How (and when) will the Government Shutdown end?

Deforestation impairs the long term capacity for the carbon cycle to re-absorb all the carbon that has been released into the atmosphere as CO2 by the burning of fossil fuels.

Using that waste for fuel is more dangerous, I've read, and requires a lot of handling/processing.

It's just not wise to go down that path and establish energy-use patterns that will ultimately lead future humans into problems. It makes far more sense to modify industrial lifestyles and economies to fit within the margins of what is totally sustainable. We have the technology to properly insulate buildings and bodies to suffice with very small quantities of energy, so why not achieve that?

You are thinking on the order of decades or maybe centuries. Sustainability means achieving patterns of activity that will never ever cause problems in the future. It is doable.

Earth gets plenty of sunlight. It uses most of it well. What we clever humans need to do is utilize our technological savvy to making do with that energy.

If the wall is about population control

If you read his crazy posts... he is talking about "tree canopies".

In general, the strategic goal of poker is to put your opponent to tough decisions. If you see one of those hands on TV where one player is thinking for several minutes about whether to call or fold on the river, that usually means the other player has played his or her hand well, putting the opponent in a no-win position by leaving just the right amount of doubt about whether it’s a bluff or a real hand.

...

As a corollary, good players play in such a way as to avoid putting themselves to tough decisions. Bad players, conversely, tend to paint themselves into corners. They’ll curse their luck when they suddenly realize that a hand they’d assumed was a winner might be no good. But more often than not, it reflects a mistake they made earlier in the hand, such as playing a weak hand that they should have folded to begin with.

There’s something else about those bad poker players that I think might apply to Trump.

Some of them (not all by any means) actually do have decent people-reading skills. They can sometimes suss out, through body language and table talk, whether your hand is relatively strong or relatively weak and make better decisions on that basis. It’s almost never enough to overcome poor strategic and technical play; poker is mostly a mathematical game. But those talents can help to stem losses, especially at lower stakes where opponents are more likely to exhibit tells. The bad players have their fair share of winning days when they’re catching cards.

Trump, similarly, has gotten a long way on the basis of hustle and luck — he was lucky in several important respects to be elected president. There are some cases in which he has displayed solid (if unconventional) tactical instincts, from his negotiations with foreign leaders to his handling of the media to his belittling of his primary opponents. That’s not to say he always gets these decisions right or even does so anywhere near approaching a majority of the time. But he gets enough “wins” — he became president of the United States! — to sustain his ego and not prompt a lot of self-reflection.

But Trump has no sense for which battles to pick and seemingly little awareness of his own unpopularity and the consequences it has for the presidency. Moreover, although Trump sometimes seems to realize when he has gotten himself into a no-win position, he doesn’t recognize how often his own decisions are responsible for putting him there.

But Trump has no sense for which battles to pick and seemingly little awareness of his own unpopularity and the consequences it has for the presidency. Moreover, although Trump sometimes seems to realize when he has gotten himself into a no-win position, he doesn’t recognize how often his own decisions are responsible for putting him there.

What do you think that proves?

Region Philbis wrote:

It's sad that we've reached the point where we can go on ignoring national emergencies because they've become so normal.

How long have drug- and human- trafficking been going on, and when were they NOT a national emergency?

agent of a unfriendly foreign power in that office.

Quote:

agent of a unfriendly foreign power in that office.

But Trump seems to be smarter than James Bond keeping all of this together not leaving one shred of evidence. Well at least none that could be found in two years.

Nonsense as in total nonsense.

An the drugs or the trafficking have little to do with having or not having a wall but we do have an national emergency as at best we have a completely incompetent president and at worst we have an agent of a unfriendly foreign power in that office.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine

Cocaine-smuggling sea vessel[edit]
During the 1980s, go-fast boats became the drug-smuggling vessel of choice in many parts of the world.[1] These boats can be detected by radar; as radar coverage improved, Colombian drug cartels developed less easily detected semi-submersibles from the 1990s.[5]

In 1988, an unmanned 6.4 m (21 ft) submarine was found off Boca Raton, Florida. It was designed to be towed by a boat, and submerged by remote control. Although the sub was empty, authorities suggested that it must have been designed for smuggling contraband, since the hatch could only be opened from the outside.[6]

The first time the U.S. Coast Guard found one containing drugs, authorities dubbed it Bigfoot because they had heard rumors that such things existed, but none had actually been seen.[2] In late 2006 a Bigfoot was seized 166 km southwest of Costa Rica carrying several metric tonnes of cocaine.[7] In 2006, US officials say they detected three; in 2008, they were spotting an average of ten per month, but only one out of ten was intercepted. Few were seized, as their crews scuttle them upon interception and they sink within a minute or so.[8][9] By 2009, the U.S.A. detected as many as 60 narco submarine related events, and it was calculated that they were moving as much as 330 metric tonnes of cocaine per year.[10] Costing up to two million dollars each to construct, the submarines can move enough cocaine in a single trip to generate more than 100 million USD in illicit proceeds for the traffickers.[1][10]

After the November 5, 2010 arrest of Harold Mauricio Poveda,[11] a key Mexican–Colombian link, it is suspected that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is behind the construction of narco-submarines and is collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel to fund its armed activities.[12][13][14]

Construction[edit]
Colombia's Pacific coastline, where muddy rivers loop into the ocean, has long been a smugglers' paradise. Behind the jagged cliffs that jut into the ocean is a vast jungle, laced with mangrove-fringed coves and thousands of kilometres of waterways, easy to use as clandestine shipyards.[15] A Colombian Navy Commander stated that it is most striking to notice the logistical capacity required of these criminals in order to take all the material into the heart of the jungle, including heavy equipment such as propulsion gear and generators.[16] Sometimes they are put together in pieces and then reassembled in other locations under the jungle canopy, in camps outfitted with sleeping quarters for workers. The narco-submarines can cost about $2 million USD and take upward of a year to build.[16] Despite the costs, some of the craft are intended for one-time use, being abandoned at sea after a successful delivery. After all, their cargoes carry a street value of up to $400 million. On other seized craft however, officials found zinc bars used as sacrificial anodes, reducing corrosion on metal parts exposed to seawater.[17] As corrosion would not be a concern on a single trip but is a factor influencing long-term durability, this is a clear indication that multiple use was intended. This, in turn, opens up the question of any illicit return cargo, like weapons, that they might carry back to Colombia.

The design and manufacturing techniques employed in their construction have improved over time: the boats have become faster, more seaworthy, and of higher capacity than earlier models.[1] An 18 m (59 ft) long narco-submarine can reach speeds of 18 km/h (9.7 knots) and carry up to 10 tons of cocaine.[1] They are typically made of fiberglass, powered by a 225–260 kW diesel engine and manned by a crew of four. They have enough cargo space to carry two to ten tons of cocaine, carry large fuel tanks which give them a range of 3,200 km (1,700 nautical miles),[1] and are equipped with satellite navigation systems. There is no head (toilet), and accommodation is cramped.

Because much of its structure is fiberglass and it travels barely under the surface, the vessel is nearly impossible to detect via sonar or radar, and very difficult to spot visually. The newer models pipe their exhaust along the bottom of the hull to cool it before venting it, making the boat even less susceptible to infrared detection.[2] They are most easily spotted visually from the air, though even that is difficult as they are camouflaged with blue paint and produce almost no wake. They have ballast tanks to alter the vessel's buoyancy so that they ride low in the water.

Typical charact