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(For anyone actually wondering, 95.45% is actually the percentage of data expected to fall within two standard deviations of the mean in a Gaussian distribution. Five standard deviations is much, much more stringent—and not really standard outside of particle physics. As we all know, most amateur scientists have the knowledge and ingenuity to discover novel quantum interactions and particles on a regular basis, and merely lack the necessary funding to access synchrotrons to test their theories.)

Of course nobody expects triggering a cascading power failure. I seem to recall California has experienced rolling blackouts in the last 10 years or so.

The 2003 Northeast Blackout--Five Years Later

All told, 50 million people lost power for up to two days in the biggest blackout in North American history. The event contributed to at least 11 deaths and cost an estimated $6 billion.

The lead author, David Sinclair, has pursued some very interesting hypothesis. This work dovetails into his findings about resveratrol. The trouble is that there has been a mixed record, to say the least, in others (Amgen and Pfizer) reproducing his work:
Still you never know, so I'm mixing up a nice resveratrol NAD+ cocktail.

Awww come on now Portland Dad! I have come to expect better from you.

Your post was full of vitriol but short of fact and any support for your own "ignorant ... deluded [and] ... idiotic statement.."

Want to try again?

Here is a good reference to the 2004 study that I was talking referring to with my previous comment.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss

If you want to end world hunger and drive down food prices then it's that simple, everyone would just need to convert to a plant-based diet. But people don't want to end world hunger enough to give up their meat, so this is where we are

There is so much missing/wrong with this. Contrasting things with India? Which grains are these people eating? Are they the ones pioneered by Norman Borlaug and made possible by American science? I'd say western but in this case we have a citizen who has made a tremendously positive impact worldwide and is something more of us should strive to emulate. What about the impact of current farming methods draining aquifers to feed other countries who are arguably unsustainable. America exports 50% of its wheat. As far as countries with food issues, maybe those are the ones that should worry about how many people they can realistically support, or is that asking too much of a government? This is as insightful as listening to someone say how the world is over populated, who isn't living in one of the overpopulated countries, and suggesting ridiculous things like not having any children despite the population growth being negative without rampant immigration. Why aren't these people the first in line?

Contrast that with India, where the average person consumes 440 pounds of grain per year and has very little meat in their diet

I enjoy Indian food. The thing about food is cost, and until very recently the vast majority of India was extremely poor (they still are, just slightly less). Not poor by western standards, but true poverty levels. Not to mention the Caste system and their religious beliefs which factor heavily into their diets. As their economies grow and people better themselves their diets change, we're already seeing this with China as well. India is an extremely filthy place where many people shit wherever and bathe where they ditch bodies. It has a rich history but using it as an example of agriculture and diet to be emulated is hilarious. I implore you to look at those photos and take note of the livestock compared to the people.

You're ignoring how some of these countries exist in shitty areas (deserts!) as well as the logistics issue. Africa is a giant tribal cluster fuck of humanity and the issues there don't simply stem from meat, it's an ugly social problem. Our ancestors were completely aware of how valuable land was for this very reason. As far as a wholly plant based diet what about b12, you know that vitamin that keeps your hair from falling out, why is this an issue with this allegedly superior diet?

I really wish we could all get along, there is so much we could achieve. Unfortunately this is contrary to human nature, we're wired to be tribal. This should underline the importance of advancing as a culture and why it is important to strive for excellence (see Norman). As an example look at how Japan has embraced western things coming up from wooden armor and swords 150 years ago to steel high rises and mastering industry. Life isn't fair. Nature is an equalizer and I'd like to think that eventually things will improve for everyone with the steady march of progress. The issues you've mentioned about diet and distribution are multifaceted issues that are more social than technological at this point. We still have some growing to do ;)

The only possible conclusion is that it is the jack booted actions of an oppressive government retaliating for attending some Snowden related event?

Patternicity.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-scientists-determi

Not only that, but coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste.

Maybe it could explain statene

I agree with you on the 1Hz sound being extremely unlikely to harm humans a mile away. BUT, bats flying close to the blades can die from internal injuries WITHOUT being hit by the blades-- apparently flying into the low pressure bubble just behind the turbine blade can cause blood vessels to pop in the bat's lungs.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wind-turbines-kill-bats

Not just her and her ilk, but the unintended consequences of govt programs...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-cia-fake-vaccination-campaign-endangers-us-all&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_HLTH_20130507

I think we will see a much larger spike in developing countries.

The histories of vaccination programs are both wonderful and sad. I'm amazed that they were able to eradicate small pox, but the stories of how close they have come to eradicating polio only to have it fail is a testament to the challenges that we face and how important a role of sane health and foreign policy and education play in all of our lives.

Note also that even for gasoline engines you have reduced performance in cold weather... for many of the same reasons.

False.
Gasoline engines are more powerful in cold weather because cold air is more dense than hot air. Cold/dense air means that more air makes it into the cylinder. As every gearhead knows, more air = more power.
About the only time this wouldn't be the case is right upon startup, before the motor temps start climbing. Fluids will be cold and harder to move throughout the engine. After 30-45 seconds, this becomes a non-issue.

Of course, more power doesn't necessarily translate to better fuel economy.

That dense air also works against you on the road:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-is-the-fuel-economy-o

Finally, a vehicles aerodynamic drag is proportional to air density. On a 70-degree-F day, the density of the air is 16 percent lower than on a day with temperatures around 0 degrees F. Although this makes little difference in urban driving, it could account for a highway mileage per gallon reduction of 7 percent on the colder day (including a 1.5 percent allowance for improvement in fuel efficiency at the higher engine load).

Why do you believe that?

First of all, if you look worldwide you find that fossil fuels still receive enormously more subsidies than renewables: $409 billion vs. $60 billion in 2010. Second, even if you just look at the U.S. as your link does, the situation has only changed in the last few years, and before that, fossil fuels received far more money. Between 2002 and 2008, the U.S. spent $72 billion subsidizing fossil fuels but only $29 billion on renewable energy. Third, solar energy is now cheap enough that even if all energy subsidies were eliminated, it could still compete. And fourth, if we ever implement a carbon tax to make people pay for the greenhouse gases they generate, that will favor solar even more.

How about an article with a picture of the thing. You know how us Americans don't like stories without pictures. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=japans-offshore-wind-power-rises-within-sight-of-fukushima-nuclear-plant

Obviously nuclear power is technically non-renewable, so how long would it be expected to last, assuming no refinements to extraction or fission methods?

One answer is here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last. The short version is that with current techniques, and usage levels, the available uranium will last a couple hundred years. However, there are methods that we expect would increase that by multiple orders of magnitude.

Here is a link that confirms my reply.

I see unwelcome trends.

Those who advocate taking energy storage down to the building or subscriber level are living in a dream. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful dream! But this €20,000 unit cost will not magically come into existence. Those who envision lithium or (eventually it comes down to) lead acid batteries to the point where their effect is even detectable at grid scales are proposing an environmental nightmare in the manufacture and mass deployment of such things. Which thankfully will not come to pass because the investment capital is not there.

I go with solutions that are massive, central, run by the same people who (reliably) supply your electricity, and do not rely on evil large multipliers of objects constructed from rare earth elements or poisonous heavy metals.

I'm talking about something simple and inherently non-toxic, stored kinetic energy and rotation of heavy balanced cylinders in a near-vacuum. I vote fewer that are really big rather than many. Hoover Dam tech. Despite Beacon's bankruptcy in 2011 there are players who hope to salvage the concept using gimbals for stabilization.

I like the idea of kinetic energy storage solutions because if they were massive, centrally located and well constructed, the components would be mechanical parts that might have a smaller replacement cost than an equivalent amount of battery technology, whose chemical composition changes with age. It also fits well with my assertion that we should convert our long haul energy corridors (and generation facilities along those corridors) to native HVDC for a true inter-connected continental (and ultimately global) grid.

___
My letters on energy:
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

I see unwelcome trends.

Those who advocate taking energy storage down to the building or subscriber level are living in a dream. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful dream! But this €20,000 unit cost will not magically come into existence. Those who envision lithium or (eventually it comes down to) lead acid batteries to the point where their effect is even detectable at grid scales are proposing an environmental nightmare in the manufacture and mass deployment of such things. Which thankfully will not come to pass because the investment capital is not there.

I go with solutions that are massive, central, run by the same people who (reliably) supply your electricity, and do not rely on evil large multipliers of objects constructed from rare earth elements or poisonous heavy metals.

I'm talking about something simple and inherently non-toxic, stored kinetic energy and rotation of heavy balanced cylinders in a near-vacuum. I vote fewer that are really big rather than many. Hoover Dam tech. Despite Beacon's bankruptcy in 2011 there are players who hope to salvage the concept using gimbals for stabilization.

I like the idea of kinetic energy storage solutions because if they were massive, centrally located and well constructed, the components would be mechanical parts that might have a smaller replacement cost than an equivalent amount of battery technology, whose chemical composition changes with age. It also fits well with my assertion that we should convert our long haul energy corridors (and generation facilities along those corridors) to native HVDC for a true inter-connected continental (and ultimately global) grid.

___
My letters on energy:
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Restore the plankton and you've restored the bottom of the food chain.

The plankton have died off by at least 40% over the past 60 years. John Martin at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute hypothesized in the early 90's that the die-off was due to diminishing iron in the ocean surface waters. He was quoted as saying "Give me a freighter full of iron fertilizer and I'll give you an ice age." meaning that spraying iron onto the ocean's surface would re-populate the plankton and they in turn would consume the excess CO2 that's currently acidifying the oceans.

In 2002, MBARI validated his hypothesis that spraying iron fertilizer would engender a plankton bloom. Subsequent studies have replicated MBARI's results.

Seems to me that if someone were to claim a 100 square mile chunk of ocean, they could fertilize it, seed it with anchovies and start a very profitable aqua farm. They would be harvesting a variety of predator fish such as bass and tuna once they discovered the anchovies feasting on the plankton. Since the farm wouldn't harvest all of the carbon the plankton consumed, it'd be a net carbon sink.

If they are copying Russian EMP weapons, that might explain something.

I think I found a picture showing the results of one of their tests.

Lowest pollution? I guess little things like Windscale, Tchernobyl, and Fuckushima are removed from that calculation...

Nope. Go ahead and include them. You'll get to about .1% of the emissions of coal power plants with every nuclear disaster. Ever. Including all of the nuclear bomb tests, the two bombs we dropped on Japan, three mile island, and more.

You have completely and utterly mis-represented the entire S.A article. The comparison was between a functioning NPP and CFG of the same capacity. The figures come from the NRC standards for release of radionuclides from an operational reactor. Nuclear power plants release noble gasses roughly every two weeks, which whilst benign when released, decay into deadlier elements, and thats NRC standard operating procedure for all nuclear plants *before* we start talking about unintentional or unauthorised radioactive effluent emmissions, especially disasters.

Fun fact: Coal plants collectively emit more radiation in a year than all those disasters combined have, and that's when you include into the figures the yearly radiation the nuclear plants emit into the environment as well.

Did you actually read the article you linked to? It mentioned nothing about those disasters at all. Here is the clarification printed at the end of the article;

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

Nuclear waste, it's storage and releases into the environment are a problem so staggering that National Geographic describes as "a mythical train that would reach around the Equator and then some" (it's in the first page of ten). Check it out it will give you some idea of the actual size of this problem.

Coal: Because glowing green is fun.

However, Cherenkov radiation is blue.

But this is finally a way for dear salmons to play computer games http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/2012/09/25/ignobel-prize-in-neuroscience-the-dead-salmon-study/

Lowest pollution? I guess little things like Windscale, Tchernobyl, and Fuckushima are removed from that calculation...

Nope. Go ahead and include them. You'll get to about .1% of the emissions of coal power plants with every nuclear disaster. Ever. Including all of the nuclear bomb tests, the two bombs we dropped on Japan, three mile island, and more.

Fun fact: Coal plants collectively emit more radiation in a year than all those disasters combined have, and that's when you include into the figures the yearly radiation the nuclear plants emit into the environment as well.

Coal: Because glowing green is fun.

anti-science, you say?

Good question. Yes, the government does assert control over what is funded, and yes, it is a problem. Fortunately, their meddling doesn't usually run that deep, and usually reflects public thinking. For instance, federal funding for embryonic stem cells was limited, but it wasn't like a president opposed specific labs or favored specific hypotheses about which transcription factors are important for pluripotency. There's more funding for applied weapons research than I think a lot of scientists would like, and less funding for, say, astrophysics than they would like, but that in most cases comes from society. And that's important, becuase it wouldn't be solved by having independent funding. Were all science funded by donation rather than taxes, I think most people would donate to weapons research and faster cell phones, and few people would donate to basic research with no immediate products being produced. Another example: the public donates far less to lung cancer research than they do for most other cancers and MUCH less than they do to breast cancer research. Because there is an attitude of "If you got lung cancer, you must have smoked and that was a decision you made." Which of course is callous and not even true, but it would be real work to convince the public otherwise. Government funding means that work doesn't need to be done.

The government tends to hand the lump sum to actual scientists to hand out as they see fit. Money is given to the national institute of health, for example, not specifically earmarked to this hypothesis or that. Government puts in influence by how much each agency is given mostly, giving more money to, say, the national institute of health and less to NASA because they don't want to look like they're stopping the cure to cancer, but don't particularly think the public cares about astrophysics. So in -general- a lot of discretion is left up to real scientists.

There are some real instances of abuse though. Coburn recently eliminated all funding for political science research. But no system is going to be perfect. And government controlling the purse strings does mean science will get funded without resorting to running commercials during sitcoms.

what if I wanted to navigate based on a graphic that was previously on the screen or based on instructions that I wanted to keep up

I agree with you. But when I mention this to other people, a lot have tended to tell me that instead of switching between the menu and the instructions with your eyeballs, it's just as easy to switch between the two with Windows keyboard shortcuts. They tell me that if I get a case of amnesia from rapidly switching among full-screen environments in such an "all maximized all the time" environment, I must have a mental disability that the profitable majority of people don't have.

After 46 million years, however, any DNA would be long degraded.

That's what they used to say about Neandertal DNA. Turns out the DNA does indeed begin to fragment but you can still piece it together for a very long time after it begins to degrade. In this case that statement is it's probably right and 46 million years is too long and even if you could recover some Dino DNA (from any source) it will be fragmented beyond recovery with current technology. Even so, we should not stop trying to defy established notions of what is impossible. A Scientist at Yale University recently discovered that pigments do not degrade, they sometimes fossilise which is an amazing discovery since it means that if we find fossilised dinosaur skin, feathers or insect exoskeletons for that matter we can figure out what color long extinct animals were. It was almost a scientific axiom that we would never know what color dinosaurs were and it certainly blew me away when I found out that was wrong.

Editor’s note (10/14/13): This post was originally published on Friday, October 11, 2013, at 16:58, and taken down within the hour. As fully detailed here, we could not quickly verify the facts of the blog post and consequently for legal reasons we had to remove it. Email to the editor referenced in this post to elicit his comments has gone unanswered. Biology Online would not disclose his identity or give out additional contact information and other efforts to identify him to solicit a response have been unsuccessful. Biology Online has confirmed the exchange. This post is therefore being republished as of October 14th at 4:46pm.

The Scientific American editor didn't seem to realize that the guy at Biology Online had been fired.

Editor’s note (10/14/13): This post was originally published on Friday, October 11, 2013, at 16:58, and taken down within the hour. As fully detailed here, we could not quickly verify the facts of the blog post and consequently for legal reasons we had to remove it. Email to the editor referenced in this post to elicit his comments has gone unanswered. Biology Online would not disclose his identity or give out additional contact information and other efforts to identify him to solicit a response have been unsuccessful. Biology Online has confirmed the exchange. This post is therefore being republished as of October 14th at 4:46pm.

The Scientific American editor didn't seem to realize that the guy at Biology Online had been fired.

Sci-Am is not the platform to settle scores for private insults. Taking it there merely damages Sci-AM,
an innocent bystander.

The site in question was a Scientific American partner. They were not an "innocent bystander."

For what it's worth, Scientific American has apologized.
http://jezebel.com/sciam-apologizes-for-deleting-bloggers-post-on-being-c-1444576536

And, looking at the link in the original article, biology online is no longer listed as a partner site.
It's not here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/partners/
although it was there as of October 4: http://www.scientificamerican.com/partners/

Sci-Am is not the platform to settle scores for private insults. Taking it there merely damages Sci-AM,
an innocent bystander.

The site in question was a Scientific American partner. They were not an "innocent bystander."

For what it's worth, Scientific American has apologized.
http://jezebel.com/sciam-apologizes-for-deleting-bloggers-post-on-being-c-1444576536

And, looking at the link in the original article, biology online is no longer listed as a partner site.
It's not here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/partners/
although it was there as of October 4: http://www.scientificamerican.com/partners/

It should also be noted that the blog with the offensive editor is a business partner of Sci-AM so they are not an innocent bystander. This blog has a screen shot of Sci-AM's "Partner Network" before it was edited. Furthermore, her Sci-AM blog IS her blog. As others have pointed out, Sci-AM is being inconsistent at best in their actions.

It should also be noted that the blog with the offensive editor is a business partner of Sci-AM so they are not an innocent bystander. This blog has a screen shot of Sci-AM's "Partner Network" before it was edited. Furthermore, her Sci-AM blog IS her blog. As others have pointed out, Sci-AM is being inconsistent at best in their actions.

This was recently posted on Sci Am's website: A Message from Mariette DiChristina, Editor in Chief. It looks like a pretty reasonable explanation to me. The excuse is that it happened on a three-day weekend (Monday is Columbus Day in the USA) so they were short staffed. They were worried that if the accusation isn't correct, they could be sued, so they want to check the accuracy of the blog first. They acknowledge that they should have done better and claim that they will develop procedures for the future.

Scientific publishing operates more on trust than most people realize, and more than the legal system does. If I say I got this band on a western blot, and submit it to Science (the journal), they run routine checks to make sure I haven't done any very dumb editing like in MS paint. They send it to reviewers who will flag it if there's anything glaringly obvious technically. If the claims are extraordinary, they'll require more proof. But at the end of the day, I'm sending them things which could fairly easily be faked.

Why is it this way? Two reasons, one it's impossible to be absolutely sure of anything (as zero kelvin pointed out) and two, because scientists are generally not in it to lie to other people.

So unless there's a good motive for the person to lie, like an undisclosed financial incentive, why don't we assume scientists are being honest? Especially given that no one is disputing it and SciAm gave a politician's apology (or apologized without apologizing).

Except the whole point is that many science bloggers at SciAm have posted "non-scientific" posts as well, so the "this is not about discovering science" excuse is BS.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/context-and-variation/2013/10/12/this-is-not-a-post-about-discovering-science/

In volume, no. In number of neurons: yes.
See:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons

The number of layers present in the cerebral cortex is also thought to be of importance (possibly coinciding with levels of abstraction)
See:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_cortex#Layered_structure
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocortex
- http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-whales-smarter-than-we-are

if you're going to try to create a model of something vastly complex you should probably start with something easy (and by easy I mean less vastly complex).

Try and keep up, monkey brain; IBM Simulates 4.5 percent of the Human Brain, and All of the Cat Brain, October 25, 2011

He is keeping up. IBM didn't really simulate a cat brain. The anatomy of the cat brain isn't known well enough to do this. They just came up with an arbitrary definition of what computational unit equates to a neuron and then made a network with that many units. Basically, it doesn't count.

if you're going to try to create a model of something vastly complex you should probably start with something easy (and by easy I mean less vastly complex).

Try and keep up, monkey brain;
    IBM Simulates 4.5 percent of the Human Brain, and All of the Cat Brain, October 25, 2011

10^22 to 10^24 stars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Extrapolation_from_number_of_stars

10^14 connections. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=100-trillion-connections

Hard to listen to your opinion when your facts are demonstrably wrong.

Parent: I want a tall beautiful kid with IQ of 140, no predisposition to cancer, autism, obesity, coronary disease or alzheimers.
Doctor: looking at our database the best match for you will be if we mate eggs from donor 123 with sperm from donor 345. We guarantee that will produce the desired offspring with probability of 1E-6. The fee will be $100,000, please sign here. We can guarantee higher probability for cancer and diabetes free offspring if you trade tall for dwarf.

If I want multiple web pages open I use tabs.

This makes it hard to write in one web application while referring to another web document. First, you have to take the extra step of first glancing up at the tab bar to switch tabs rather than glancing at the other side of the screen. Then, the full-screen transition produces an effect similar to doorway amnesia.

next to none of us are using tiling WMs

Windows contains a tiling WM. In Windows XP or Windows Vista, click one window in the taskbar, Ctrl+right click another window, and choose "Tile Vertically" (Windows XP) or "Show Side-by-side" (Windows Vista). In Windows 7 or the desktop of Windows 8, drag a window to the left or right side of the screen; Microsoft made a big deal about this "snap" feature. Even Windows Store apps under Windows 8 can be "snapped", and this is one of Microsoft's selling points of its Surface RT tablet over Apple's iPad.

The actual time frame for all these nuclear plants is the time to maintain the spent nuclear fuel rods. Estimated half-life is somewhere around 250,000 years. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-waste-lethal-trash-or-renewable-energy-source The nuclear industry has been kicking the can down the road on this issue since the first nuclear plants were built. Sometime in the future, people will ask why we were so stupid to continue to build the plants with no disposal method developed.

Can you name *any* set of observations of average global CO2 and average global temperature that would cause you to give up your belief?

Sure. If carbon levels go up precipitously for, say, 50 years, and the climate does NOT warm, after having corrected for things like solar radiation output, distance from the sun, etc, I would be convinced that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with warming. Since human activity is, in fact, increasing CO2 levels, and has been for the last 100 years, and global warming has, in fact been occurring, and temperature spikes in the historical record have in fact been correlated with CO2 rises, then I would say that the null hypothesis that there is no correlation between CO2 rises and global warming has been pretty much disproved. Since observations have supported the claim that human activity increases CO2 in the atmosphere (these are facts, as much as anything can be a fact), the further claim that human activity is causing global warming can be judged to be fairly certain.

In addition to our current long running and dangerous experiment, there is other experimental evidence that human activity is causing global warming. Computer models have been built that, in effect, create a 'new world', that can be used to test these sorts of hypotheses. These sorts of studies are confirming and predicting global warming due to CO2 rises. They predict the sorts of temperature rises, on average, that will occur. They have been going on for 30 years, and predicting the sorts of temperature rises we are seeing. So, they are pretty good evidence that CO2 is causative of global warming. Again, that CO2 rise is caused by human activity is not disputed.

Now, you can call me a believer in the 'religion of science' again, but you need to start someplace. You can't be like Descarte, and deny everything, or you get nowhere, or worse, think you've proved the existence of God. My religion, if it is a religion, is that science gets it right much more often than it gets it wrong. It often will get stuck on issues, mainly due to incorrect theoretical explanations, but those incorrect explanations are mostly due to missing facts. As new facts come in, they figure things out, and create a better theory, and the scientific community comes to accept it (perhaps a funeral at a time, as Max Planck quipped). As more observations come in, the theories get better and better. So, yes, I believe what scientists tell me. I have no way to disprove them, and less inclination to try. Their work has made me very comfortable.

The only real puzzle here is how the Koch brothers have managed to convince so much of the population to disbelieve the science, which is in fact as certain as these sorts of things get. They have connected denial of human caused global warming to political belief in a way that makes people who vote republican disbelieve it on an unprecedented scale. This is similar to the belief, after even Bush had disavowed it, that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. It becomes part of the lore of the tribe, and must be protected as a sort of badge of membership. Very clever, but ultimately the millions of deaths projected in this century (estimates are 150,000 people a year being killed by climate change right NOW) will expose them as the villains that they really are.

I would like to thank you. I was dismissive of your views earlier in the thread, and your responses have caused me to read up on the science a bit, something t

The cost and complexity of building such a massive operation in the Antarctic isn't worth the effort for a hundred(ish) degrees difference in starting temperature. And what happens if you have a power outage or other such mechanical problem? The 'stored' CO2 you're refrigerating is going right back to gas form and poof you've lost all your progress. You'd get better bang for your buck by building the wind turbines here and reducing our CO2 emissions at the source.

We need to find a way to store CO2 in a format that doesn't require active input to keep it sequestered.

This is one such method. Storing in underground 'vaults' is another though I'd suspect it's far from certain that it would stay there for 1000s of years.

There is no pause. Please inform yourself - it's embarrassing.

Some information for you: Scientific American: Is the Pacific Ocean Responsible for a Pause in Global Warming?

NPR: A Cooler Pacific May Be Behind Recent Pause In Global Warming

USA Today: Pacific Ocean cools, flattening global warming

But maybe the UK Met Office admitting it's been flat for 16 years, or just looking at the HADCRUT4 data would be a better source?

You are wrong on two fronts. First, there are plenty of scientifically documented benefits to music and arts education. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2012/08/21/even-a-few-years-of-music-training-benefits-the-brain/ http://www.nasaa-arts.org/Research/Key-Topics/Arts-Education/critical-evidence.pdf Despite the overwhelming evidence, my son's school system just fired all their elementary school music, art, and PE teachers. http://www.nasaa-arts.org/Research/Key-Topics/Arts-Education/critical-evidence.pdf

Sorry, that is an internet myth. You are completely wrong.

Editor's note citation: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste&page=2

While it is always good to dump on Al Gore by claiming he
        said something that he didn't say, IN THIS CASE there is a 2011
            story from Scientific American - the lefty publication that
        seduces our young into a life of respect for science and fact that
        actually substantiates that the claim he makes is....TRUE. He never
        claimed that the NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE was discussing the change,
        only that Climate Scientists were discussing the change. Which -
        apparently in 2011 some were. But please vent your spleen at him
        anyway.

Cat chow, for one. Cat count as obligate carnivores. They have zero need for sugar in their diet - They can't taste it), they can't even properly metabolize it. Bad for them. They do, however, have a high need for fat and protein.

And it pisses me off every time I go shopping for cat chow that I have to pay literally twice as much to get cat food that doesn't have 15-25% added carbs in it. Cat food should not have any carbs, except what comes incidental to whatever kind of horse they use as the basic ingredient. And you think you can't go wrong buying tinned more-or-less fresh meat for fluffy? Nope. Many brands even add sugar to that.

Actually, you have to pay almost 2x as much to get decent cat food. Anything you're likely to find in a walmart, kroger, or other supermarket as far as pet food goes is pretty much like taking your kids to mcdonald's three meals a day. At least they eat ~20% less of the good stuff, so that offsets the extra cost a bit. Compare the ingredients of something like Iams cat food (which most people seem to think is "good") with something like Wellness Core (which actually is good).

Even at 2x the cost, a cat doesn't eat *that* much - skip Starbuck's 2 or 3 times a month, and you've made up the difference.