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FTFY

One of the most troubling aspects to all the astroturf on social networking sites is that it is no longer possible to expect that the opinions being expressed in any discussion are genuine. A reasonably simple way to perform an astroturf check is to search for the exact phrase used by the poster.

The more frequently the phrase appears in similar context, the more likely it is from a canned script supplied by a marketing department.

Check out "Windows 7 is everything Vista should have been," for a prime example.

"The only place to find quantum mechanics, for any human being, is in said human's imagination."

The macro effects of quantum mechanics can be observed in the viscosity of mayonnasie and similar liquids.

"The only place to find relativity theory in action is off the planet."

Time dialation has been repeatedly observed on the surface of Earth and is important for navigation.

Iraq were never military threats, but Iran IS and some people don't recognize it. Just because they're brown doesn't mean they're weak and undisciplined.

How much has changed since the Iran/Iraq stalemate?

And who are you calling "brown"?
http://images.google.com.au/images?q=iranian

of those tests and they all have one flaw to rig the test to show that cell phones are "bad" - they do NOT let the driver say "hang on" or put the phone down for any reason

That is not a flaw in the tests. A dangerous situation does NOT wait for a driver to say "hang on" and put the phone down.

Reaction time for an non-distracted human is at least 1.5 seconds, with a vehicle travelling at 50 KM\h you will have travelled 20 Metres before even reacting (source PDF Warning). If you have to say "hang on" and put the phone down it will take at least twice that amount of time doubling the reaction distance. Even simply dropping a phone will take another precious second away from a drivers attention whilst travelling at full speed. One single second is the difference between a near miss and t-boning a truck.

Besides you have missed the point of all these studies, it is not just about a severely reduced reaction time, that is secondary, the tests primary look at the drivers ability to perceive problems before they occur. A distracted driver is less likely to notice objects they might hit. You may think it's safe to drive whilst on the phone but studies have proven otherwise, in the time it takes you to shut up and drop the phone you will have travelled two to three the reaction distance at full speed as well as failed to spot many hazards in the first place.

So the test is not flawed, your understanding of the tests goals and tested variables is flawed.

If you're running a business and you want to safely crawl your own intranet, say to index your documents, there are other options.

However, I'm curious how effective traditional rocket motors will be in an atmosphere so less dense then Earth's.

obligatory Goddard reference

Great word!

define:phlebotomist
#1 - (Princeton): "Someone who practices phlebotomy".

Nice selective quote, the sentance that precedes it was "...it's a political thing on both sides, the left have their 'truthers' and the right have their 'birthers' both as equally bat-shit crazy".

Presumably for your own political reasons you chose to ignore that and start into a rant about how the right are acting rationally and the left are bat-shit crazy. Then you go on to dissmiss Hansen because you don't trust him. That right there my friend is called arguing from authority and is no different to the creationist habit of calling people "Darwinists" in an effort to make the argument about choosing between God's authority and Darwin's authority (neither of which actually exist in any tangible form).

Besides, if Hansen is a liar and a cheat, how do you explain "alarmist" articles such as this one in Nature or this list of similar articles in Science, are they all part of the left-wing "cosensus" conspiracy? Do you really belive that they all respect Hansen because he is the second in command behind Gore in their conspiracy, or is it because your politics won't allow to consider that they might actually respect him because his predictions have been remarkably **accurate?

"...it is HONEST to disregard the word of someone who's been caught altering data to suit his conclusions time and again".

Yes, lying is dishonest, so why are you clinging on to your beliefs by inventing/repeating lies about Hansen? And why do lie to yourself by ignoring the mountain of data, observations, experiments, and predictions that do not suit your conclusions? Are you paid to make such "grassroot" comments? Or are you really gullible enough to fall for the anti-science conspiracy theories of less rationalright wing think tankslobbyists?

**A selction of Hansens accurate predictions, I belive the first four were made in his now famous 1988(?) testimony to the senate...
# - Cooling stratosphere. - observed by sattelite and used by (amoung others) Bob Carter to confuse people.
# - More warming over land and ice - observed
# - More warming over poles - observed, the phenomena is now known as Polar Amplification .
# - More warming in the winter - observed (IPCC 2007).
# - Rapid disintergration of Artic sea ice - observed (NSIDC,WMO,NOAA,ect).

You would think people who call themselves geeks would point out that Hansen made all those predictions using the much maligned computer models rather than poo-pooing the whole idea of models, as is often the case here on slashdot. I have argued with thousands of people like you over the last decade or so, over that time people with your opinion on AGW have shrunk dramatically due solely to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.

"look at a major problem in the medical world today."

Good idea!

I agree some drug companies attempt to abuse the scientific process even going to extremes such as publishing their own journals through front groups. They use the same disinformation methods as the tabacco industry uses for it's propoganda, which also happens to be identical to the disinformation methods that the fossil fuel companies are (successfully) using on you. If you were alive duri

If the manufacturers are serious about the post-rebate price, then let them make it the price they sell it for, and get rid of the rebate system. Or admit that they are being dishonest in running it. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enAU291AU333&q=consumer+affairs+rebate+site:au+scam&btnG=Search&meta=

Yes it is bullshit and it's no better than the greenpeace bullshit on the other side of politics. I can recall a recent discovery in Australia earlier this year that was reported in the local news. Allthough I can't remeber who or where the discovery was made, a quick google shows thare are lots of companies actively prospecting for uranium in Oz.

Simarly the "enough uranium for 1000yrs" is also overly optimitic (ie:bullshit), the most common figure I have read is 100-150yrs.

As for TFA, the solar pre-heat is a great idea and can be adapted to suit most industrial boilers. However as another poster remarked, I hope it is not used as greenwash to justify building more coal plants.

In the abscense of a working cap and trade scheme I like the UK idea where I believe they have banned new coal plants unless they reduce the emmissions of the plant by X%. In other words I'm waiting for the coal companies to put their taxpayer donated carbon capture money where their mouth is, until then I think they should be stoppped from adding to the problem.

bio-char. As for old growth forests, 30yrs ago I was literally cutting them down for a living, the area is now a national park.

It's much smarter to prune than mow. The pin in the map link is where I worked in the early eighties the policy was to cut individual trees (mountain ash) marked by the parks authority. If you scoll north over the border where the rules were different you will see a giant bald patch created by woodchiping during the 70's. The last time I drove through the bald patch (1990's) it was covered with tree stumps standing a few feet high on a ball of roots because the soil had long since washed away.

bio-char. As for old growth forests, 30yrs ago I was literally cutting them down for a living, the area is now a national park.

It's much smarter to prune than mow. The pin in the map link is where I worked in the early eighties the policy was to cut individual trees (mountain ash) marked by the parks authority. If you scoll north over the border where the rules were different you will see a giant bald patch created by woodchiping during the 70's. The last time I drove through the bald patch (1990's) it was covered with tree stumps standing a few feet high on a ball of roots because the soil had long since washed away.

Well, it comes down to simple math. For the performance to get to 570-fold more than what it is now, in the same style package, either:

1. The GPU has to become 570-fold more efficient
2. The GPU has to become ~570-fold smaller so they can fit 570 of the things onto a card

Both seem highly unlikely.

Either in isolation seems highly unlikely, true. But a 23x improvement in efficiency coupled with a 23x improvement in the number of cores on a GPU? In six years? That sounds a bit more feasible.

If there were, just coincidentally, to be some theoretical progression rate that involved doubling every 18 months, you'll notice that after ~6.87 years you're at ~570. Which is close enough to their estimate that it could be how they arrived at this figure.

I've never heard O'Reilly demand the other side be silenced, only his own right to be heard.

What, pray tell, is the first result if one googles for " cut his mic! "?

Exactly - sliding things are far more complex. Chips are just silicon, and the whole board in a device goes through a burn-in - it's just simply going to work until something alters it mechanically, since there are no moving parts to fail.

Again how?

Average life expectancy for silicon? average life expectancy for an aluminium or even plastic spring.

I assure you that the spring will last longer. Electronic components are more fragile then physical ones.

Or think of it this way. The iPhone has circuits. The HTC has circuits plus moving parts. By definition it has more complexity - which as you note leads to more failures.

Assuming all other factors are equal, like QA. HTC's are manufactured in Taiwan, Apple in China. HTC has far more in-depth and comprehensive QA.

The accepted failure of the iphone rate is 10%

Despite the headlines, 10% (low estimate) is quite high for a mobile phone.

There have been some plastic-like substances made from biologically derived materials

Henry Ford was an early user of biologically based plastics, and I believe some of them made it to the Model T. Reference - Google books.

Burden of proof is such a fun thing to throw around :)

I see the point of your post... but my feeling is that the G-GP's assertion is more likely to be true than yours.

The best thing I can think of to prove this (in a very unacademic as only slashdot condones...), is a good ol' google search: http://www.google.com.au/search?q=avoids+class+action

That tells you that some companies do care about avoiding class action suits. Therefore the G-GP's assertion has some support in articles :)

She also eats dogs?!?!

hrrm?

Citation needed.

Citation. Iphones have a failure rate of 10%, which is unacceptable. Couldn't find data on HTC, Dream or Magic failure rates. Occams razor suggests it's no where near as high as the iphone or it would have been used in similar propaganda.

With 1 in 10 device fail within 12 months and the well publicised overheating issues it's fair to say Apple's hardware is not as good as people are making out.

AFAIK - The best explaination has always been rockets, photos and comentry of the clouds have been posted on APOD several times. The previous /. article is the first time I recall hearing it linked to AGW by an atmospheric scientist.

"If you're simply "Questioning the Mainstream", you're missing the point somewhat. The point is not to question something specific; the point is to question everything. Not only should you be sceptic of people who believe that global warming is real and man-made, but also of those who deny this. In fact, what you should do in all cases is not trust anyone, but look at the studies and data yourself, and judge it on sound scientific reasons."

Idealy that is correct but you* cannot have expertise (let alone time) to investigate every issue personally at some point (usually in the land of the lobbyists) a critic turns from a skeptic into a cherry-picking conspiracy nut. This is where "consensus" comes in ("consensus" = "The republic of science"), at some point you have to trust other investigators. So you pick investigators with a good track record to be your surrogates, the most credible are public institutions such as the Royal Academy or NAS or a million other well known acronymns.

If every one of those surrogates agrees on a particular point then it's part of a body of tentative "scientific facts" that are the evidence behind such phrases as "science says light and radio waves are the same thing at different frequencies" or "scientists say a comet or asteroid is the likely cause of the new spot on Jupiter".

A scientific education ( when done properly ) helps you to negotiate this mountain of information more easily and gives you a basic framework to the body of knowledge called science. However self education can also do the job, James Randi is one of my favorite skeptics and his only qualifications are in magic.

I'm not a climatologists but I have followed the topic for nearly three decades. I joined "Al Gore's religion" around 1997 (specifically because of the 1997 IPCC reports). Apparently this makes me harder to convince than NAS who in the late 50's warned the US government that AGW was occuring and have not changed their minds since. My logic goes like this...

Science says:
- The globe is warming.
- Most of the warming is due to CO2 emmissions
- Ignoring the problem is not a rational option.

1. Since 1997 I have not seen any convincing contra-evidence to the consesus. Some of it has made me do a lot of research, most of it has simply been old talking points perpetuated by the Heartland Institute and their affiliates.

2. I cannot name one credible scientific institution that disputes any part of the consesnsus.

3. Dyson is the only credible scientist I can name who still disputes part of the consensus. When he publishes his ideas everyone can check them out.

4. The most interesting critisisms come from members of our own "religion". Especially at my cult leader's web site (realclimate.org), they slay a few psuedo-skeptics for breakfast and then spend the day argueing over real questions such as the "missing methane" that was predicted by climate models.

5. Computer model ensembles for defined senarios give accurate but conservative forecasts. ( I have some expertise in FEA computer simulations and the mathematical training to understand the algorithims )

6. I live in SE Australia that according to geologic evidence and recent experience is highly sensitive to a warming climate (natural or otherwise).

7. The fucking North Pole is melting.

*Disclaimer: not "you" personally.

Well, there is one extremely low carbon footprint technology that we know works and scales well.

Unfortunately due to mismanagement and the characteristics of the Nuclear industry as a whole, release of radioactive isotopes into the environment is unavoidable. Whilst, generally, external exposure to radioactive isotopes may be harmless the process of 'Bioconcentration' (outlined in Principles of Ecotoxicology) allows inevitable ingestion of radioactive isotopes via the food chain where the radioactive element becomes a potent source of cancer, depending on the nutrient the isotope analogues, in the body. For example, when ingested Pu-239 analogues iron and is a potent trigger for Leukemia.

Much the same way our generation has to deal with a carbon dioxide externality in the form of carbon tax, future generations will have to deal with a radioactive isotope externality proportional to the amount of radioactive isotopes the Nuclear Industry releases. Unless, of course, practices within the nuclear industry are improved.

Too bad the people who oppose it do so without offering any real alternative besides the "renewables" that we've been waiting decades for or the prospect of a lower standard of living.....

Your argument presumes that it is a polarised debate, pro vs anti but there is a pragmatic point of view as well that should be framed as 'Responsible Nuclear Advocacy'. The proposition of 'a lower standard of living' implies a Not In My Generation means to dealing with the, very real, issues the Nuclear Industry has. Acknowledging those and starting with a geologically sound spent fuel containment facility (which Yucca Mountain is not) is the first step to moving this industry forward.

Whilst I think that development of Nuclear Power is necessary to deal with pu-239 and u-238 (yes I am talking about an IFR style reactor - but let's not go into that now), realistically it will take 50 years of infrastructure planning to implement a properly functioning industry. This is a ideal opportunity to develop and standardise the Nuclear industry for the next several hundred years with designs that take into account all of the engineered redundancy and safety facilities the Nuclear Industry recommended for itself some 25 years ago. Before you mention the AP-1000, this reactor fails even the most basic test of ratio of containment volume to thermal power (actually below that of today's PWRs) increasing the risk of containment over-pressurization and failure in event of a severe accident.

Even doubling alternative energy research budgets would take 1/7th of the nuclear research budget, so there is serious scope for shortening the wait for the 'alternatives'. They are quite underdeveloped technology (solar, wind, geothermal, wave) so wouldn't it be wise to increase the funding to develop them and not have all our eggs in one basket? They have shorter development times between generations than nuclear and don't need artificial insurance constructs like the Price-Anderson act to make them insurable.

If we are going to have a Nuclear Industry V2.0 why not develop one that is based on solid engineering principals instead of compromised to be affordable to capitalise. In the meantime if we invest heavily in undeveloped, low externality, energy solutions like solar, wind, geo-thermal and micro-generation there will be enough energy *available* to carry out such an infrastructure project properly. America, for one, is rich in these 'alternative' resources and would be foolish not to utilize them.

In Hebrew the word is 'partzuf' which means face, as in 'countenance'. You will find most reasonable texts (here is an example) translate this as 'configuration'. You're right though, it would be a big mistake to interpret them as physics. I was merely making an observation :)

>>You failed to take the weight of air into account. Why, when you do that they are, in fact, lighter then air.

Talking of being pedantic, I think the word you are looking for is density, not weight.

1m^3 of air weighs about 1200g.

1 teaspoon of water weighs about 5g (based on volume of a teaspoon being about 5 ml).

If you drop one teaspoon of water into a one cubic metre box that's full of air, the water is going to fall straight to the bottom of the box. If you heat the same weight of water (somehow without heating the air as well!) above the boiling point it will increase in density and float to the top of the box. Neither weight has changed, only the density has.

>>Insightful? Assuming you can perfectly remember 1 byte per second, you'd be memorizing for over 100 million years.
>>The human brain is great and all that, but no way are you going to store that much data while being able to reproduce it later.

Actually, it would not be quite that difficult if the data consisted of pictures. If we take the IA-60 definition of Word as 8 bytes. And a picture is worth 1000 words. So that's a total of about 137,438,954 images to memorise, which at a rate of 1 per second would take 4.4 years.

"The zealots have proclaimed the cause and effect that you just referred to. Scientist on the other hand, have not made such a proclamation."

Bzzzt, the rest of your claims indicate a similar lack of research on your part.

Amongst model aircraft pilots, LiPO batteries are legendary for the extreme fires caused if the outer seal is broken.

See: http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Lipo+fires&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

What about cloud formation?

Clouds formation involves areosols and the IPCC reports state both phenomena as having a low level of scientific understanding. However Japan's Earth simulator does a very nice job of simulating clouds, precipitation and even hurricanes using the basic laws of physics. ( embeded movie half way down the page )

"Check out section 1.2 of the comments draft paper for Carlin's graphs of similar datasets."

I've seen enough of that report to determine it is a rehash of the descredited anti-science peddled by the CEI, my basic objection is that they are not Carlin's views, nor is it evidence, it is a summary of the discredited opinions of the lobbyists at CEI. I will simply assume section 1.2 is a rehash of Bob Carter's ingenuious conflation of upper troposhere measurements with surface measurements. Climate models correctly predict the cooling trend in the upper troposhere as observed by sattelites. IIRC this is due to the radative properties of CO2 and the increased distance between molecules at low pressure (ie absorbed IR energy is more likely to be re-relased as photons than preserved as kinetic energy in collisions). Please correct me if my assumption about section 1.2 is wrong.

"I'm not sure if you are familiar with (or at all interested in) this, but the "Climate Audit" blog is fairly interesting in terms of looking at the methodology and math of climate models, etc. Climate Audit and Real Climate are somewhat infamous for having a vicious feud going on as well."

Yes I am familiar with it and I followed the debate with interest as it unfolded. I wouldn't have called it a vicious feud, more a heated scientific debate, however these days realclimate (founded by M.Mann), all but ignores McIntrye (Founder of Climate Audit). As you probably know the debate was over the statistcal methods used in Mann's 1997 "Hockey stick" paper. You may also know that the debate culimnated in a congressional inquisition into Mann's paper, I say "inquisition" because who the hell holds a congressional inquiry on the veracity of a single paper? Anyway the National Academies of Sciences (who do know a thing or two about statistics) were dragged into the fray and asked to testify.

Many psuedo-skeptics such as those at CEI have since taken out of context quotes from that testiomony to tried and discredit Mann in the false belief that discrediting a single noteable paper would also dicredit the AGW hypothesis. However it seems nobody ever goes to the trouble of pointing to the text of the NAS testimony. Yes NAS qustioned Mann's confidence levels on certain statements but they also vindicated his methods and conclusions (much to the dissapointment of the inquisitors, I'm sure). To Mann's credit he has since addressed those critcisims with a follow up paper, the paper was peer-reviewed and published by his NAS critics in PNAS.

At the time the McIntyre/Mann debate was raging I respected McIntryre's tenacity and views, however since the inquisition he has failed to come up with any new papers on the subject (AFAIK his 2003 critique of Mann is his most recent paper). He has now also become a star attraction at the Heartland Institute's annual "Climate Confrences". In my book these developments currently disqualify him as a serious critic of Mann's work and I no longer frequent his site. As always YMMV.

BTW: From what I can find, the NAS testimony is not linked to by either RC or CA.

"Try Webster's or the Oxford dictionaries. Look up "scientific method", and "science". You'll find nothing in there about "ordinary view" or "consensus"

A dictonary is not a particularly illuminating source for understanding scientific philosophy. Try researching the term Republic of science, it's an older alternate term for "consensus" and is indeed central part of the philosophy of science, it's what gives rise to the term "scientists say" as in "scientists say the earth orbits the sun". A strong scientific consensus is derived from...

1. Overwhelming evidence via multiple independent lines of enquiry.
2. A high degree of predictive and/or explanatory power.
3. A lack of conta-evidence and a lack of equally valid alternative explainations.

Of course it's every scientists duty (and wet dream) to find a logical or evidentry crack in a strong consensus but it's also every scientists duty to accept a consensus he cannot convincingly refute. The strong scientific consensus on GW is that mankinds emmisions are causing the bulk of the observed warming and it will servely retard our civilisation unless we act to reduce those emmissions by ~70-80% over the next four or five decades. The good news is it's "doable" if people can overcome their political predjudices toward the messengers.

"The earth is warming. Evolution is at work. Adapt, or die. And, in the end, no one will give a shit which you do. Except maybe your grandchildren, however many generations removed."

These sort of statements always confuse me as to what they mean by "adapt". Please explain to me why reducing emmissions through a free market cap and trade scheme that strives to make renewables economically viable is not seen as an adaptation? And yes this has little effect on me as I will probably be dead come 2050. However I already have grandchildren that "scientists say" AGW will affect if I make decisions based solely on a few pennies pressing on my hip pocket nerve. If my grandparents generation had thought that way in the 50's we would all be chocking to death under a layer of soot.

"I have yet to see *one* criticism of something in the Carlin paper [snip] if you actually looked at the linked comments paper, it attempts to raise questions. Points to new studies, revised data, etc."

Can you point to *one* paragraph, "new study" or "data revision" in the report that you think is worthwhile debating? - All I can see are the same old arguments and misinformation put out out by the anti-science lobbyists at CEI and other FF think tanks that have been debunked a million times over. Here are a few specific critisisims...

1. He claims that tempratures have been trending downwards for the past 11yrs - this can be debunked by a simple google search and is laughable to anyone who has looked at the temprate records.
2. He blathers on about sunspots and cosmic rays - a theory born from a book by a self-agrandising author and completely unsupported in the litrature, debunked in detail by yours trully here.
3. He complains the last IPCC report is 3 years old and thus out of date. - Fucking nonsense.
4. He claims that the 1998 temprature spike cannot be explained - maybe it's a mystery to him but yet another simple google search shows it's well known that the 1998 spike was due to El Nino.

I stopped there because my head was about to explode. Suffice to say that after skimming what I was sure would be 98 pages of anti-science drivel I no longer think he should be sacked, I think he should be prosecuted for collusion and conspiricy.

"all the more reason to not rush through it to satisfy political whims of the day!"

I'm sorry to say, and mean no disrespect, this is exacly what the psuedo-skeptical slimeballs at CEI want you to think. They lost the technical debate over a decade ago and have been promoting "debate" as a delay tactic ever since. These are the same people who promoted "tabacco scientists" in the eighties and are still recieving funding from Phillip Morris. They are the scum of the earth and I don't find it the least bit "bizzare" that the "slashdot crowd" are calling bullshit on this particular example of Machevelian politics.

"I have yet to see *one* criticism of something in the Carlin paper [snip] if you actually looked at the linked comments paper, it attempts to raise questions. Points to new studies, revised data, etc."

Can you point to *one* paragraph, "new study" or "data revision" in the report that you think is worthwhile debating? - All I can see are the same old arguments and misinformation put out out by the anti-science lobbyists at CEI and other FF think tanks that have been debunked a million times over. Here are a few specific critisisims...

1. He claims that tempratures have been trending downwards for the past 11yrs - this can be debunked by a simple google search and is laughable to anyone who has looked at the temprate records.
2. He blathers on about sunspots and cosmic rays - a theory born from a book by a self-agrandising author and completely unsupported in the litrature, debunked in detail by yours trully here.
3. He complains the last IPCC report is 3 years old and thus out of date. - Fucking nonsense.
4. He claims that the 1998 temprature spike cannot be explained - maybe it's a mystery to him but yet another simple google search shows it's well known that the 1998 spike was due to El Nino.

I stopped there because my head was about to explode. Suffice to say that after skimming what I was sure would be 98 pages of anti-science drivel I no longer think he should be sacked, I think he should be prosecuted for collusion and conspiricy.

"all the more reason to not rush through it to satisfy political whims of the day!"

I'm sorry to say, and mean no disrespect, this is exacly what the psuedo-skeptical slimeballs at CEI want you to think. They lost the technical debate over a decade ago and have been promoting "debate" as a delay tactic ever since. These are the same people who promoted "tabacco scientists" in the eighties and are still recieving funding from Phillip Morris. They are the scum of the earth and I don't find it the least bit "bizzare" that the "slashdot crowd" are calling bullshit on this particular example of Machevelian politics.

If you allow teleporting from anywhere to anywhere it doesn't matter how big you make your world, because to everyone it will feel small.

In regards to why World of Warcraft uses the "flying on a griffin" form of "slow portals", that's cause they've read Bartle.

It's customary to quote the source when cutting and pasting but I'll bite and match your cut and paste about Idso with my own:

In October 1999 Craig D. Idso and Keith E. Idso mentioned that they had "recently completed a project commissioned by the Greening Earth Society entitled "Forecasting World Food Supplies: The Impact of the Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentration," which we presented at the Second Annual Dixy Lee Ray Memorial Symposium held in Washington, DC on 31 August - 2 September 1999." [1] The Greening Earth Society, [is] a front group of the Western Fuels Association. Donald Paul Hodel, chairman of Summit Power Group is listed among the "scientific advisors" to the Center.[2] - sourcewatch.

Or I could just google his name along with the CEI ( the organisation pushing their psuedo-scientific report in TFA ) and find that he collarborates with them through yet another well known anti-science think tank called the "Cooler Heads Coalition".

"[Hansen is]considered by many to be perhaps the world's foremost authority on the 'greenhouse effect' of anthropogenic CO2 emissions" - At least you got that right.

Nice cut and paste skills for an AC. Of course the text is from Senator Inhofe's discredited Minority report. This is the same senator who introduced an anti-science fiction writer to the US senate as a climate expert. It comes as no surpise to me that Inhofe's pet lobbyists at the CEI are the same people in TFA who are trying to corrupt the process at the EPA.

Here is my own attempt at cut and paste from WP describing the area Inhofe alledegly represents:

"Oklahoma is the nation's second-largest producer of natural gas, fifth-largest producer of crude oil, has the second-greatest number of active drilling rigs,[72] and ranks fifth in crude oil reserves.[73] While the state ranked fifth for installed wind energy capacity in 2005,[74] it is at the bottom of states in usage of renewable energy, with 96 percent of its electricity being generated by non-renewable sources in 2002, including 64 percent from coal and 32 percent from natural gas."

If my degree taught me anything it's how little experts know about things outside their field. Such as the anthropologists/archeologists who ridiculed Luz Antequera Congregado for suggesting the famous Hall of Bulls was a prehistoric planetarium

Your comment on hurricanes indicates you don't know the difference between weather and climate, you asked for a "reasonable model" climate model I pointed to is more than reasonable and it's forcasts have been spot on.

Your argument about maples trees is rediculous, it's like saying installing shag pile carpet will prevent the air circulating in your lounge room.

"Simulations are fun, but don't ever think you thought of everything."

Imprefect does not mean useless, just ask the boffins at Lockheed, Airbus, or anyone else in the bussiness of civil, mechanical, hydrostatic or electrical engineering.

A) There isn't, that is media driven.

To be fair to the mas-media they just reprint the lobbyists press-releases because conflict makes a good story and the psuedo-skeptics keep inventing new names for their think tanks but most of them can be tracked back to the Heartland Institute. If you remeber the "tabacco scientists" from the 80's you will recognise some of the names (eg: Fred Singer). They are nothing more than proffesional lobbyists in lab coats. That is not to say there are no arguments about the finer details but the idea our emmission can warm the Earth is now over a century old and the National academies of science first warned the US government that it was happening in the 50's.

Yes peer-review is imperfect but I challenge you to find one paper in a reputable journal such as Science or Nature that disputes the much maligned "consesus". As you can see there are nearly 40,000 papers in just those two prestigious journals alone. I realise that's an unfair challenge because it's a daunting task and since the IPCC have already done it I'm pretty sure you won't find anything. I would prefer genuine skeptics (and I think you may be one), read what the editors of (say) Nature think about the problem, talk to some IPCC scientists and look at thier reports.

I also agree it's true that it's possible to be paid by a FF company and still do honest science, however I ask you to be skeptical of people such as Carter who disagree with mainstream science, can't get a paper published on the subject and are paid by think tanks because, those traits put the in the same boat as young earth creationists. I also ask genuine skeptics to do a bit of their own geeky mythbusting before posting psuedo-skeptical drivel to slashdot as anything other than an example of anti-science.

B) The "gap" in opinions exists because one side is driven by lobbyists, the other by science. I agree it's a complex subject and I admit that without some background it can appear to be a simple case of experts who can't agree on basic answers. However that's exactly what the psuedo-skeptics want you to think in order to delay any action that would upset their sponsers. They are a cynical bunch of pricks who know they have lost the science argument, they just want to drag it out as long as it's possible to be paid to do so.

Here is just one example of that kind of political dishonesty.

"We're all going to look back 50 years from now and probably laugh at BOTH sides as more or less equally flawed."

In 50yrs I will either by getting a telegram from the Queen or be dead but I think in the next decade the coal industry are in for the same treatment the tabacoo companies recieved in the 90's. What this proponent of emmission control is saying is let's slow down this uncontrolled experiment on our biosphere and carefully examine how we can replace (or clean up) coal and let's do it with a free market based approach such as cap and trade rather than just another useless tax that allows the rich to pump out as much pollution as they can pay for while the rest of us suffer.

Disclaimer: Politically I describe myself as a "fiscally conservative, science based greenie" but I have not been interested enough to vote since 1978. OTOH I have followed the scientific and political arguments over AGW for almost three decades now and became convinced we have a serious problem when the IPCC released their 1997 resports, I have never seen Gore's movie simply because I knew

A) There isn't, that is media driven.

To be fair to the mas-media they just reprint the lobbyists press-releases because conflict makes a good story and the psuedo-skeptics keep inventing new names for their think tanks but most of them can be tracked back to the Heartland Institute. If you remeber the "tabacco scientists" from the 80's you will recognise some of the names (eg: Fred Singer). They are nothing more than proffesional lobbyists in lab coats. That is not to say there are no arguments about the finer details but the idea our emmission can warm the Earth is now over a century old and the National academies of science first warned the US government that it was happening in the 50's.

Yes peer-review is imperfect but I challenge you to find one paper in a reputable journal such as Science or Nature that disputes the much maligned "consesus". As you can see there are nearly 40,000 papers in just those two prestigious journals alone. I realise that's an unfair challenge because it's a daunting task and since the IPCC have already done it I'm pretty sure you won't find anything. I would prefer genuine skeptics (and I think you may be one), read what the editors of (say) Nature think about the problem, talk to some IPCC scientists and look at thier reports.

I also agree it's true that it's possible to be paid by a FF company and still do honest science, however I ask you to be skeptical of people such as Carter who disagree with mainstream science, can't get a paper published on the subject and are paid by think tanks because, those traits put the in the same boat as young earth creationists. I also ask genuine skeptics to do a bit of their own geeky mythbusting before posting psuedo-skeptical drivel to slashdot as anything other than an example of anti-science.

B) The "gap" in opinions exists because one side is driven by lobbyists, the other by science. I agree it's a complex subject and I admit that without some background it can appear to be a simple case of experts who can't agree on basic answers. However that's exactly what the psuedo-skeptics want you to think in order to delay any action that would upset their sponsers. They are a cynical bunch of pricks who know they have lost the science argument, they just want to drag it out as long as it's possible to be paid to do so.

Here is just one example of that kind of political dishonesty.

"We're all going to look back 50 years from now and probably laugh at BOTH sides as more or less equally flawed."

In 50yrs I will either by getting a telegram from the Queen or be dead but I think in the next decade the coal industry are in for the same treatment the tabacoo companies recieved in the 90's. What this proponent of emmission control is saying is let's slow down this uncontrolled experiment on our biosphere and carefully examine how we can replace (or clean up) coal and let's do it with a free market based approach such as cap and trade rather than just another useless tax that allows the rich to pump out as much pollution as they can pay for while the rest of us suffer.

Disclaimer: Politically I describe myself as a "fiscally conservative, science based greenie" but I have not been interested enough to vote since 1978. OTOH I have followed the scientific and political arguments over AGW for almost three decades now and became convinced we have a serious problem when the IPCC released their 1997 resports, I have never seen Gore's movie simply because I knew

"Do these climate models take into account the fact that Volcanoes erupt from time to time"

YES. Look carefully and you will find that models usually assume one large eruption per decade. The predicted cooling from the models assumptions was remarkably acurate in the case of observations from Mt Pinatubo, furthermore those predictions came from a model created 20yrs ago!

Here it is on Google Maps... you can see a faint circle where the mound is located.

Aaaaah, clearly what this guy is looking for.

(posting anon as I am ashamed of my puerile sense of humour).

Google?
http://www.google.com.au/enterprise/mini/index.html

Seriously, if you can't be bothered collecting/maintaining the metadata that more structured solutions require, then just let Google index the lot. It'll work just as well (or not) as it does on the Internet. Although its not free it seems reasonably priced. It could be a quick answer to your problem.

This didn't go well the last time. Newspaper headline:

NIGHTMARE ON DREAMSPACE: MUMS, DADS, KIDS PLUNGE TO EARTH

HORRIFIED witnesses told last night how they watched helplessly as parents and children plummeted to the ground after a huge bouncy castle was sent rocketing 120ft into the air.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2006/07/24/killed-by-the-bouncy-castle-115875-17435718/

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=dreamspace+inflatable

If I can get 100 mbps for 13 bucks then you should be able to aswell.

Try reading what I said. Take this location for instance. I will be fucking lucky if I can get 256K at my property not far from there. And no, Kevin's much-vaunted rollout is not very likely to change that, since it falls outside mobile coverage as well as the copper/fibre network.

Your glib "get 100mbs for 13 bucks" is direct proof of what I was saying about the streaming thing being US-centric. That kind of bandwidth is just not available here.

1. Springfield Lakes. One publicly funded school, several private.
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=Springfield+Lakes&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=au&ei=oZokSq6KMqb06gPEo-yRBg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1
A planned move on our part.
2. Family-friendly public service.

"we have those weird unexplained things literally flying circles above us"

They're vultures, they can sense your argument is dying.

This thing is a complete rip off of photophlow

It's been suggested recently that the perchlorates invalidated the micro-oven experiments, Apparently when heated they release large amounts of oxygen that would incerate any organics. Since I only have a vauge idea of what a perchlorate is, I have no idea if that's a valid criticisim. But given the possibility of ground water I think the methane hots spots are worth a closer look.

"I thought, Angelina was hot, until I learned, she has a Che Guevara tattoo... Eeeewww..."

If you pick your women to match your politics then just be aware that a Reagan tattoo will not make Magret Thatcher's arse anywhere near as palatable as Angelina's. OTOH Palin would be ok if she was unarmed and wearing a mouthball.

Regardless that Che was just as "ruthless" as Kisinger, he was seen by many as a champion of the poor and a matyr, Kinsinger won a nobel peace prize, so what? - I grew up in the sixties and can barely rember a thing about either, except their pictures. Many of Che's biographies are flattering, Jolie probably read one and now idolises the "champion of the poor" myth - seems reasonable she would admire those mythical qualities, given her heavy involment in charity. Wether ignorance/idolotry makes one an idiot is a matter of opinion but there is no denying Jolie is using her obvious good looks and fame for good works. Personally I love a mind fuck just as much as the other kind and would jump at the chance to examine her tattoo and do some pillow talking about where she's been and what she thinks Che represents.

In other news Nelson Mandela was listed as a terrorist by the US. - who cares now?

google endothelial dysfunction

sure sodium should be balanced with sufficient potassium and you can get too many calories by eating too much of any food, but when your food has ingredients that are poisonous, that is they intrinsically cause health problems, and there is no reason for their consumption, this should concern you.

Don't talk to the police! When are people going to get this through their thick heads? There is one question you need to ask the police: "Am I free to go?" and maybe a followup of "Am I being detained?" which is the same question, really. If they say yes to the first, you walk away. If they so no to the second, you walk away! Don't try to justify your actions, you're not required to. Don't try to be smart, or demand your "rights". And don't, under any circumstances, answer any questions.

Personally, I blame all these cop shows on tv. The "interrogation" scenes make for good drama, but only stupid people talk to the police.