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[quote=”camby”][quote=”sprite”]Money corrupts everything, even truth. Science is no exception. The root of all evil is also the root of GMO plants. Here we have yet another example of how monatized economy based on manufactured scarcity can be lethal.[/quote]
True, a few can manipulate and control, not freedom….[/quote]
[quote=”maravilla”]There is no more science for the sake of science. Anyone who thinks that might want to read the Ascendency of The Scientific Dictatorship. Science is bought and sold to whoever can afford to get the results they want or need.[/quote]
These comments can’t pass without comment.
I take strident exception to the quotes by maravilla/sprite/camby on science and scientists. I am explicitly reminded of DCM’s tagline Krugman quote.
I have been a practicing oceanographer and marine biologist with an international reputation for over 40 years; in the area of harmful algal blooms [red tides]. In retirement for 5 years, I do the same research that I did in the previous 38 years, the exception being that now I receive neither a salary, nor research funding. In other words, my profession is now my hobby. Many of my retired colleagues throughout the world do exactly the same. The C.R. situation is bad for Tico and Tica scientists who, though generally dedicated, suffer from low salaries and lack of resources.
Of course there are hired guns in the science world (big pharma and big tobacco come immediately to mind), but to tar brush all science and scientists is not only uninformed and untrue, but demeaning to both scientists and the accuser.
😡my original response appears to have disappeared before sending, so it is rewritten [with faulty recollection]here. If there are two very similar versions, pick one – the sentiments are the same.
the Table referred to, which may not come through, looks like this:
Global Population
Year Billion
1800 1
1927 2 [127]
1960 3 [33]
1974 4 [14]
1987 5 [13]
1999 6 [12]
2011 7 [12]OK, sueandchris, your post inspires my own rant;
1. I am hoping Figures doesn’t get in again
2. It’s pretty unlikely that a UN mandate will have much effect on any country other than Kiribati or Liechtenstein
3. When has ANY UN mandate done any more than marginal good?
4. After several decades of intermittent research on various biological [marine & terrestrial] I have to say I find the idea of C.R. being a “green” country just a tad hypocritical.
5. Human-caused extinction of non-human species is estimated at 1000X greater than EVER before [including those ole’ dinosaurs]. This is really just hand-waving number, because nobody really knows what the biodiversity is on land, much less in the ocean.
6. The population thing (your “fat asses” etc.) is the biggie. This month the population of the planet is 7.04 billion humans. The carrying capacity of the planet varies according to who you talk to, but it’s around 10 billion, beyond which human civilization is in serious jeopardy. At the current rate of increase, 12 years per billion, around year 2050 our grandchildren are in trouble. (see table below, hope it comes through – the brackets are the number of years to add 1 billion).
7.
It won’t matter whether you live in the U.S., Costa Rica, or Chad, we still have only one planet and until politicians decide to do something about it, we are rolling along towards a mighty high cliff. If I were cynical, I would say we really need WW-III, or a global epidemic of plague, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, Marburg, or all of the above. If I were optimistic I would say, yes, we will deal with it when it is REALLY becomes a crisis. I guess I’m in between, being cynical about any politician’s view of the future beyond the next election. Anyway, sueandchris, thanks for pushing my button.
PEH 🙁[quote=”orcas0606″it ain’t kansas, that’s for sure[/quote]
…getting back to the thread, “Living in Costa Rica”…
Last I knew, earthquakes are now quite rare in Kansas.**Simple construction system ‘offers quake protection’**
A new technique for building low-cost houses in earthquake-prone areas has been successfully tested in Peru, and could be rolled out in any developing country with a seismic risk, according to researchers.
The system consists of prefabricated steel bars in the form of trusses, triangular support structures, which are welded to each other to form grids that, in turn, form the walls and ceiling of a house — essentially forming a lightweight steel structural skeleton.
These skeletons are then filled in with hollow brick or adobe, a building material made from clay, sand, water and natural fibres, which is used widely in house construction across the developing world, despite being highly vulnerable to earthquakes.
The system “is not complicated at all, and any qualified construction worker could do it”, Francisco Ginocchio, a professor of civil engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), told SciDev.Net.
It was tested at PUCP’s Anti-seismic Structure Laboratory, in collaboration with the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), between 2008 and 2011. Tests were carried out on two-storey buildings, some of them built at full scale, constructed using cheap local materials such as adobe and hollow brick.
The results were published in the online journal Materiales de Construcción earlier this year.turkish wrote: “Do any of you seriously think it’s going to get better with that gang of racist, nuclear armed psychopaths ruling the roost? “
Well, after all, we DID survive the Bush years:wink:
Apart from the topic under discussion, I have to say that the URL Bibi mentions, http://www.marinetraffic.com, turns out to be a fascinating place to spend some free time – the Strait of Hormuz, for example, looks primed for a multiship collision any minute; and the Block Island Ferry is a few minutes late getting into Point Judith.:shock:
An excerpt from today’s New York Times Magazine:
“Next year, Washington will enact the most ambitious tax-recovery plan in history, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Under Fatca, foreign financial firms will have to proactively identify every American account holder with assets of more than $50,000 and report details about their financial activity or face a significant penalty. The move is very unpopular among foreign banks, governments and Americans living abroad, but the more complex rules could actually mean more business for offshore centers. By the time Fatca is in full force, in 2017, truly wealthy individuals and corporations will almost certainly have used their resources to find more intricate loopholes.
One often-overlooked lesson of the financial crisis is that shenanigans don’t happen in the absence of regulation; they happen when regulations are exceedingly complex and involve confusing, overlapping regulatory authorities. Collateralized debt obligations and credit-default swaps were designed to squeeze through a labyrinth of laws, rules and taxes. And most of these toxic assets were formed in offshore jurisdictions, far from prying eyes and stricter reporting requirements. When Lehman Brothers collapsed, it took regulators and creditors more than a year to find out that the company comprised nearly 3,000 legal entities spread across 50 countries.
My colleagues at NPR’s “Planet Money” recently polled several economists of all political stripes and found that while they disagreed on the right level of taxation, they generally agreed that the overly complex taxation of rich people and corporations was disastrous. It all but guarantees that those people and companies will spend an inordinate amount of money figuring out how to game the system rather than come up with new ideas that improve the economy. Economists generally agree that the best tax system would be simple and strict, offering little incentive to lobby for loopholes. The big problem, of course, is that many of the people and corporations with the most influence over Congress don’t want it that way.”
[quote=”cgc1279″]Has anyone driven from Arizona to San Jose Costa Rica? My husband plans to do this soon, I don’t think it is a good idea. He has very limited use of Spanish.[/quote]
No firsthand experience on that but…..
-alternative 1: check the U.S. State Dept. website on motor travels through the area;
-alternative 2: plead & beg not to do this;
-alternative 3: if all else fails, ASAP buy a VERY large life insurance policy on him.DCM has nicely outlined some of the major problems in turning garbage into electricity. Here’s another: to be effective, organic material, preferably dry [or dried] must be the fuel. Old refrigerators and junk cars don’t burn well. Oh, and then there’s the carbon dioxide, sulfur, etc., and the fuel cost of garbage transport, and, and, and………
[quote=”Scott”]Shame the guy in the video doesn’t even try to pronounce Turrialba – he only spelled it – but with all your scientific experience ‘pharg’ isn’t true we’ve seen a dramatic uptick in volcanic and earthquake activity worldwide?
Why?
Scott
[/quote]
Hi Scott-Not necessarily an uptick in events; more like an uptick in monitoring activities.
A hundred years ago nobody paid much attention to earthquakes/eruptions in C.R. (not so many people; nor any monitoring equipment, etc.) until Cartago was leveled in 1910.
Earthquakes have been ongoing since the planet solidified ~4.5 billion years ago.
Some of the more memorable ones were the planetary quakes/eruptions following the asteroid that hit Mexico [causing dinosaur final extinction] and the Permian extinction 252 million years ago when 95% of all marine life became extinct and more than 2/3 of all terrestrial life disappeared.
Now those were eruptions! I suppose the answer is, what is your timeline perspective? I tend to
take the long view. 😉To be complete, there are scientists who suggest that shorter (in geological time) perturbations in the earth’s rotation and orbit can impact vulcanism/tectonics (as well as climate:
[ http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/14/earth-wobble-climate.html ]
And Google to Milankovitch cycles
PEH
(thus endeth the lesson for today:roll:)
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/14/earth-wobble-climate.html
There is a brief video of Turrialba here (with commercials):
http://www.itn.co.uk/home/46106/Costa+Rican+volcano+spews+smoke+and+ash..and did you ralize that an eruption would be a message the The End Is Near? :cry::roll:
[quote=”Scott”]A website called the [url=http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/costa-ricas-turrialba-volcano-alert-status-raised-to-yellow-authorities-say-an-eruption-could-be-imminent/]TheExtinctionProtocol.com[/url] is getting a little excited about Costa Rica’s Turrialba Volcano being so active …
Temperatures around some fumaroles on the volcano have risen to as much as 800° Celsius, accompanied by eruptions of ash.
Turrialba is the only volcano in Costa Rica currently with a yellow threat-level indicator. An upgrade to red would mean an eruption is imminent.
[url=http://www.prensalibre.cr/lpl/nacional/63874-alerta-amarilla-en-volcan-turrialba-por-cambios-en-erupciones.html]PrensaLibre.com[/url] also reported on the Yellow Alert
[/quote]
Major eruptions are almost always preceded by increasing earthquakes as the magma rises in the vents. The Universidad de C.R. has a website showing near-realtime earthquake activity at http://www.lis.ucr.ac.cr/index.php?id=Inicio
Unfortunately there is no really close publicly shown site to Turrialba on this website, though I’m sure they are monitoring it from somewhere nearby.[quote=”maravilla”]la migra would see through that ruse in a heartbeat! they’re as hip to these kinds of scams as immigration is in the States when people get married for a green card. he needs to go to Plan B.[/quote]
Apparently it works in Florida. Thanks, M. I’ll suggest Eritrea as Plan B.:roll:
An unmarried acquaintance of mine has been to C.R. several tomes and wants to move to Limon and acquire citizenship. To short circuit the process, he has suggested adopting an adult Tica, thus becoming an instant father {if you know the recent Goodman trial in Florida, you know how this works). He would thus be a first order relative.
I told him I thought the government in C.R. was alert (??) to this and it probably would not work, but have no info to back this up. Anyone out there have the facts/opinions/experience?[quote=”costaricabill”]Well, by all appearances – barring any last minute changes, today is the day that Dan & family arrive in Costa Rica.
He is probably on the plane as I write this. If so, I am sure that flight will take on the character of a “party bus”.
In his enthusiasm I just hope he remembers to stop at immigration and get checked in! Playa Negra will never be the same!!!
WELCOME DAN – TAKE TIME TO ENJOY ALL THAT YOUR NEW COUNTRY HAS TO OFFER![/quote]They should get a warm welcome on the Guanacaste coast today (temp. about 92F, 33C; thunderstorms); http://www.intellicast.com/Local/Weather.aspx?location=CSXX0011
…and perhaps enjoy a welcome swim on the incoming tide (late afternoon at nearby Samara, http://samarabeach.com/tides/april.htm)
