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Rationing!
Rationing!
Rationing!
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Rationing!

>For very low values of nice.

Some English wine, especially sparkling, has been doing very well is recent years, including beating the French at their own game:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9279939/Former-hairdresser-wins-top-wine-award.html

Yes, because the U.S. is so evil and corrupt--as opposed to all of Africa, South America, Asia, most of the Middle East, etc. And despite never having had an empire to speak of--like Britain, France, Mongolia, Italy, Iran, etc.--the U.S. is clearly responsible for all the problems in the world. And when it comes to invading other countries, well, clearly no one compares to the U.S.--certainly an enlightened country like Britain would never consider something as brutish as invading 90% of the countries in the world. Only the evil, uncouth U.S. does that!

Yes, the U.S. is the cause of all your problems. You bear absolutely no responsibility for any of your own goddamned messes. It's all those evil Americans' fault.

===
Have you ever lived or toured outside the USA for more than a 10 day trip? Global USA business is corrupt. The fire in Bangladesh is an example where even the suppliers are squeezed for money to the extent that they had to bolt the doors of the factory. So, salaries are $37.00/mo for a seamstress, which is about twenty cents per garment.
Oil companies made deals with dictators, or created dictators. American United Fruit company killed farmers who owned the land for generations, in order to amalgamate land into plantations.
American business cares only about profits. To hell with the worker.

The best example of an American is Rush Limbaugh.

Yet it still isn't as bad as what people will often tell you. Often ignored are the people who still live inside the exclusion zone around Chernobyl and are doing just fine. One of the major fear factors with nuclear accidents is that we really just don't know what effects continuous exposure to low-level doses of radiation will have on the human body. There are those who claim that there is a linear-no-threshold relationship to high doses and that any radiation received is bad. There is also the camp that claims that chronic exposure to low-level radiation has a hormestic effect. Judging by those still living in the exclusion zone and not having cancer I would have to say that the LNT model may not be all that accurate.

Yes, because the U.S. is so evil and corrupt--as opposed to all of Africa, South America, Asia, most of the Middle East, etc. And despite never having had an empire to speak of--like Britain, France, Mongolia, Italy, Iran, etc.--the U.S. is clearly responsible for all the problems in the world. And when it comes to invading other countries, well, clearly no one compares to the U.S.--certainly an enlightened country like Britain would never consider something as brutish as invading 90% of the countries in the world. Only the evil, uncouth U.S. does that!

Yes, the U.S. is the cause of all your problems. You bear absolutely no responsibility for any of your own goddamned messes. It's all those evil Americans' fault.

China doesn't have SS or Medicare and their military budget is tiny compared to USA and China actually is the world's biggest producer of all things people buy, so if the Chinese gov't stops buying US dollars from the Chinese exporter and thus stops printing renminbi to buy US dollars and stops buying US debt, all o a sudden the problem in USA becomes completely obvious: it can't buy anything that it doesn't manufacture, because nobody wants worthless dollars.

As to the Western nations with their health care plans, that's not a good model. Yes, right now USA spends much more and gets doubtful results than the Europeans for example, but Europe is already falling apart even based on its spending, which doesn't even have the type of military spending that USA does. The real solution of-course is to stop government from meddling in health care (and in pensions and in education and in banking and in finance, in money, interest rates, business) and get rid of income taxes and most regulations, licenses, labour and employment laws, price controls, all that nonsense.

It is also well known that entering WWII spent the US out of the Great depression, war keynesianism that is.

- no this is a common misconception, it's based on complete lack of understanding.

WWII didn't get USA out of the depression, it worsened the depression, it only put USA on a ration. Yes, people were brought to work in military factories and given token salaries, but so what? They didn't actually improve the economy with any of that, sure the bullets were needed to defeat the nazis, but economically it was still a waste and nobody wanted to buy bullets. People want cars, radios, shoes, better food, TVs, not bullets (well, unless they like that past time).

It's a myth that gov't can "spend out of recession", gov't can only increase inflation and debt, but it cannot spend out of recession. It's a rare thing, but sometimes even politicians admit it.

What actually ended the Great Depression in 1947 was government cutting its spending by 64% and cutting overall taxes by 32% and allowing the nationalised factories to return to normal. By the keynesian myth the returning soldiers would have 'restarted the depression' (which never ended until 1947), instead the women went back home and the 10,000,000 or so soldiers were cheap enough work force that the economy could restructure with government finally no longer crowding out all of the private businesses away from the credit. Of-course it helped that USA had intact infrastructure while others had to rebuild theirs.

Universal health care is a terrible idea even in principle, even based on morality, economically it's just one way to speed up the inevitable economic slow down and possibly a collapse based on it.

You've been at the Duchy Originals biscuits again. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100047851/the-prince-of-wales-needs-to-defend-science-if-he-wants-to-defend-nature/

yeah, you were misreading (or not reading) TFA:

The latest legal difficulties to hit News Corporation could also potentially have ramifications on its 27 TV licences within the Fox network â" the real financial heart of the operation. Three of the licences are up for renewal, and in August the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) filed a petition with the US broadcasting regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, that called for them to be denied on the grounds that the company did not have the requisite character to run a public service.

The FCC is being asked to deny renewal for 3 of the 27 Fox licences. Whatever regulates the sat/cable industry might be asked to consider if Fox is a reputable enough company to own a licence to broadcast - the UK has such requirements, and I can't really believe the US has a totally deregulated media industry (a corrupt one, maybe).

Anyway, keep your eyes open, this time next week the Leveson Inquiry publishes its report into News Corp.

Well, now that the Charles River is, I believe, the cleanest water way in an urban city in the world, then other smells start to get noticed more.

I'm not sure about that. It's certainly very much improved, according to this article, but I don't see a claim that it's now the cleanest -- it has a B+ rating, so there's room for further improvement.

This article lists the Thames, but I don't believe that (I live in London). It's not bad, and this suggests a lot has improved (and I've seen some newly-created wetland areas and they do indeed have lots of birds etc). But it still gets sewage dumped into it after heavy rain.

John Major was Prime Minister???

Yes, and the only man ever to run away from the circus to become an accountant.

Forcing phtographers to take pictures of same-sex weddings.
Forcing elderly berad&breakfest owners to allow two men have buggery on their own house (making them wash sheets with blood and feces).
Making churches that rent their property for weddings accept same-sex weddings.
Making traditional marriage supporters lose their jobs (see for example the infamous persecution in California).

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/06/photographer-refuses-to-shoot-same-sex-thingy-bullying-ligation-ensues/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8283651/Second-BandB-owner-sued-for-turning-gay-couple-away.htmld
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/judge-rules-christian-facility-cannot-ban-same-sex-civil-union-ceremony-on

Yes, German autobahns have speed limits, though obviously not everywhere. We have them because they are absolutely necessary. Germany has more than twice the population of California on significantly less area. The traffic often is accordingly.

For the same reason, it is absolutely forbidden to overpass another car on the right except under very specific circumstances (stop and go traffic, or direction lines at a crossing). This is the other thing which this driver has done. In contrast to the costly but socially accepted offence of being 30 km/h (20 mph) too fast on a motorway, this is considered absolutely reckless behaviour by almost everybody and raises eyebrows whenever someone does it. Here is an example for what often happens when idiots do it anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AGwQuT0-Lk

In general, driving on German motorways, with or without a speed limit, requires significantly more concentration than driving on Austrian ones (resulting in a significant change of my stress level each time I cross the border), which in turn requires a lot more concentration than driving on a British motorway (in spite of the left-hand side traffic), which in turn is not even comparable to the child's play on American motorways. (At the other end of the spectrum you can continue this with Italy, then probably countries like India.)

The stuff installed in this car makes no sense if the driver didn't (intend to) use it while driving. Germans don't live in their cars, they use them to quickly get from A to B. That's one reason we have smaller cars. If he used this setup, then he risked lives in much the same way as "Turbo Rolf" did in 2003: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1454812/Turbo-Rolf-jailed-for-tailgate-deaths-of-mother-and-girl.html

Sure the Palestinians are not nice people, I already stated that. This is a giant case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Say
that
to
their
faces

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization

The Telegraph on Friday have made accusations that Lord McAlpine's brother (who ran the huge building company) lived close by the care home and had a huge collection of expensive cars (noted by witnesses at the time). There are some theories that this was a simple mix-up by a key journalist/the police and fingered (bad expression) the wrong brother which has now caused the BBC to go into melt-down.

What's odd is that The Telepgraph published another article which seems to downplay the idea that Jimmie was in any way involved.

I wonder whether this is an orchestrated plot to reduce the power of the very-Labour-focussed BBC by the government (Conservative/liberal coalition) which will also play well for Scotland (led by the SNP) that has it's own BBC problems etc

The Telegraph on Friday have made accusations that Lord McAlpine's brother (who ran the huge building company) lived close by the care home and had a huge collection of expensive cars (noted by witnesses at the time). There are some theories that this was a simple mix-up by a key journalist/the police and fingered (bad expression) the wrong brother which has now caused the BBC to go into melt-down.

What's odd is that The Telepgraph published another article which seems to downplay the idea that Jimmie was in any way involved.

I wonder whether this is an orchestrated plot to reduce the power of the very-Labour-focussed BBC by the government (Conservative/liberal coalition) which will also play well for Scotland (led by the SNP) that has it's own BBC problems etc

In comparison, climate change, here, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is not going to get dramatically worse, if we don't do anything about it. For example, they generally forecast the loss of about as much land over the next century from rising water levels (assuming a one meter rise) as are lost each year from desertification due mostly to bad agricultural practices.

This is a joke. This is the exact opposite of what every scientific report says.

Your post is a classic example of someone holding forth in an authoritative tone who knows exactly zero about the subject he's pontificating on.

Global Warming Threatens Our National Security IISS: âoeA Global Catastropheâ For International Security

A recent study done by the International Institute for Strategic Studies has likened the international security effects of global warming to those caused by nuclear war. [On Deadline]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/09/climate-change-.html

U.N.: As Dangerous As War United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said this year that global warming poses as much of a threat to the world as war. [BBC]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6410305.stm

Center for Naval Analyses: National Security Threat In April, a report completed by the Center for Naval Analyses predicted that global warming would cause âoelarge-scale migrations, increased border tensions, the spread of disease and conflicts over food and water.â [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/320929_secured.html

Genocide in Sudan
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon charges, âoeAmid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.â [Washington Post]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501857.html

War in Somalia
In April, a group of 11 former U.S. military leaders released a report charging that the war in Somalia during the 1990s stemmed in part from national resource shortages caused by global warming. [Washington Post]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041401209.html

Starvation
A study by IISS found that reduced water supplies and hotter temperatures mean âoe65 countries were likely to lose over 15 percent of their agricultural output by 2100.â [Yahoo]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070912/ts_nm/climate_security_dc

Large-Scale Migrations
Global warming will turn already-dry environments into deserts, causing the people who live there to migrate in massive numbers to more livable places. [MSNBC]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19479607/

More Refugees
A study by the relief group Christian Aid estimates the number of refugees around the world will top a billion by 2050, thanks in large part to global warming. [Telegraph]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/14/nclimate14.xml

Increased Border Tensions
A report called âoeNational Security and the Threat of Climate Change,â written by a group of retired generals and admirals, specifically linked global warming to increased border tensions. âoeIf, as some project, sea levels rise, human migrations may occur, likely both within and across bo

It's a tad more complicated than that sadly. What they tried to do was replace nuclear with renewable sources. Unfortunately they chose wind and solar. 2 sources that when used on a small scale are not so bad. Unfortunately when you have a huge portion of your power grid running off them they generate a lot of problems. During the day Solar obviously works... and it doesn't at night. Then you have wind, which fluctuates almost at random. So now your grid is spiking and crashing. But your usage is not. Their other sources like Geothermal and Hydro are constant. You can't really get more power out of either. So you're left with Oil and Coal/Lignite to burn when the wind dies down and its night time. The problem there is that we are very good at burning fossil fuels efficiently when we're doing it consistently... unfortunately ramping up a coal plant in the middle of the night is terribly inefficient. Just like your car gets better gas millage when it's warm. So because they are now ramping up and shutting down their coal plants, those very plants are operating at about the worst efficiency they possibly could. Currently Germany has plans to build 16 new coal-fired and 15 new gas-fired power stations by 2020 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-19/merkel-s-green-shift-forces-germany-to-burn-more-coal-energy.html http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/08/31/germany-insane-or-just-plain-stupid/

This should help:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9628114/US-presidential-debate-Mitt-Romney-mocked-after-calling-Syria-Irans-route-to-the-sea.html

That's an extreme example of course, but would you say his duty to step in line as a soldier outweighed his duties as a US citizen and a human being to expose these hypothetical extreme crimes?

At that point, why doesn't he just get his hands on a nuke and take out Washington, D.C.?

There's a channel for addressing abuses within the military and it needs to be used.

This case wasn't about his altruistic goals. It was about him having problems in his personal life, and lashing out at the military.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7918632/Bradley-Manning-suspected-source-of-Wikileaks-documents-raged-on-his-Facebook-page.html

Manning was a private (a grunt) and yet he held a clearance and, as we've seen, access to a huge amount of classified information. And in the Navy field which I experienced, rising above the level of grunt (that is, being promoted to E4 and deployed) required only diligently completing one's language studies at DLI and short follow-up training with limited contact with superiors who would notice and take issues with one's "mindset".

Bradley Manning is gay.

Gays, like women and minorities, are a protected group.

Employers are reluctant to not promote people from protected groups because if those people sue, there will be an assumed violation on the part of the employer and barring serious document instances of misconduct or incompetence by the employee, it's hard to prove they needed to be kept from the promotion.

As his manager, I would have promoted him. No use having a lawsuit destroy my career!

Apparently you aren't old enough to realize that not only insurance prices, but the actual cost of care has been going up faster than the rate of inflation for many years. But Obamacare has been a force of its own, and has resulted in many workers losing their coverage since employers see the writing on the wall. There are other roads they could have taken in reform, but they decided to jam this one through on a party-line vote, heavily amended up till the last moment, unread, late at night, requiring massive bribes to even their own. You might be cheering now, but will you in the end?

Judging by NHS experience, I wouldn't bet on it, the games have barely started.

Go back to being an appleologist. A company that has children leaping to their death to escape from the factory where they're forced to build admiteddly shiny and desireable apple gagdets which sadly contain shitty old-fashioned operating systems and are surrounded by the unpleasant smell of vendor lock-in.

What a great way to suck the life out of people and convert it into apple dollars. Ghouls. Keep buying iPad, you ghouls. iGhouls.

Something similar has already been done, albeit not with horses

'Tis that season.

Well, if your friend told you so, then by all means you're right to be modded "informative"

Oh give me a break, it's not like this is something unheard of, it IS an accepted fact that tax evasion in Greece is a huge problem for the government. And of course it's not just the taxpayers fault, nor is everyone doing it (if you have been following American politics at all "47%" of the US doesn't effectively pay any taxes - "the minority" of people doesn't mean it's a small amount of tax revenue - the wealthy in Greece have higher tax bills, and are doing most of the evading). But blaming "the government" for everything (hello, ALL governments spend money on stupid things and are corrupt to some extent) is such a cop out.

And just in case for some bizarre reason you want to pretend it's something I just "heard from one person", here are a few of the thousands of articles written on the topic:

[Some of my favorite quotes - and I'm pretty sure "only the stupid pay tax" would be considering evasion "as an obligation"...]

    * Cash provides a convenient escape route for lawyers, accountants and builders. The government has published the names of almost 70 doctors it says have cheated the taxman and some surgeons are said to be earning €900,000 a year and not declaring tax.

    * “Only the stupid pay tax,” one eye surgeon told a Greek state radio.

    * Helicopters have been hovering over plush suburbs in northern Athens in the search for swimming pools in the homes of professional people who claim they are living on only €35,000-€43,000 a year. ... The swimming pool fraternity are also responding by using nets to cover the pools to avoid detection.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8585593/Greece-loses-15bn-a-year-to-tax-evasion.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion_and_corruption_in_Greece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/09/greece-tax-evasion-professional-classes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/09/how-greek-tax-evasion-sunk-the-global-economy/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/business/global/greece-warns-of-going-broke-as-taxes-dry-up.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/09/tax-evasion-greece

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203937004578076801161935378.html

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/07/11/110711ta_talk_surowiecki

Just thought it was worth pointing out that a company which felt it necessary to send out an investigator to make threats to get its own IP back (rather than waiting until noon the next day) won't ever give others their own IP back. And for a company that helps itself to information that others unintentionally leave out where it can be grabbed - e.g., the Street View and browser privacy bypassing debacles - Google seemed to get overly outraged and aggressive when the shoe was on the other foot and they found their own information carelessly left in the possession of another innocent party. :-)

Does the slashdot crowd really believe this is about rectangular devices with curves?

Apple's lawyer seemed to think so when they were trying to get this decision overturned:

“I say he was wrong to take these aspects [of colour] into account at all,” said Mr Silverleaf today.

“This [the iPad] is a design about shape. You don’t make a non-infringing design by making the same shape and decorating it."

WSJ reports:

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

But not if it's STUXNET or FLAME, right?

Similarly, the media would have us believe that if a country in the Middle East refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, invaded neighboring countries, ignored condemnation from the UN Security Council of its actions, and repressed its people into poverty and apartheid, while also developing a nuclear weapons program, that the USG should intervene militarily to take out its nuclear program and probably impose new leadership.

But not if it's Israel, right?

But, it's OK, because Iran has such an aggressive history that it's worth the US getting into a war with Russia over. In fact, if the USG needs to kill half a million Iranian children to impose its will, that's just breaking a few eggs, right?

After all, there is no higher concern that the US Petrodollar, right?

The fellow who wrote the Declaration of Independence and our third President described the appropriate role of the United States in the world as:

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

But whose interests does that serve, really?

It's pretty obvious from reading old Greek or Roman texts that people are pretty much the same now as they've always been. Shakespeare shows that nothing much has changed in England for over 400 years.

There are two serious issues with this claim. First, most (although not all) of the Flynn effect has occurred on the lower end of the intelligence spectrum. That means that the smartest people may not be that much smarter, but the average intelligence has still gone up by a lot. See for example http://synapse.princeton.edu/~brained/chapter15/colom_andres-pueyo05_intelligence_Spanish-schoolchildren-nutrition-hypothesis.pdf. Second, people today seem to be in some ways smarter than many of the smart people a few thousand years ago. For example, it used to be a big deal that someone was able to read so well that they didn't need to murmur to themselves or move their lips, whereas now we consider reading out loud a sign of stupidity http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Manguel/Silent_Readers.html. It is possible that part of this difference was simply cultural, and that silent reading was purely a matter of education and norms. But the fact that some old sources considered silent reading a sign of intelligence suggests otherwise.

Except that in Britain you aren't allowed to opt-out of or refuse the Nude-o-Scan!

Why doesn't the UK allow passengers an 'opt out'?

Yes, they do enforce this:
Doctor barred from flying after refusing body scan on health grounds
Air passengers who refuse a full body scan to be barred from their flights

Try to find an airport that doesn't have the Nude-o-Scan, last I checked LCY (London City Airport) was safe. Best to check before travelling though. Here is a list of airports with NoS that is kept updated by the members of the Flyer Talk forum: Complete List of Airports with Whole Body Imaging/Advanced Imaging Technology Scanner

Posted anonymously so I don't get hassled every time I fly from now on. Sad, but necessary.

Not to mention:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7745868/Scientist-Craig-Venter-creates-life-for-first-time-in-laboratory-sparking-debate-about-playing-god.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sciencebiz/2010/05/20/life-made-in-the-lab-but-dont-freak-out/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/tpna/

You're right: it probably is just scaremongering to get an economic advantage for someone. Well, maybe not all of it. The U.S. has certainly done its share of espionage tricks, including delivery of a spiked Boeing for China's version of Air Force One. Suspicions tends to mirror one's own tactics.

However, if you really don't trust Huawei, there's no way for them to prove it to you: the backdoor could be hidden in the software, in the compiler, in the CPU microcode, in the BIOS, in some axillary firmware, or in some subtle combination of all of these. You'd have to build it yourself, compile it yourself, install it yourself, update it yourself, and you still wouldn't have great confidence because these things can be really damn subtle. Classy of them to reveal the source, but it's a meaningless gesture.

Barack Obama (as proxy for Harry Reid) pulled the plug on that one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/8012171/President-Barack-Obamas-Yucca-Mountain-decision-is-a-blow-to-US-nuclear-power.html

We'll see if it ever moves again. Hopefully someone along the way will have more sense than this.

You know, I thought that that Iran was our biggest threat nowadays -- and I lean toward being more hawkish. However, with news of Russia developing missiles[1] which could be hidden in shipping containers, I'm starting to think Romney might be onto something. A missile in a shipping container on land is one thing, but it's long been a fear that a container ship would would come near American shores and launch a scud missile with a WMD warhead. Scuds are not that reliable, but this appears to be much more covert and reliable..Basically, russians are selling terrorist-type weapons to state sponsors of terrorism. I mean, what's next, selling Iran briefcase nukes? Yes, Russia IS a destablizing threat.

1.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7632543/A-cruise-missile-in-a-shipping-box-on-sale-to-rogue-bidders.html

Here in south-western Florida, it seems purloined phones aren't too popular among thugs. Two friends who were mugged on the same street on separate occasions both still had their phones after they'd been beaten lightly (I love that string). They both lost their wallets and one lost his bike, but not their phones. Others have lost their lives, but I don't know about their phones. This is, after all, the place where two British tourists were killed for no apparent reason.

Perhaps it's time to begin integrating some serious self-defense attributes into these otherwise worthless "smart"phones. Yes, I despise smartphones. But I may consider one if it were mounted to a solid stick, or if it shot lightning and pepper-spray.

And all the professional physicists and engineers denied that amorphous semiconductors were possible for many years, even when confronted with evidence... See for example:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9621164/Stanford-Ovshinsky.html
"In 1960, with his second wife Iris, a biochemist, he founded Energy Conversion Laboratories (later renamed Energy Conversion Devices, or ECD) at Rochester Hills, Michigan, to develop his ideas, and in 1968 held a press conference at which he announced that he had succeeded in making a "glass transistor" that relied on a principle which (with understandable immodesty) he called Ovonics. This breakthrough, he predicted, would eventually lead to desktop computers and television sets "hanging like portraits on the wall". The announcement made the front pages and ECDâ(TM)s stock (the company went public in 1967) soared. Within days, however, semiconductor engineers dismissed the idea and ECDâ(TM)s stock price collapsed. Most scientists had never heard of amorphous materials, and some rubbished Ovshinsky as a high school dropout and former machinist with no university qualifications. He was branded a crank. Eventually, though, Ovshinskyâ(TM)s theories proved correct, ushering in a whole new field of solid-state physics."

I can wonder if we'll see the same with so-called "cold fusion" (LENR)? Example:
http://pesn.com/2012/10/18/9602209_LENR-to-Market_Weekly_October18/

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds
"Disciplined Minds is a book by physicist Jeff Schmidt,[1] published in 2000. The book describes how professionals are made; the methods of professional and graduate schools that turn eager entering students into disciplined managerial and intellectual workers that correctly perceive and apply the employer's doctrine and outlook. Schmidt uses the examples of law, medicine, and physics, and describes methods that students and professional workers can use to preserve their personalities and independent thought."

I've always found the story of Stanford Ovshinsky inspirational. He was like a more-well-grounded Bucky Fuller. Too bad about prostrate cancer; here is some advice on reducing the risk for those of us (males) who carry on:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/prostate-cancer-dr-fuhrmans-diet-advice-for-prostate-health.html

Well, you don't need to ask becasue scientific consensus among the experts clearly say yes, it is real, and yes we are the cause for temperature changes on top of normal cycles.

Right, but things like this make me doubt the 'scientific consensus':

One series of these e-mails called out the journal Climate Research, which had the audacity to publish a paper surveying a voluminous scientific literature that didn't support Mann's claim that the last 50 years are the warmest in the past millennium. Along with the CRU head Phil Jones and other climate luminaries, they then cooked up the idea of boycotting any scientific journal that dared publish anything by a few notorious "skeptics," myself included.

Their pressure worked. Editors resigned or were fired. Many colleagues began to complain to me that their good papers were either being rejected outright or subject to outrageous reviews — papers that would have been published with little revision just a few years ago.

Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know.

More by Patrick J. Michaels
So what is Pauchari's response to all of this? Denial.

"IPCC relies entirely on peer-reviewed literature in carrying out its assessment and follows a process that renders it unlikely that any peer reviewed piece of literature, however contrary to the views of any individual author, would be left out."

That's just not true. The last IPCC compendium on climate science, published in 2007, left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable.

These include articles from the journals Arctic, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Earth Interactions, Geophysical Research Letters, International Journal of Climatology, Journal of Climate, Journal of Geophysical Research, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Quaternary Research.

Link showing the actual emails is here.

No one else has presented in credible argument to the contrary in decades.

That article I linked gives an explanation as to how 1) water vapor is far more effective a 'greenhouse gas' than carbon dioxide and 2) carbon dioxide levels rise after the globe warms up, not before. The argument sounds credible to me.

" The extreme haste with which seemingly the entire world immediately accepted the idea of Anthropogenic"
This is false. The theory is over 100 years old. it has a lot of data to support it.

Did you read the Super Freakonomics chapter about global warming? It says that just 20 years ago people were complaining that we were entering a cooling period and we had to do something to warm the globe up. Hint: There's a reason people are starting to call it "climate change" now instead of "global warming".

Protip: When anyone uses the 'medieval warm period' of proof against AGW, they have no clue what they are talking about.

Can you go into why that is the case?

Seriously, experts in the field agree, and you pull a 'scientist' that isn't an expert. Why would you give a few non experts more credence then the experts?

Because stuff like the ClimateGate emails makes it seem like a lot of those 'experts' care more about being right and proving global warming to be true instead of figuring out what the actual science is.

Not only do government officials get their own moats, the taxpayers have to pay to clean it. "Cherchez le vache!"

Phillip.

You'd think that doctors, having all those years of college and medical school, would know better than to browse the internet on a medical device

IMHO, doctors have over-inflated views of their own abilities outside the narrow field of their medical training. For example, this respected neurosurgeon claims to have scientific evidence of the existence of an afterlife, based on his own experiences.

During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion "shut down" and that he then experienced "something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death."

The argument is that the rich will leave the country if you raise taxes, and you lose even the taxes you are currently collecting. The middle class and the poor are less likely to do.

I, personally, dont subscribe to this idea. The rich have very few places in the developed world to move to. I would say it is a bluff. Even if they move, the void will pretty soon be filled up someone else who starts a company (or whatever the rich were doing here).

France's proposed tax hikes spark 'exodus' of wealthy

In Maryland, Higher Taxes Chase Out Rich: Study

Caterpillar threatens to leave Illinois over taxes

Through the magic of commerce they can move and continue their business from a new location.

"When asked where where the women attending the protest were, one protester replied: "Right at the back"."

Let me know when the get all riled up about shooting 14 year old girls for wanting to go to school, and stating that if she survives her injuries she'll be killed.

The claim that the wheelwas turned the wrong way, by the granddaughter of the second officer, is disputed by the great-granddaughter of the quartermaster (Robert Hichens) who supposedly panicked and misinterpreted the order. Hichens was in disrepute immediately after the disaster, branded a coward for refusing to return his lifeboat back to pick up survivors. He was no hero, public sentiment was against him, there was no reason for surviving officers to keep secret from the US and British inquiries any additional contribution he might have made to the accident.

I also don't know where the "props did not reverse" comes from. Titanic's two outboard engines indeed could not reverse, but the main one could.

I am not one of the "OMG! Look at the religion of peace!" bozos.

I am. Islam is a blight on humanity and evil things like those emanating from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan flow directly from Islam.

Blaming the religion is the wrong approach. All you will accomplish by attacking a religion is to add to the resolve of those extremist followers who you seem to conflate with the vast majority of those followers who are not so fearful, ignorant, and hateful. Notice I said "a" religion. Not Islam. Christianity has it's share of nut-job followers too. They're not as well organized since The Enlightenment, but they are still there. We need to leave the religion out of it and deal with religious extremists for what they are, violent and anti-social criminals.

I am not one of the "OMG! Look at the religion of peace!" bozos.

I am. Islam is a blight on humanity and evil things like those emanating from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan flow directly from Islam.

Absolutely everything you've said is 100%, provably false. I don't know where in the hell you get your incorrect info, but you really need to stop.

she had consensual sex with him. No rape ever occurred except of the statutory kind.

Complete bull. Not only was she only 13 years old, it is also on the record as CLEARLY non-consentual.

"Polanski had sexual intercourse with the teen despite her resistance and requests to be taken home." "I said, 'No, no. I don't want to go in there. No, I don't want to do this. No!', and then I didn't know what else to do."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/6237442/Roman-Polanskis-victim-is-mother-who-wants-charges-dropped.html

The statute of limitation has been reached long ago,

Nonsense. The CASE WENT TO TRIAL right away, long before the statute of limitations could be an issue. He even accepted a plea-bargain, yet he fled, just before he was about to be sentenced for his crimes.

But since he fled, his plea bargain is out, he will likely face a new trial, and potentially the maximum sentence for all his felonies.

The girl never wanted to press charged and she still don't.

Bull. Geimer "sued Polanski in December 1988 when she was 25 years old, alleging sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and seduction."

She has requested dismissal, NOW, because she's tired of having it hanging over her head. He could have served his expected 90 days in jail, and been done with it, letting her move on with her life, instead he victimized her once again by fleeing. He deserves every bit of bad press he gets, and deserves to be hounded, to his dying day, for living as a fugitive.

OK, I "searched around." The evidence I've found suggests that the influence of religion on secular education is not a concern limited to either the USA or Christianity.

Those things fit within what I pointed: US cultural influence abroad.

The US is at fault for Muslim creationism? Crazy people from the US may be supporting Christian creationism in other countries, but do, say, the crazy Turkish Muslim creationists spring from US support?

Laughter is certainly a better offensive weapon than violence, right?

If only your minority group laughs while the huge majority around just looks at you confused wondering what you're talking about, I'd say it's at best ineffective.

OK, I "searched around." The evidence I've found suggests that the influence of religion on secular education is not a concern limited to either the USA or Christianity.

Those things fit within what I pointed: US cultural influence abroad. Creationism vs. Evolutionism is pretty much like Hollywood movies, spreading from the same cultural powerhouse with the same intensity.

Did you have a point you'd like to make with respect to these findings? Do you believe that it's healthy for civilization to see these beliefs growing in influence over the course of the 21st century, rather than diminishing as any sane person would have expected?

Oh, I'd say I'm indifferent. As a non-US person observing from far away, I find it all fascinating, but it really doesn't bothers me either way. It doesn't matter what you teach in school, most people will glance over biology teaching, memory whatever is required of them to pass exams, promptly forget it all the next day, and move on. As for the very few remaining ones that happen to develop an interest in the subject up to the point of entering college, they learn better anyway, be it better evolutionism, as no matter what you do it'll be badly taught in schools, or simply evolutionism at all. So, what's really the problem? Be this or be that, the end result is the same.

The sane approach then, for me, is quite simple: whoever is paying decides what their money will be used for. If in a region the paying people want teachers teaching a subject, so be it.

Nope, because that alienates non-crazy religious individuals, who end up despising both the crazy ones as well as rationalists.

If that were true, we'd all be Scientologists or Moonies. I believe (but can't immediately prove) that the main reason why people remain superstitious in an age of scientific enlightenment is because of superstition's longstanding social value. As a result, I also believe that making fun of people's superstitions is a very good way to drive those superstitions underground and lessen their influence on secular society. Laughter is certainly a better offensive weapon than violence, right?

Americans have this bad habit of thinking the world is like their country,

As an American citizen and voter, I'm not the least bit concerned with countries other than the US. I'm not responsible for the government in those countries. They can do what they want. However, that being said....

Do this: search around. You won't find a single country other than the USA where creationists have either the political power or the infiltration within Christian branches as they do over there

OK, I "searched around." The evidence I've found suggests that the influence of religion on secular education is not a concern limited to either the USA or Christianity. Did you have a point you'd like to make with respect to these findings? Do you believe that it's healthy for civilization to see these beliefs growing in influence over the course of the 21st century, rather than diminishing as any sane person would have expected?

If you don't believe that, then chances are, we agree more than we disagree.

Ah, but thats the US. You people can't seem to get government even halfway right, for some weird reason. I'm not even going to mention gun control.

May not want to get too smug there, sport...
http://www.datalite.org/european-union-eu-bureaucracy-kills-uk-business.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2135851/91-days--petty-bureaucrats-control-freak-sponsors-squeezing-fun-Olympics.html
http://www.votersrevolt.org.uk/?tab=V7
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/4284070/British-bureaucracy-is-growing-out-of-control.html

You are more likely to win a suit against the government than against a corporation. Even in the US.

...meanwhile you stay hamstrung by whatever binding and/or regulation they say you've broken. After all, no corporation can freeze your bank accounts, remove your right to drive a car, take your children, shut off your home's power/water supply, force you to remain in certain areas (and be barred from others) or lock you in jail while you pursue said lawsuits.

Government can do all of that and then some, depending on the nature and severity of the incompetent/deranged action. Hell, the government can even assault your property with armed squads and shoot at your family. Sure, Randy Weaver won the eventual lawsuit, but his wife and daughter are still rather dead...

Two thirds of fatal cycle accidents are caused by the cyclist entering the blind spot of Heavy Goods Vehicles.