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> " show me proof that any specific religion hold a specific stance on climate change."

http://www.pri.org/stories/201...

http://science.howstuffworks.c...

http://www.pri.org/stories/201...

"ollan describes an experiment done by animal biologist Monica Gagliano. She presented research that suggests the mimosa pudica plant can learn from experience. And, Pollan says, merely suggesting a plant could learn was so controversial that her paper was rejected by 10 scientific journals before it was finally published.

Mimosa is a plant, which looks something like a fern, that collapses its leaves temporarily when it is disturbed. So Gagliano set up a contraption that would drop the mimosa plant, without hurting it. When the plant dropped, as expected, its leaves collapsed. She kept dropping the plants every five to six seconds.

"After five or six drops, the plants would stop responding, as if they'd learned to tune out the stimulus as irrelevent," Pollan says. "This is a very important part of learning â" to learn what you can safely ignore in your environment."

Maybe the plant was just getting worn out from all the dropping? To test that, Gagliano took the plants that had stopped responding to the drops and shook them instead.

"They would continue to collapse," Pollan says. "They had made the distinction that [dropping] was a signal they could safely ignore. And what was more incredible is that [Gagliano] would retest them every week for four weeks and, for a month, they continued to remember their lesson.""

being easier to learn surely helps

Sure, it might help, but that doesn't mean that's the primary reason for adoption.

For English, the reason for its world-wide dominance can be attributed to (mainly) two things: the British Navy and American technical superiority post WWII.

The British Navy is responsible because that's what allowed the English to galavant across the world forging (one of) the largest empires ever known. India, Hong Kong, Austrailia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and various other colonies in a large part of the world all speak English because England could send out ships to conquer or colonize them, and then defend them when attacked. What's more, they were lucky to do it in an economically enhancing way, in contrast with places like Spain, which sucked the riches out of their colonies and then collapsed because of it. London is (arguably) the economic capitol of the world, meaning that if you want to speak to investors, you want to speak in English.

American techincal superiority post WWII comes out in two ways. The first is the obvious military dominance. America is the military superpower on the block, and if you want to be friendly with them, your diplomats should speak English. With that military & technical superiority comes economic superiority: American dollars are a safe place to put your money, so if you're wealthy, you better learn English to invest wisely, or at least hire an accountant who can.

The second is simply that Americans, being practically alone on the continent with English speakers, are monoglots. This means that when they develop some technical advance they don't pause to consider the linguistic issues. Translation is an afterthought, so technical developments are all in English. For example, hardly anyone attempts to translate "computer" - these new technical items all get English loanwords. Also, scientific development reduced itself to being primarily English 1 2.

But perhaps the greatest reason is that due to the technical and economic dominance of the United States, this was where the big media companies sprouted. (Assisted, no doubt, by having a large population which could appreciate the programming without translation issues.) You want to watch the hottest movies an television everyone is talking about? You better know English, or you're waiting several months until a (poorly done) dub is availible. Or you can watch it with subtitles, which means that you're slowly and subconciously being taught English by hearing the sounds in relation to meanings.

So it's not the ease of learning that's the primary reason English is so globally dominant. Granted, if English was really hard to learn, it might not have had the same rate of uptake. (e.g. if Finland was in England's place, we might all be speaking a pidgin Finnish instead of "true" Finnnish.) But ease of use is not the reason for uptake. (For example, even if Luxembourgish - just as an example - was the easiest language in the world to learn and use practically no one would speak it, because there would be no reason to.)

Diverting 93% of the water to grow lettuce in the desert since 1920 had nothing to do with it.

Also, ignore the arctic ice that's been increasing for three years, the antarctic ice that's always grown and hit a new record in 2014, snow in Hawaii, and the great lakes that have frozen early,and that have frozen over compete the last two years. Ignore Niagara falls that has frozen over two years in a row and ignore all the record cold around the country. Ignore the fact we kill killed half the worlds trees in the last 100 years and where we do theres drought and ignore the fact the IPCC did not admit trees ate CO2 until 2010. Ignore the fact NAS falsified the CO2 hypothesis in 2010 and ignore the fact the climate models now have 95% error.Ignore the fact corals have genes that upregulate to ignore acidification and warming and ignore the fact pollution (I'm especially looking at you big oil) has gotten worse while we're distracted by this nonsense. Ignore the fact not a single IPCC prediction ever came true.

And especially ignore NAA/NOAA when they say "there has been no warming this century"

Creation science, social science, climate science... if you have to add "science" to a word to give it legitimacy, it's not science any more than the Democratic People's republic of North Korea is a democracy. Real sciences yield natural laws to quote Feynman.

Instead, look at 01% of a country that is 2% of the world.

Refs:
1) Ice
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
http://news.ku.dk/all_news/201...
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/ear...
http://www.nasa.gov/content/go...

2) records:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/vide...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
http://www.staradvertiser.com/...
https://www.facebook.com/video...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/febru...
http://www.latimes.com/local/l...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

3) Trees:
http://www.pri.org/stories/201...
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
http://www.agu.org/news/press/...

But what if you were to post one of the traditional images of the prophet? Would that be OK?

See, for example:

    http://www.pri.org/stories/201...

If I understand correctly, it isn't the image itself per se that is forbidden in the Koran: it is worshipping (or praying to) an image that is blasphemous.

Government not acting in the interests of the people? Give 'em the boot!

I'll enlist! Where do we start? Here is one guy in Iceland who did just that and won...

http://www.pri.org/stories/201...

I have seen him talk and he is funny and very sensible. I wish he'd have left some sort of legacy so a pattern of change and good candidates could appear. Perhaps wishful thinking but its a start.

shun anything electronic, or electric for that matter. Substinance farm and read dead-tree books for leasure.

Spooked by NSA, Russia reverts to paper documents
Kremlin returns to typewriters to avoid computer leaks

Only one of the many "benefits" from the leaks, not to mention:

Snowden revelations lead Russia to push for more spying on its own people

What about Belgium?

But what about the videos of people lighting their tap water. Are there explanations that don't directly implicate fracking? I asking seriously. I haven't read up on those films and I'm sure someone has a perfectly reasonable sounding story for how that could be.

And suppose the fracking chemicals themselves don't migrate. What about the petrochemicals they've broken loose (which is the whole reason for fracking in the first place, as I understand it)? Can those work their way up into the water supply?

As I understand it, when done properly, the petro and fracking chemicals either stay in the shale or end up back in the tankers.

The problem is, according to some studies, it's only done properly 20% of the time or less, due to the high costs of doing it properly and the lack of effective oversight.

In short, the chemicals usually migrate into the water supply due to dumping, accidents, and badly maintained equipment, not because they were properly injected into the shale/extracted and shipped to petrochemical companies.

But what about the videos of people lighting their tap water. Are there explanations that don't directly implicate fracking? I asking seriously. I haven't read up on those films and I'm sure someone has a perfectly reasonable sounding story for how that could be.

And suppose the fracking chemicals themselves don't migrate. What about the petrochemicals they've broken loose (which is the whole reason for fracking in the first place, as I understand it)? Can those work their way up into the water supply?

Rationing!
Rationing!
Rationing!
Rationing!
Rationing!

The bottle requires an energy input, they are using solar. The submitted article is based on a slightly fuller one: http://www.pri.org/stories/science/technology/scientist-takes-inspiration-from-natural-world-to-create-self-filling-water-bottle-12154.html

Does anyone else think that this new monkey looks a lot like that badly restored painting of Jesus that was in the news a few weeks ago? Monkey (from TFA), Jesus; you decide.

"Mr. Ravi was not charged with causing Mr. Clementi’s death, but the suicide hung heavily over the trial" So that means he still gets away with invasion of privacy. I suppose he should go work for Google, Apple, Facebook, etc.Hell, make that ANY company that has access to personal information!

See PRI story below... But first:

Mining news stories will only tell you what people already knew... Osama Bin Laden? If you asked any experts in the past decade where he was, the answer was always "Pakistan". Everyone assumed he was in the tribal areas, and were wrong. In hindsight, it's easy to say they were within X km, but that information also ceases to be useful in hindsight...

Anyhow, this story isn't a complete waste. It segues nicely into a different story from PRI a couple months ago, which DOES make predictions. It is based on weather, and specifically predicts how many politically unstable countries are likely to experience "violence" (an uprising) in a given year:

http://www.pri.org/stories/science/environment/global-violence-linked-to-severe-weather5064.html

leaking dangerous amounts of radiation into the environment

The problem with that is that there are not dangerous amount of radiation leaking into the environment. For a good, more informed, less bias summary, read here:

http://theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/53461/fukushima-nuclear-accident-simple-and-accurate-explanation

No one has died from radiation poising, and as of now, it doesn't look like anyone will. The major concern right now is a financial one, not an environmental or safety one. If they wanted, they could let the "cores melt down" and nothing really bad would happen. The cores would be contained in the designed containment chambers. The only downside is that you loose a lot of really expensive uranium and can't really put a new plant right there anymore.

Also, take this into account, Chernobyl, which by all accounts was worse than Japan's situation could turn out to be killed between 28 and 700,000 people (depends on who you ask, but lets go with the "long term effects, people who got cancer in their 70s that maybe wouldn't have and use the 700,000). Each year in China alone, 700,000 die from air pollution related causes, mostly from coal power plants:

http://www.pri.org/business/global-development/thousands-of-deaths-because-of-china-s-coal-energy2500.html

In addition, on average 30+ workers die in China's coal mines each year. 28 workers total died in the Chernobyl meltdown.

Coal kills way more people than nuclear energy has. It is kind of like terrorism in America. Everyone is going through crazy steps like the TSA to prevent another terrorist attack, even though your are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist (in the USA).

Is nuclear 100% safe, no it isn't. Neither is walking down the street or drinking water. The fact is we need energy for the world, to provide heating and cooling, to help produce food, and to help our economies grow. With the technologies out there right now, nuclear is, in my opinion, by far the best option. It is cleaner and safer than coal and is about the same cost per kwh. Hydroelectric would be better, but it is limited as to where you can put it. Solar and wind are great future technologies, but until efficiency is greatly improved and/or better storage techniques are developed, they can't supply the power requirements we have right now, much less in the future.

Well if you don't want to donate your body to medical science...

The Japanese have come up with some ideas:
http://www.pri.org/world/asia/japan-high-tech-graveyard-in-sky1680.html

Others are taking the family heirloom idea to another level:
http://www.lifegem.com/

Many others prefer sea burials:
http://www.suite101.com/content/burial-at-sea---funeral-choices-for-an-ocean-grave-a305707

Others are taking a sea burial more literally and discovering a way to preserve full body burial without using up more land:
http://www.nmreef.com/memorial+reef.18.lasso

And still others are making records out of corpses:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-08/27/and-vinyly

And the point of burying a body is based on religion, culture and tradition. There are countless points and reasons for burying a body, some we would consider good reasons, others we would consider superstition and/or ridiculous. You obviously lump most of funeral tradition in this second catagory. Personally, I don't have many memories of my grandfather, but I still go to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to visit him. I like the solitude and cold contemplative beauty of cemeteries, I also like reading gravestones and imagining the lives behind those names and quotes.

But just because I like them, doesn't mean that I believe cemeteries are a sustainable method of burial or corpse disposal. But as my links point out, this is being addressed in many, many different ways. Cremation is becoming more popular, but something about creating a product out of my body after I die appeals to me. Personally I want to use my ashes in making whiskey for all my friends and relatives.

What about you?

http://www.pri.org/arts-entertainment/movies/diablo-cody-on-horror-movies1622.html

Check out the offerings distributed by Public Radio International. The archives of many of their shows are available to listen to for free. Specifically, check out This American Life , To the Best of Our Knowledge , and Sound & Spirit . If you're able to record these shows from the archives (using some sort of scheduled stream-ripper like iRecordMusic or WireTap Pro), or purchase them (through Audible or ITMS), they can make an hour-long commute feel like mere minutes.

And for your Monday morning commute, make sure you've got the latest installment of Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me! , the NPR news quiz.

This speech by Stephen Salyer, president of Public Radio International, is worth a careful read. He says "we face a crisis in public broadcasting that calls for us to reinvent ourselves. We need to change our mission, re-define what we mean by "community" and local service, reorganize our institutions around the needs of public media consumers, and develop new forms of public media organizations that can move quickly and attract private capital."

PRI is a program development/distribution organization that in many ways competes with NPR. It is a spinoff of Minnesota Public Radio. Many of the programs you hear on your "NPR station," such as Marketplace, Sound Money and The World, are PRI programs. PRI also syndicates BBC and CBC programming to U.S. public stations.

Of course, The World is produced by PRI, not NPR. Sorry.

I tend to get most of my "reliable" news from NPR(National Public Radio). My local NPR station also broadcasts PRI (Public Radio International) in the afternoon.

Here's some radio commentary on the subjet matter. I heard it the other day on Public Radio International. An interesting read and somewhat related...

NPR

PRI

woo hoo! glad that here in LA the 'left-wing masses' have a few more choices which, fortunately, rarely play The Cure.

KPFK a pacifica station. they don't take any corporate funding and are completely free from the government (uh, except for the FCC)

KXLU which is a decent good college radio station

KILL! (corporate) RADIO well, it's web only but it's a cool project started by the LA Independent Media Center and RE:Generation TV. very 'college radio' style but has some great shows (and they occasionally play the cure)

KCRW the NPR/PRI station with some good shows (chocolate city!) but mostly i don't like the music. but at least i can agree with the format...

but that doesn't mean that i won't complain about radio here -- community radio licenses are not available here as they are in some other cities. community radio licenses were to enable underserved communities the ability to broadcast using a 10 to 100 watt transmitter. it was strongly opposed by NPR (of course, it would be a strong alternative)

and the LA 'hip hop' stations plays only gangsta rap -- there is A LOT of good hip hop and rap out there (well, i like it) that doesn't have anything to do with benzes, ho's, or fo'ties.

OPB mentioned last week during their pledge drive that they pay about $800,000 a year to NPR; NPR charges them based on how many listeners they have (according to surveys and such). Of course, OPB also buys radio programming from PRI and other organizations, and television programming from PBS and others.

Around 10% of OPB's radio listeners are contributing members. OPB gets 51% of their revenues from member contributions. Last week, 7,000 listeners pledged a little over $500,000.

These are the kinds of numbers we should be hearing from Slashdot.

My first choice would be for a live NPR feed though PRI and of course CBC would be welcome. All-music would be useful as an alternate though I'm really looking for something to keep me engaged on the long and at this hundredth-time boring night drive. Mp3's or other pre-recorded music aren't what I'm looking for (I already have a large collection of CD's & tapes) and so aren't interesting as an alternative. I could download some news & interview programming I like and burn it to a CD before each trip but this would be far more preparation then I care to do so regularly.

Unfortunately it appears that "satellite radio" will be as problematic for me as conventional radio. Driving through the mountains at ~45 North will likely result in service interruptions (doubtless the same as with conventional radio: always at the most interesting points.) Without much likelihood of repeaters in these rural areas this appears an inherent bug in the service and one which (at least for me) brings it from a strong possibility to something I'm not willing to pay much extra for.

A couple of tangential thoughts:

1. As Canada's CRTC takes no action to prevent piracy of US FCC-licensed satellite television broadcasts (aside from refusing to allow the services to be directly sold in Canada) I wonder if the same will hold true of radio broadcasts?
2. Is anyone aware of an online service where I could plug in a route (not a single location) and get a listing of stations by genre along the way? I imagine this would be a popular add-on to the many online route/map services but none seem to have anything like this. What I'd like to see would be something like a listing of public radio station by frequency along my route; others would presumably prefer country stations, pop or rock programming, etc.

Similar things happended when the BBC cut off their World Service shortwave stream to North America and Australia a couple of months ago, their reasoning was that with high Internet proliferation people could tune into the net instead, or listen via XM radio etc.

Interesting that you say that. Fairly recently, the BBC's World Service was put on as the late-night broadcast for one of the local public radio stations. I believe Public Radio International is handling the syndication. I wonder if there's a causal connection between one and the other.

PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) is already a private nonprofit corporation. They already play sponsored "messages" for corporate "underwriters." If public broadcasting is still short on funding for equipment, PBS should just give up government support altogether, and take commercial advertising. The same goes for NPR (National Public Radio) and PRI (Public Radio International).

Sometimes I worry that I will develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.

I listen to Marketplace every day, it's a great program. But it's on PRI, Public Radio International, not NPR.

What you should REALLY be worried about is automated face recognition that feeds into big-ass backend database.

It sounds like your Orwellian nightmare could be just a few years away. Just this morning, Public Radio International's Marketplace described a prototype face-recognition system made by TRW and designed for use in cars to allow only "authorized users" to start the engine.

It doesn't take much of a leap to imagine this system being used for surveillance -- the NSA must be wetting themselves over this.