kruker wrote:[url=http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.06-energy-an-inconvenient-talk/]An Inconvenient Talk

Dave Hughes’s guide to the end of the fossil fuel age[/url]

Peak oil talk.

Speaking of which, I wanted to read a horror novel over the summer so I finally ordered "The Long Emergency" off Amazon, so I might be droppin' Kunstler references pretty soon.

As he drives, Dave indulges in a little academic exercise. He’s comfortable with numbers, quick with calculations. A barrel of oil, he tells you, contains about six gigajoules of energy. That’s six billion joules. Put your average healthy Albertan on a treadmill and wire it to a generator, and in an hour the guy could produce about 100 watts of energy. That’s 360,000 joules. Pay the guy the provincial minimum wage, give him breaks and weekends and statutory holidays off, and it would take 8.6 years for him to produce one barrel of oil equivalent (boe, the standard unit of measure in hydrocarbon circles). And you’d owe him $138,363 in wages. That, Dave tells you, is what a barrel of oil is worth.

Werthless wrote:Unless he was making a racial pun with backboards (are they usually white?), I don't have a problem with it. The SCOTUS judges have very little time for each case's oral arguments, as I understand it, so they pepper the lawyers with questions and cut them off when they have their answer. Why would I be bothered by it?

kruker wrote:I'm a sucker for cool facts, and this one just about takes it:

As he drives, Dave indulges in a little academic exercise. He’s comfortable with numbers, quick with calculations. A barrel of oil, he tells you, contains about six gigajoules of energy. That’s six billion joules. Put your average healthy Albertan on a treadmill and wire it to a generator, and in an hour the guy could produce about 100 watts of energy. That’s 360,000 joules. Pay the guy the provincial minimum wage, give him breaks and weekends and statutory holidays off, and it would take 8.6 years for him to produce one barrel of oil equivalent (boe, the standard unit of measure in hydrocarbon circles). And you’d owe him $138,363 in wages. That, Dave tells you, is what a barrel of oil is worth.

dajafi wrote:I think the reason the New Haven decision rankles so many people--including me, though I haven't looked at it in so much detail that I'd feel particularly confident expressing a strong opinion--is because it hints at a preference beyond "if all else is equal, we will nod toward greater diversity/inclusiveness/righting past wrongs." My understanding is that Sotomayor cast a vote with the majority but wasn't anything like a crusader on the question.

jerseyhoya wrote:I guess at the end of the day, there are supposed to be nine justices on the Supreme Court, and I don't think it is like there are 9 lawyers who stand out clearly from the hundreds of appeals court judges, top notch law professors and others who would be under consideration for appointment. And among the dozens who stand out and could ably serve in the capacity, I'm sure there are African Americans, Hispanics, women. I imagine looking at Sotomayer's resume she's in that group.

Right. I read something recently, by I think Ezra Klein, that sort of made this point in a different way: it's never the case that the president tries to pick the single most qualified person to serve on the Court, and even were it possible to identify that person, the president probably wouldn't go that route. Beyond a certain standard of competence, inevitably it's going to be a political/philosophical choice.

This is why, for instance, the prospect of Justice Miers bugged the hell out of me, while the idea of Justice Alito (Phillies love aside) didn't, even given that he was likely a much more committed conservative. My sense was he deserved to be there, and as McCain evidently said today in reference to Sotomayor, "elections have consequences."

drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:Unless he was making a racial pun with backboards (are they usually white?), I don't have a problem with it. The SCOTUS judges have very little time for each case's oral arguments, as I understand it, so they pepper the lawyers with questions and cut them off when they have their answer. Why would I be bothered by it?

because you professed earlier to be all het up about intimations of superiority by some candidate for one of the 9 chairs. I supposed, apparently incorrectly, that your dudgeon was inspired by the presumption of superiority, rather than the particular person presuming it.

Warszawa wrote:Elections have consequences. Yet Obama picks a nominee that by all accounts is a moderate liberal, someone who is very close to Souter in philosophy. Then to make things more laughable the right makes like they are going to put up a fight, criticizing her on ridiculous issues? They should be happy Obama didn't nominiate a lefty version of Scalia or Roberts...which I don't understand why he didn't. It seems like he continues to pander to the right although the right will never agree him and fight the Dems to the death on all their core issues. It will be very interesting to see Obama's next nomination to the court.

VoxOrion wrote:Gapminder is really, really cool. I could get lost for hours. I don't know about the videos, I'm mainly playing with the "explore the world" maps.

lethal wrote:

Werthless wrote:Unless he was making a racial pun with backboards (are they usually white?), I don't have a problem with it. The SCOTUS judges have very little time for each case's oral arguments, as I understand it, so they pepper the lawyers with questions and cut them off when they have their answer. Why would I be bothered by it?

I think in 95% of the cases, the Justices have made up their minds by the time the oral arguments are even made, just based on the briefs and their (clerks') research. This was true when I was clerking (for a non-federal intermediate appellate court, so not even close to the US Supreme Court).

The study above might even be a result of majority Justices asking more questions to find more support against the weaker position or the minority to find more support that they can use in a dissent. That's my personal experience, again, in a different, much lower court.

allentown wrote:

lethal wrote:

Werthless wrote:Unless he was making a racial pun with backboards (are they usually white?), I don't have a problem with it. The SCOTUS judges have very little time for each case's oral arguments, as I understand it, so they pepper the lawyers with questions and cut them off when they have their answer. Why would I be bothered by it?

I think in 95% of the cases, the Justices have made up their minds by the time the oral arguments are even made, just based on the briefs and their (clerks') research. This was true when I was clerking (for a non-federal intermediate appellate court, so not even close to the US Supreme Court).

The study above might even be a result of majority Justices asking more questions to find more support against the weaker position or the minority to find more support that they can use in a dissent. That's my personal experience, again, in a different, much lower court.

I think just about every justice knows how s/he is going to vote and has guessed how colleagues are likely to vote and whether it is likely to be a broad or narrow decision prior to voting on whether or not to accept a case. It is a myth perpetrated by the Republican Right that their Supreme Court justices just go by the letter of the Constitution, while Dems nominate liberal activists who don't. Almost all Justices have seemed to push their personal legal/political philosphy and written opinions that are after-the-fact justification. This notion that their are strict constructionist judges who work like engineers just doing the math and concluding what the facts and written Constitution dictate the answer must be is silly. The SC stepping in to award Florida to Bush was blatant activism and ignoring of states' rights.

Warszawa wrote:Elections have consequences. Yet Obama picks a nominee that by all accounts is a moderate liberal, someone who is very close to Souter in philosophy. Then to make things more laughable the right makes like they are going to put up a fight, criticizing her on ridiculous issues? They should be happy Obama didn't nominiate a lefty version of Scalia or Roberts...which I don't understand why he didn't. It seems like he continues to pander to the right although the right will never agree him and fight the Dems to the death on all their core issues. It will be very interesting to see Obama's next nomination to the court.

Like the president who picked her, Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court manages to be both historic and conventional.
...
George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr called her “a liberal mirror image of Samuel Alito” — a child of the meritocracy with a resume that is big on credentials and low on controversy.

It’s hard to be breathtaking and boring, but Obama somehow finds a way.
...
Sotomayor is already meeting with resistance among many conservatives, but that she’s an acceptable liberal instead of a controversial radical is being affirmed by the majority of Republican senators who are issuing statements of caution instead of concern.

Obama, with his usual combination of professorial coolness and political calculation, has stayed within the judiciary’s 40-yard lines while also squeezing the opposition in a manner that would make a Chicago ward heeler smile.

jerseyhoya wrote:So she's a moderate now?

Werthless wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:Unless he was making a racial pun with backboards (are they usually white?), I don't have a problem with it. The SCOTUS judges have very little time for each case's oral arguments, as I understand it, so they pepper the lawyers with questions and cut them off when they have their answer. Why would I be bothered by it?

because you professed earlier to be all het up about intimations of superiority by some candidate for one of the 9 chairs. I supposed, apparently incorrectly, that your dudgeon was inspired by the presumption of superiority, rather than the particular person presuming it.

I don't have a problem with a person thinking, correctly or incorrectly, that he/she is smarter than someone else. I have a problem with someone thinking that a class of people is smarter than another class (particularly when this perception is not based on scientific or analytical evidence, but observation), and then acting on this stereotype.