Chem Geek Gregor said:

“I think of man, and then I take away reason and accountability” – As Good AS it Gets

But seriously… don’t try to figure out women by starting off with the presumption that there is a pattern or rhyme or reason to the gender collectively or to any one individual woman. There isn’t.

Women are like slot machines.

They look fancy on the outside and there is all this stuff that gives the illusion of some kind of logic going on, but it’s all for show.

The hard truth is that it all just hides a random number generator that controls everything.

Sometimes things go one way and usually they go another way. No rhyme or reason, no way of predicting it.

People drive themselves crazy by trying to determine which slot machine is “hot” or on a “winning streak” and when a slot machine is “due for a payout” or whatever.

It’s all an illusion.

I suspect there is a female analogue to this common experience.

But seriously… don’t try to figure out women by starting off with the presumption that there is a pattern or rhyme or reason to the gender collectively or to any one individual woman. There isn’t.

Women are like slot machines. They look fancy on the outside and there is all this stuff that gives the illusion of some kind of logic going on, but it’s all for show. The hard truth is that it all just hides a random number generator that controls everything. Sometimes things go one way and usually they go another way. No rhyme or reason, no way of predicting it.

People drive themselves crazy by trying to determine which slot machine is “hot” or on a “winning streak” and when a slot machine is “due for a payout” or whatever. It’s all an illusion.

Best not to try and just take them as they are.

        George Carty said:

Sorry, what I meant by “What can be done about this?” is “What can be done about female anti-nuclear sentiment”?

If that was directed at me, then you’re really asking the wrong person. I don’t generally understand women. I have difficulty even understanding a single woman. Sometimes I think I do, but then she throws me a curveball and does something I would have never anticipated and can’t understand the reason for, thus destroying what seemed like a totally reasonable theory model.

As far as trying to get women to like things: I try quite a bit to get them to like me, and have found no one pattern or plan to be more effective. In fact, they all seem to be equally ineffective. There have been occasions when a woman does seem to respond favorably, it seems to occur entirely at random. There is no unifying common element nor does the post event analysis ever detect any key factor or combination thereof.

I’m not one to give up on understanding something, but this problem has perplexed me for some time. One could use the analogy of my mind being like a group of scientists, sitting in my head, in lab coats who have been pouring over volumes of observed data on female behavior and responses to various things. It started out with about fifty full timers. Now it’s down to about twenty. Several just gave up. Another dozen are now hospitalized for insanity and the rest committed suicide. Those still at work have sweat stains on their tight white starched shirts and are chewing on the butts of mostly burned out cigarettes while drinking stale coffee by the gallon. It’s like Mission Control during Apollo 13. The situation is becoming increasingly desperate.

In short, I am not the person to ask on issues involving women. Though they only differ in one chromosome, I sit in a futile attempt to understand them. I’m like Einstein trudging through half of his life trying to disprove quantum mechanics… (not comparing myself to Einstein in achievement or anything, just in being vexed by an unsolvable problem)

        drbuzz0 said:

The pollsters take note of the gender of the person being polled. This actually can create a touchy issue when the person does not give their name or their voice could go either way – it’s kinda rude to ask. But in any case, the gender is noted. (in good polls so is the age and other basic demographics.)

Sorry, what I meant by “What can be done about this?” is “What can be done about female anti-nuclear sentiment”?

        Bruce said:

As it turns out, the SPD will not be in the government at all. The coalition is of the FDP and CDU (Christian Democratic Union). This is a dark day for the green movement and atheism, I don’t see on what count it can ever be a good thing to have a “Christian” party leading a government, furthermore the CDU has an intolerant view of immigrants, especially those of middle eastern origin, and does not embody the multi-cultural society modern Europe has embraced.

Who the hell are you to lecture on tolerance and multiculturalism when you define all Christians and all Christian parties or movements as being “no good”? That is about as bigoted and narrow minded as it gets.

You’ll say out of one side of your mouth how we need to accept Muslims and how wrong it would be oppose them entering a society or restrict it and how much importance there is for multiculturalism and then you say that any entities of the world’s largest religion (if you count the denominations together) is something from which no good can come? That before they have passed a single bill, because they are christian it’s a dark day?

Where the hell do you get off? I have more respect for someone who is intolerant of others and admits it than someone who claims to be all for acceptance and then says something like that.

I am not a practicing Christian myself. I was raised Lutheran in a family that is only slightly religious, so don’t call me a bible-thumper. I don’t define myself but you could call me agnostic, I guess.

I don’t care what you believe or what anyone believes as long as it is their buisiness and they don’t impose it on others, but there are plenty of descent Christians and I don’t see why the fact that the religion has been used for bad excuses that level of ignorant catch-all intolerance.

Please don’t even get me started on the nuclear issue. Germany mines more coal today than it did when the Green-SPD coalition took power, and part of the nuclear phase out calls for the construction of two major coal power plants and the expansion of several others. The use of natural gas has gone up and emissions are starting to rise. They will reverse the gains made after reunification for emissions in less than ten years as things are going. Energy prices are higher than ever and they import more electricity than any other country in mainland Europe.

Please explain to me how this policy is such a good thing?

        George Carty said:

Do you have any ideas as to what could be done about this?

The pollsters take note of the gender of the person being polled. This actually can create a touchy issue when the person does not give their name or their voice could go either way – it’s kinda rude to ask. But in any case, the gender is noted. (in good polls so is the age and other basic demographics.)

The ratio needs to match the demographic ratio for the area or the segment being polled. For example, if you want all the opinions in a given region of 51% women and 49% men, then you’d want that ratio. If you want likely voters and past history suggests that 52% of voters are men and 48% women, then you would want that.

It may be that some of the women polled may be thrown out if there are enough total polled to get a good enough total count and keep the ratio proper. It could be that the pollsters are told we’re all set for women and to only interview men. In that case, they would get a man on the phone and ask a couple questions like “are you likely to vote in the upcoming election” and “what is your approximate age.” They will then be politely told “Thank you, but you are not within the demographics of this survey” or something like that – it’s a bit nicer than just hanging up on them as soon as a male voice comes through.

Sometimes the males would be weighted, but they try to avoid that.

This is not just true for men and women, by the way. Another big problem is that old people like to take surveys. If you don’t actively compensate for that, you end up with the survey very heavily weighted by senior citizens opinions.

        drbuzz0 said:

For some reason, women are always more likely to take the poll and men decline more.

Oops, missed this!

This may have had a negative impact on the results – I remember reading comments on one of the other blogs (Atomic Insights I think) that said that women were considerably more hostile to nuclear power than men. Do you have any ideas as to what could be done about this?

        Bruce said:

As it turns out, the SPD will not be in the government at all. The coalition is of the FDP and CDU (Christian Democratic Union). This is a dark day for the green movement and atheism,

A dark day for the Green movement is a bright day for real environmentalism (Like for those who care more about the impact on the enviornment than the philosophy of anti-industrialism).

Atheism? I don’t see that being really effected one way or the other. There’s not much of an established religious right in Germany and freedom of religion is protected. I’ve never been for state-sponsored atheism as being an official policy or that the state should officially promote atheism over any religion. A good secular state is tolerant and does not officially promote any one belief system over others.

Given the alternative… it’s not perfect. It is signifficantly better though.

Being for immigration regulation does not make one a bigot.

I take it you really like coal.

The oldest nuclear power plants currently in operation in Germany began operation in the mid 1970’s, with many of the power plants beginning operation in the early to mid 1980’s. That’s not terribly old by most standards. There are plenty of power reactors that have been operating safely for longer.

As far as these reactors go, they’re not as effecient or modern as current designs like the AP-1000 or G-IV designs like high temperature gas cooled reactors or molten salt reactors. However, they’re still entirely within the industry standard. It would be nice to replace them, but not before the coal plants are all shut – something that will take a long time in a place like Germany.

One note though: Many of these plants have been denied the kind of systems overhauls and refits that plants of their age have received elsewhere. Nearly all plants of that generation in the US and elsewhere have received at least one major life-extension overhaul. In Germany this has not happened to the same extent for two major reasons: The government has generally denied any license for such upgrades and the plant owners have been understandably unwilling to invest money in a plant that is supposed to be shut down in the near future.

What kind of hazards? And what exactly makes them out-dated or dangerous?

        George Carty said:

Incidentally, what type of nuclear reactors are used in Germany?

Germany has 14 operating Pressurized Water Reactors and 6 operating Boiling Water Reactor Nuclear Power Plants