

MY HOUSE WAS HIT BY A FLYING SHARK.

[Stretchy]

3 years after the last hurricane, we are going to discover that life on earth cannot exist without them and we are all doomed. All because some a-holes in Florida don't want to pay for hurricane insurance. Thanks Florida!

[Zeb]

As unpleasant as it is when they kill lots of people and such, I would hate to see hurricanes diminished or eliminated. There is little in the world which is cooler or more impressive than a big destructive storm.

[SugarFree]

"Though she departs Thursday for India and Thailand, she is in constant pain and faces grueling physical therapy five times a day...Among the exercises: repetitively squeezing a gelatinous ball."

No comment.

[SugarFree]

MY HOUSE WAS HIT BY A FLYING SHARK.

Sky shark coverage is basic human right! How can we call this country great if you have to pay for your own shark insurance?

[John]

The second order effects of stopping hurricanes would be incalcuable. Hurricanes serve a lot of climatolical purposes. It would be a lot dryer in the Southeast if there were not hurricanes. They also break up the big summer highs that sit over the US and help to cool the country come fall. I am no meteorologist, but I think I am safe in saying hurricanes serve some pretty important functions. It would be pretty foolish to radically mess with nature like that instead of perhaps telling people they shouldn't live on the beach.

[kinnath]

The second order effects of stopping hurricanes would be incalcuable.

The solution would not stop hurricanes. It is intended to reduce wind speeds by half a category.

Knocking 20 or 30 mph off the wind can have a dramatic reduction in property damage.

I assume this would only be commercially viable for big storms on path to threaten a major metropolitan area {damage reduction versus cost to implement}.

Cooling off one or two storms out of the 15 to 20 that occur each year shouldn't have an impact on climate.

[Xeones]

repetitively squeezing a gelatinous ball

Poor Bill. I guess we all suspected, though.

[kinnath]

I do look forward to the first photo of a tree impaled by a high-speed flying shark 😉

[Gunboat Diplomacy]

Is there such a thing as a slow, flesh-eating hurricane?

[R C Dean]

I assume this would only be commercially viable for big storms on path to threaten a major metropolitan area {damage reduction versus cost to implement}.

Cooling off one or two storms out of the 15 to 20 that occur each year shouldn't have an impact on climate.

Given the unpredictability of storm tracks, I think that trying to cool off storms that threaten major metro areas would require going after a lot more than one or two a year.

[kilroy]

What kind of liability do you have if you steer the storm from say Miami to Houston? Ooops! Sorry about that. The next one is free.

[Johnny Longtorso (aka jsh)]

MY HOUSE WAS HIT BY A FLYING SHARK.

With a friking laser beam on its head.

[Guboat Diplomacy]

"What kind of liability do you have if you steer the storm from say Miami to Houston? Ooops! Sorry about that."

I wondered about that too. Even if the cooling process didn't actually redirect the hurricane at all, there will be lawyers with hired hurricane "experts" claiming that it did.

[kinnath]

I wondered about that too. Even if the cooling process didn't actually redirect the hurricane at all, there will be lawyers with hired hurricane "experts" claiming that it did.

Look at the storm tracks.

A bunch of storms turn north, then track up the east coast. If you could get those storms to turn earlier, they would never make landfall.

Storms that track into the gulf would not lend themselves to altering the track.

[Aresen]

From the Gates/hurricane link:

Five U.S. Patent and Trade Office patent applications, made public on July 9, propose slowing hurricanes by pumping cold, deep-ocean water in their paths from barges.

I can see all kinds of opportunity for unintended consequences here, beginning with what happens to the deep cold water environment. It also seems likely this would disrupt the Gulf Stream and the deep water cold currents.

And as John pointed out earlier, the second order effects of NOT having hurricanes on the land might be economically and ecologically damaging.

People who want to live on the beach but don't want to be exposed to the effects of hurricanes remind me of people who want to have Yellowstone, but clear out the dangerous bears, cougars, bison and wolves.

[Nick]

Storms that track into the gulf would not lend themselves to altering the track.

Whaddya mean? Bill Gates is an American, so it's OUR idea. Fuck Mexico.

[Gunboat Diplomacy]

" Storms that track into the gulf would not lend themselves to altering the track."

Well my attorney and his team of hurricane "experts" say they do.

See you in court.

[Ska]

MY HOUSE WAS HIT BY A FLYING SHARK.

Guys, guys, this doesn't sell newspapers.

MY HOUSE WAS [b]ATTACKED[/b] BY A FLYING SHARK

Now there's a headline. Needed a little extra fear-mongering.

[Tricky Prickears]

Ralph Nader-founded advocacy group sued for underpaying and overworking young activists.

Maybe they should have "unionized".

[Ska]

Grrr fucking tags.

[Gunboat Diplomacy]

Dem Health RX a poinon pill in NY
Terrifying 57% tax looms for biggest earners

New York's top income bracket could reach as high as 57 percent -- rates not seen in three decades -- to pay for the massive health coverage proposed by House Democrats this week.

The top rate in New York City, home to many of the state's wealthiest people, would be 58.68 percent, the Washington-based Tax Foundation said in a report yesterday.

That means New York's top earners, small-business owners and most dynamic entrepreneurs will be facing new fees and penalties.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07162009/news/regionalnews/dem_health_rx_a_poion_pill_in_ny_179525.htm

[Gunboat Diplomacy]

"Ralph Nader-founded advocacy group sued for underpaying and overworking young activists. "

Ralph Nader's sone was killed in a Corvair. Ralph has yet to emerge from the anger stage.

[Isaac Bartram]

Maybe they should have "unionized".

Tricky, from R'ing TFA:

The abrupt shuttering of its Los Angeles office after employees took steps to unionize also brought allegations of illegal union-busting from many, including Christian Miller, an L.A. employee from 2002 to 2006 who filed the suit on behalf of 12,000 canvassers and directors.

Ah, could anyone make this stuff up?

[P Brooks]

The abrupt shuttering of its Los Angeles office after employees took steps to unionize also brought allegations of illegal union-busting from many, including Christian Miller, an L.A. employee from 2002 to 2006 who filed the suit on behalf of 12,000 canvassers and directors.

Hee hee.

This is what you get for hiring eager-beaver college kids instead of bums.

[Gunboat Diplomacy]

"This is what you get for hiring eager-beaver college kids instead of bums."

Bums works for ACORN.

[J sub D]

Social Security Administration spends $700,000 to send employees to conference at a swanky Arizona hotel.

Social Security is rapidly going broke.

Costs for the conference at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa included airfare, hotel entertainment, dancers, motivational speakers, and food, an administration official said.

What would the overlords in DC have said if AIG did something like this?

To the outside observer, the 2008 Asset Management Conference held this week at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix was nothing out of the ordinary.

Conference participants, however, were notable because of the publicity they've received for their role in the ongoing financial crisis.

The conference at the posh resort included many senior managers at American International Group, or AIG, one of the world's biggest insurers and recipients in September of more than $85 billion from the federal government.

They'd have a conniption fit, right?

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) now says he will be calling for Congressional hearings after an ABC15 undercover investigation showed AIG executives holding poolside meetings at a Phoenix resort and dining at an upscale restaurant.

"A lot of this is about trust, and when you breach the American people's trust there's a problem," Cummings said. "It's not just about AIG. It's bigger than that. We've got to send a message to these folks that they're not going to screw us."

You'd almost think the right people weren't in charge at the Social Security Administration. I'll bne awaiting the call for congressional hearings.

[J sub D]

Seconding what everybody else said about Fund for Public Interest Inc.

We're the good guys, we're allowed to illegally fuck over our workers.

[johnl]

All we need to do is require hurricanes to run Windows. Then they will just fall apart on their own.

[Kevin Carson]

How's Gates gonna slow down hurricanes? Install Vista?

[Britney]

nice post..
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