Actually, no. I didn't miss the connection. And while you may think the military is necessary, many of the Founding Fathers would disagree.

Years ago there was a brouhaha over the Marines at 29 Palms being given a quiz containing the question, "If ordered to do so, would you fire on American citizens?"

The reaction of the Marines pretty well demonstrated that they were not (at least at that time) the president's "Brown Shirts".

As VanderBoegh is fond of saying, "No more Wacos". The administration (any administration, not just OBozo) will test its limits - especially if it thinks rebellion against the police state is a possibility. The problem with the "tests" is there are those who notice them, catalog them, think about them and plan for them.

Back when California implemented its "assault weapon" ban, the SKS rifle was initially considered a "good gun" that needed to be registered, but not disposed. Later, the state "changed its mind" and decided citizens couldn't own SKS rifles either. This set up a very interesting situation - precisely the situation that Second Amendment advocates have been warning about in regard to ANY registration system. The government knows you have (had?) the firearm. You haven't proven you no longer have it. They've made the firearm "illegal". http://www.wnd.com/1999/07/3745/

I recall seeing video of AR-15 owners shortly after the "ban" shooting at a local range and inviting law enforcement to come out an arrest them. None took them up on their invitation.

At the time I was speculating whether Gray Davis and "Celibate Bill" Clinton would coordinate an SKS roundup. The way I pictured things going down was a seizure here, a government-sponored home invasion there, a few more, a few more - AMBUSH! The assault team wiped out to last man. Snipers taking out cops at police stations. Cops being baited and executed. Politicians being targeted for assassination.

But it hasn't happened. Yet.

I am actually surprised any light bulbs are allowed any more. Next thing will be outlawing the sun.

With all the hazards for CFLs, maybe people should just drop their blown bulbs off at the nearest federal office. OOOps! I dropped a light bulb!

The author clearly has, at best, a tenuous grasp of reality. On the one hand, he plays fast and loose with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. On the other, he plays silly buggers with the assertion that we will ALWAYS invent a new technology just when we need it.

Turning to his first error - only a moron would employ the Second Law of Thermodynamics to argue that the Brundtland Report goals are impossible. Of course, in a literal sense, they are, because, at some point the universe will run down. What makes his "analysis" fail as a matter of gross stupidity is that there's no evidence that homo sapiens will ever operate on the time line that he suggests - billions of years. So is it literally true that "sustainability" cannot continue FOREVER?

Yes.

Is it relevant to anything?

No.

Creating a boundary about the solar system and pronouncing that "some day it will all wind down" in the context of establishing resource policy is at best pointless mental masturbation. The author's limited intellect would be better employed definitively establishing how many angels may dance on the head of a pin. And yet he seems oblivious to that. Instead, he appears to argue that it has some relevance to life.

As a practical matter (and there's no point to the discussion unless it addresses practicality), sustainability has real and local applications, and we've scarcely had the ability to deplete resources for long enough to provide a reliable guide to the extent of our ability to overcome shortages. This is the author's SECOND major failing. He effectively argues that because he was able to pay his rent this month, and his power bill, and that he has successfully done so for the past 4 months, that he will forever and always be able to do so. That is, when he needs a resource, he will simply conjure a solution to provide that resource, or, failing in that particular resource (say dollars), he will be able to come up with a different resource (say, gold) - which may be used in its stead. Moreover, he makes the argument that he is so resourceful that he will be able to do this forever, regardless of whether his power bill quintuples, his rent has to be expressed in scientific notation or he suddenly has 10 billion more relatives to support.

Applying the author's own absurd methods, and positing that there is a total of 71 trillion tons (~6.4E16 kg - about 1000 times the total of all known reserves) of phosphorous available to homo sapiens, WLOG, assume 1% of human body weight is phosphorous and that an average human masses 70kg. When the world population reaches 92,000,000,000,000,000 people, technology will provide a way for the human body to use a different chemical element in the place of phosphorous.

khaling - your ability to plumb the depths of irrelevancy and ignorance continues to entertain and amaze. I don't know how you find such falderal, but surely you must have a method for locating the most twisted, pathologically stunted pseudo scientists ever to grace the internet. For this latest gem, I can only offer Wolfgang Pauli's observation, "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!" I can only surmise that you have offered this link for its comedic effect, and had no intention of making a serious argument.

Thank you. I got quite a good laugh from it.

Well he HAS finished it. Then he Unfinished it. I met him a year or so ago, and he didn't look well.

Sometimes a craftsman creates a gem, then spends too much time polishing it. Doubtless, there are some parts that could be better. But time spent making those revisions would be better spent on a new work.

Hmmmm, no answer from Hiraghm.

Fact is that LEDs don't need high voltage energy hogging electric supplies.

Another fact is that LED displays don't need pounds of lead to shield folks from X-rays produced by CRTs.

Fact is overall LED screens use generally less than 1/4 of the power a CRT uses.

LED screens generally produce better color than even high end CRT monitors like Ikegami. In fact most folks can't even tell the difference between 720 and 1080 until sizes are above 40 inches.

Large screen CRTs are huge and expensive. Large screen LEDs are relatively cheap.

CRTs are old obsolete technology.

OK, besides some vague "market demand" what would you do to solve the energy and pollution problems?

Actually I have. What's your point?