"Secondly the grip about regulations is nothing but a red herring. Look at Japan, Canada and Germany. All have many many more regs than we do."
It isn't just the regulations, or even mostly the regulations. It's the stifling bureaucracy -- pretty much a Democrat invention. Both NASA and the FAA have been choking on their own bureaucracies for decades now. And now they want to entangle the private sector with their nonsense.
Two different Presidents have ordered NASA to clean up its bureaucratic bullshit, and it has yet to do so. The fact that Virgin and SpaceX have beat them at their own game at a fraction of the cost is pretty damned good evidence of this.
"How is the cronyism worse under O than under reagan or W?"
Jesus, man. Just look at his cabinet. I mean really look, learn who they are.
"... such as Obama's, which was basically Europe very publicly giving Bush one last middle finger."
I agree. This reinforces my point. It was done for political purposes, and Obama actually did not do anything to deserve a prize... it was awarded largely in response to someone else entirely.
I'm not saying that is exactly the case with Gore, but I don't think he deserved it, either.
"Which 'they', the peace prize committee is a very different animal."
From the context of my comment, I think it is pretty clear that by "they", I meant those who decide who gets the Nobel Prize. No matter who "they" are.
"Try that stunt in Florida and you'll just grow fungus and mildew."
Haha, it's definitely not recommended in humid regions. I was thinking more of dry areas, where swamp coolers are already popular, but normally need electric fans.
"but you can't validly state that climate scientists are using highly questionale methods and doubtful data without citing specific examples of flawed metholodigies,"
Just for two examples just off the top of my head, from the 5. I do not promise that they are verbatim, but close enough:
"The statistical methods used do not support their conclusions."
And from the British House of Commons: "[They] have not actually violated accepted scientific practices... but those practices have to change." [Emphasis mine.]
EVERY ONE of the investigative report had some similar comment to make. Yes, they were found not guilty of any criminality, but they were hardly complimented. They were chastised. Every time.
"It's great that you have an opinion, but you can't validly state that climate scientists are using highly questionale methods and doubtful data without citing specific examples of flawed metholodigies"
I don't have to, at all. Others already have. The fact is that all 5 of the investigations into Hadley Centre, CRU, and Michael Mann have found them not guilty of actual wrongdoing, but at the same time, all 5 of the reports mentioned, at least once, that the methods used were questionable.
"I don't know if I'd say NOTHING. It's pretty fucking hot outside."
Where you live, maybe. We've just gone through one of the coldest Springs on record. The other was last year.
But that's beside the point. Gore sure as hell didn't show us any CAUSE. What he showed us were graphs without scales or indexes, or numbers of any kind... rhetoric, but not evidence.
We knew it was getting hotter, even without AGW. So "it's hot outside" isn't an argument in Gore's favor. If AGW ever does turn out to be true, he stands to make a freaking fortune with the cap-and-trade businesses he set up. And if that's not conflict of interest, I don't know what is.
I was referring much more to the part about the economy over the last 30 years, than the space-budget part.
I agree that the Neocons have helped to ruin the space program, and try to prevent private access, but at the same time the Neolibs have tried to add layer upon layer of bureaucracy on top of not just NASA, but the private companies as well! NASA's recent announcement that it is partnering with the FAA to "regulate" private space flight should be interpreted by EVERYBODY as a huge red flag. They have been doing just fine without that regulation, and they are unlikely to do as well with it.
As for the economy, I don't even want to go there. Sure, there has been cronyism, but it has been on BOTH sides of the fence. And it has been worse under Obama than under any other President in memory (and my memory goes back a ways). Just look at his Cabinet, for crap's sake. Talk about a revolving door! It's an abomination (no pun intended).
"Yes but Neocons are so hypocritical about it. They go around whining about the deficit, but then cut taxes and only pay lip service to cut spending."
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm simply saying that's a two-way street. The Neolibs also whine about it, constantly, and THEIR answer is to keep spending even more money than the Neocons. Despite rhetoric about "austerity", the Government has been spending more money EVERY YEAR, and it has gone UP even more under Obama than ever before.
How is THAT not hypocritical? And what planet does THAT work on? Historically, it's never worked even here in the United States.
"I say bloody revolution, you say nuke. Doesn't sound like you are correcting me, just suggesting a specific revolutionary method that's quick and may lower collateral damage, yet your tone seemed confrontational."
That's right, I wasn't trying to correct you, so much as add my 2 cent's worth. And the nuke thing was only an example, not a suggestion or an implication that it's the only way.
Believe it or not, I still don't believe a "bloody revolution" is necessary to do that. But it will be close.
"However, of course in the 90s private industry took over as the commercial potential of it was realized (.com boom)."
Yes. The government initially funded a lot of the R&D (though they were NOT the original developers). However, once it began to spread, the government portion of it rapidly became a tiny minority. The vast majority of current technology and infrastructure behind the internet has little or nothing to do with government.
It also has little or nothing to do with the ".com boom". That was nothing but a bunch of companies that tried to CAPITALIZE on the internet (not actually build and grow it), who had no viable business models. ".com boom" had more to do with companies behind websites, not much else.
"You realise it is not possible to be peer reviewed in the conventional sense? The peers would require a new LHC."
Not even close. Peer reviewers do not have to duplicate the experiments, they just have to verify that the analysis methodologies are correct, given that the data is accurate as presented.
Peer reviewers have no practical way to determine if the data is in fact correct, unless they see obvious flaws in the procedures. Therefore verifying the accuracy of the data is not a normal part of peer review. Their job is to catch blunders in the procedures as stated in the paper, and the analyses as stated in the paper.
However, finding flaws in the experimental or analytical procedures is very much the job of the reviewers. This has been the big stumbling block for "climate science": the researchers used -- and have continued to use -- highly questionable methods. Even if their DATA is all correct (which I very much doubt).
"Oh, you know those Nobel Prizes don't mean anything because...Al Gore is fat."
No... Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything because Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything. He did NOTHING to deserve it. They are many, many far more deserving people around than that hypocrite.
"They don't actually have any such thing. They have a particle that is necessary for the theories to be correct, but they don't know if the behavior of the particle follows the theories so there is a lot of excitement and potential for new ideas to be generated from the study of this."
And when you consider that other particles have frequently appeared to NOT behave according to the Standard Model, there are still some pretty big holes in it.
Parent is correct. This is confirmation of only one very broad concept that is part of the model. Most of the rest is still up in the air. But perhaps new experiments can proceed with more confidence, knowing that this particular piece has been confirmed.
"Tell that to the Japanese. It did not take very long for a certain scientific discovery to cross borders and land right in their lap, "enriching" them."
That wasn't a "scientific discovery". That was TECHNOLOGY. They are two different things.
The discovery had been made long before. The Germans were aware of it, as (presumably) were the Japanese. What we beat them in was the TECHNOLOGY that put the discovery to use.
"The *only* thing that will fix US politics is a revolution and Zombie Franklin writing a new Constitution "We hold there truths to be self evident, that all men are created BRAINZZZZZZZZ."
The only thing that will fix US politics is to detach it from "big money" interests. Money is the problem, and that is the answer.
Period. I don't give the slightest damn what particular brand of politics you may follow, but if the money isn't taken out of it (including outrageous government spending), then it will never be fixed until somebody nukes D.C.
"Quite why people think that 'correct horse battery staple' is more memorable, in particular because of the visual imagery it evokes, than something that isn't 4 simple words, I will never understand. You have a fashion, that's all, but you will grow out of it."
People think it because studies have repeatedly and clearly shown it. It's the way the typical human brain operates.
If yours operates differently, you are not typical. That is all.
One way to do it, if you get any wind at all, is to cover your windows on the outside with bedsheets or the like. Wet them frequently, with a fine hose sprayer.
Less work is to put troughs underneath your windows (like a watertight windowbox), fill them with water, and the bottom of your cloths dangle into these.
Congrats. You now have a Swamp Cooler that needs no external power.
The safety of any kind of radiation should be DEMONSTRATED before every being used on human bodies, especially on a large scale!
I am aware that there are reasons to be skeptical about any damage being done, but we have, many times in the past, been surprised to find that things we previously thought harmless were in fact very dangerous.
Example: X-Rays were initially not thought to be especially harmful, but we eventually learned that it very much was. True, it didn't take very long before X-Rays were looked at with increasing caution, but that was the exception.
The Curies themselves died of radiation poisoning. Even so, workers in plants that made radium watch dials continued to get sick and die in abnormal numbers, for decades, before the practice was stopped.
Tanning beds are now known to be harmful, even though they were touted as using "safe" forms of UV, just a few short years ago.
Sub-millimeter radiation has been studied for how long now? It has been in widespread use for how long?
SHOW that it is safe, or at least relatively safe, and I'll drop my objections. Until then, I'll keep them. Saying that it's safe merely because it's "low power" doesn't cut it.
Besides: aren't we forgetting the main thing? These scanners are proven to be incapable of effectively performing the function they are used for. So why are we debating this at all?
I should add: of course that contradicts certain recent SCOTUS decisions, such as Citizens United.
But how the Supreme Court could have forgotten the basic principle that human rights are "unalienable" are are bestowed upon us by nature of our humanity, and not granted by government, is beyond me. That is stated, pretty much in as many words, in our own Declaration of Independence.
To me, that just illustrates how corrupt and politicized SCOTUS has become. There is very little doubt that Citizens Unitedflies directly in the face of the Declaration, and the Constitution as well.
I should qualify that. Your point about discomfort MAY be valid, but maybe not. I think it would depend on the depth of the absorption.
But my point was this: the depth of penetration is apparently pretty specific, otherwise it wouldn't be very useful for imaging. Which means absorption is going to be at a specific depth, too. Which means it isn't being absorbed by a great mass of tissue, like other kinds of radiation might: instead, it is all being absorbed by an extremely thin layer.
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"Secondly the grip about regulations is nothing but a red herring. Look at Japan, Canada and Germany. All have many many more regs than we do."
It isn't just the regulations, or even mostly the regulations. It's the stifling bureaucracy -- pretty much a Democrat invention. Both NASA and the FAA have been choking on their own bureaucracies for decades now. And now they want to entangle the private sector with their nonsense.
Two different Presidents have ordered NASA to clean up its bureaucratic bullshit, and it has yet to do so. The fact that Virgin and SpaceX have beat them at their own game at a fraction of the cost is pretty damned good evidence of this.
"How is the cronyism worse under O than under reagan or W?"
Jesus, man. Just look at his cabinet. I mean really look, learn who they are.
"Not that Al Gore attacks have any bearing on the science."
Nor that his movie had much to do with it, either.
"... such as Obama's, which was basically Europe very publicly giving Bush one last middle finger."
I agree. This reinforces my point. It was done for political purposes, and Obama actually did not do anything to deserve a prize... it was awarded largely in response to someone else entirely.
I'm not saying that is exactly the case with Gore, but I don't think he deserved it, either.
"Which 'they', the peace prize committee is a very different animal."
From the context of my comment, I think it is pretty clear that by "they", I meant those who decide who gets the Nobel Prize. No matter who "they" are.
"Try that stunt in Florida and you'll just grow fungus and mildew."
Haha, it's definitely not recommended in humid regions. I was thinking more of dry areas, where swamp coolers are already popular, but normally need electric fans.
"but you can't validly state that climate scientists are using highly questionale methods and doubtful data without citing specific examples of flawed metholodigies,"
Just for two examples just off the top of my head, from the 5. I do not promise that they are verbatim, but close enough:
"The statistical methods used do not support their conclusions."
And from the British House of Commons: "[They] have not actually violated accepted scientific practices... but those practices have to change." [Emphasis mine.]
EVERY ONE of the investigative report had some similar comment to make. Yes, they were found not guilty of any criminality, but they were hardly complimented. They were chastised. Every time.
"It's great that you have an opinion, but you can't validly state that climate scientists are using highly questionale methods and doubtful data without citing specific examples of flawed metholodigies"
I don't have to, at all. Others already have. The fact is that all 5 of the investigations into Hadley Centre, CRU, and Michael Mann have found them not guilty of actual wrongdoing, but at the same time, all 5 of the reports mentioned, at least once, that the methods used were questionable.
Go read them.
On that, we definitely agree. They make some very good choices sometimes, in my opinion, but also the occasional blunder.
"I don't know if I'd say NOTHING. It's pretty fucking hot outside."
Where you live, maybe. We've just gone through one of the coldest Springs on record. The other was last year.
But that's beside the point. Gore sure as hell didn't show us any CAUSE. What he showed us were graphs without scales or indexes, or numbers of any kind... rhetoric, but not evidence.
We knew it was getting hotter, even without AGW. So "it's hot outside" isn't an argument in Gore's favor. If AGW ever does turn out to be true, he stands to make a freaking fortune with the cap-and-trade businesses he set up. And if that's not conflict of interest, I don't know what is.
I was referring much more to the part about the economy over the last 30 years, than the space-budget part.
I agree that the Neocons have helped to ruin the space program, and try to prevent private access, but at the same time the Neolibs have tried to add layer upon layer of bureaucracy on top of not just NASA, but the private companies as well! NASA's recent announcement that it is partnering with the FAA to "regulate" private space flight should be interpreted by EVERYBODY as a huge red flag. They have been doing just fine without that regulation, and they are unlikely to do as well with it.
As for the economy, I don't even want to go there. Sure, there has been cronyism, but it has been on BOTH sides of the fence. And it has been worse under Obama than under any other President in memory (and my memory goes back a ways). Just look at his Cabinet, for crap's sake. Talk about a revolving door! It's an abomination (no pun intended).
"Yes but Neocons are so hypocritical about it. They go around whining about the deficit, but then cut taxes and only pay lip service to cut spending."
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm simply saying that's a two-way street. The Neolibs also whine about it, constantly, and THEIR answer is to keep spending even more money than the Neocons. Despite rhetoric about "austerity", the Government has been spending more money EVERY YEAR, and it has gone UP even more under Obama than ever before.
How is THAT not hypocritical? And what planet does THAT work on? Historically, it's never worked even here in the United States.
"I say bloody revolution, you say nuke. Doesn't sound like you are correcting me, just suggesting a specific revolutionary method that's quick and may lower collateral damage, yet your tone seemed confrontational."
That's right, I wasn't trying to correct you, so much as add my 2 cent's worth. And the nuke thing was only an example, not a suggestion or an implication that it's the only way.
Believe it or not, I still don't believe a "bloody revolution" is necessary to do that. But it will be close.
"However, of course in the 90s private industry took over as the commercial potential of it was realized (.com boom)."
Yes. The government initially funded a lot of the R&D (though they were NOT the original developers). However, once it began to spread, the government portion of it rapidly became a tiny minority. The vast majority of current technology and infrastructure behind the internet has little or nothing to do with government.
It also has little or nothing to do with the ".com boom". That was nothing but a bunch of companies that tried to CAPITALIZE on the internet (not actually build and grow it), who had no viable business models. ".com boom" had more to do with companies behind websites, not much else.
"You realise it is not possible to be peer reviewed in the conventional sense? The peers would require a new LHC."
Not even close. Peer reviewers do not have to duplicate the experiments, they just have to verify that the analysis methodologies are correct, given that the data is accurate as presented.
Peer reviewers have no practical way to determine if the data is in fact correct, unless they see obvious flaws in the procedures. Therefore verifying the accuracy of the data is not a normal part of peer review. Their job is to catch blunders in the procedures as stated in the paper, and the analyses as stated in the paper.
However, finding flaws in the experimental or analytical procedures is very much the job of the reviewers. This has been the big stumbling block for "climate science": the researchers used -- and have continued to use -- highly questionable methods. Even if their DATA is all correct (which I very much doubt).
"Oh, you know those Nobel Prizes don't mean anything because...Al Gore is fat."
No... Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything because Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything. He did NOTHING to deserve it. They are many, many far more deserving people around than that hypocrite.
"They don't actually have any such thing. They have a particle that is necessary for the theories to be correct, but they don't know if the behavior of the particle follows the theories so there is a lot of excitement and potential for new ideas to be generated from the study of this."
And when you consider that other particles have frequently appeared to NOT behave according to the Standard Model, there are still some pretty big holes in it.
Parent is correct. This is confirmation of only one very broad concept that is part of the model. Most of the rest is still up in the air. But perhaps new experiments can proceed with more confidence, knowing that this particular piece has been confirmed.
"What Americans should be doing is screaming that we have suffered ENOUGH of the politics that permeates today."
Hear, hear.
Take away their money, and it would stop pretty quickly. You can bet on it.
Until you do, that won't get fixed.
But while I agree with you about the result, don't go blaming it on Neocons. Neolibs have had JUST AS MUCH to do with it.
"Tell that to the Japanese. It did not take very long for a certain scientific discovery to cross borders and land right in their lap, "enriching" them."
That wasn't a "scientific discovery". That was TECHNOLOGY. They are two different things.
The discovery had been made long before. The Germans were aware of it, as (presumably) were the Japanese. What we beat them in was the TECHNOLOGY that put the discovery to use.
"The *only* thing that will fix US politics is a revolution and Zombie Franklin writing a new Constitution "We hold there truths to be self evident, that all men are created BRAINZZZZZZZZ."
The only thing that will fix US politics is to detach it from "big money" interests. Money is the problem, and that is the answer.
Period. I don't give the slightest damn what particular brand of politics you may follow, but if the money isn't taken out of it (including outrageous government spending), then it will never be fixed until somebody nukes D.C.
They called it that because they actually thought the Government was building it... just like they did (or helped anyway) the real superhighways.
Of course, it was private industry that built almost all of it; the government had little input or say over the matter.
And they shouldn't be able to regulate its content now.
"Quite why people think that 'correct horse battery staple' is more memorable, in particular because of the visual imagery it evokes, than something that isn't 4 simple words, I will never understand. You have a fashion, that's all, but you will grow out of it."
People think it because studies have repeatedly and clearly shown it. It's the way the typical human brain operates.
If yours operates differently, you are not typical. That is all.
One way to do it, if you get any wind at all, is to cover your windows on the outside with bedsheets or the like. Wet them frequently, with a fine hose sprayer.
Less work is to put troughs underneath your windows (like a watertight windowbox), fill them with water, and the bottom of your cloths dangle into these.
Congrats. You now have a Swamp Cooler that needs no external power.
The safety of any kind of radiation should be DEMONSTRATED before every being used on human bodies, especially on a large scale!
I am aware that there are reasons to be skeptical about any damage being done, but we have, many times in the past, been surprised to find that things we previously thought harmless were in fact very dangerous.
Example: X-Rays were initially not thought to be especially harmful, but we eventually learned that it very much was. True, it didn't take very long before X-Rays were looked at with increasing caution, but that was the exception.
The Curies themselves died of radiation poisoning. Even so, workers in plants that made radium watch dials continued to get sick and die in abnormal numbers, for decades, before the practice was stopped.
Tanning beds are now known to be harmful, even though they were touted as using "safe" forms of UV, just a few short years ago.
Sub-millimeter radiation has been studied for how long now? It has been in widespread use for how long?
SHOW that it is safe, or at least relatively safe, and I'll drop my objections. Until then, I'll keep them. Saying that it's safe merely because it's "low power" doesn't cut it.
Besides: aren't we forgetting the main thing? These scanners are proven to be incapable of effectively performing the function they are used for. So why are we debating this at all?
I should add: of course that contradicts certain recent SCOTUS decisions, such as Citizens United.
But how the Supreme Court could have forgotten the basic principle that human rights are "unalienable" are are bestowed upon us by nature of our humanity, and not granted by government, is beyond me. That is stated, pretty much in as many words, in our own Declaration of Independence.
To me, that just illustrates how corrupt and politicized SCOTUS has become. There is very little doubt that Citizens Unitedflies directly in the face of the Declaration, and the Constitution as well.
I should qualify that. Your point about discomfort MAY be valid, but maybe not. I think it would depend on the depth of the absorption.
But my point was this: the depth of penetration is apparently pretty specific, otherwise it wouldn't be very useful for imaging. Which means absorption is going to be at a specific depth, too. Which means it isn't being absorbed by a great mass of tissue, like other kinds of radiation might: instead, it is all being absorbed by an extremely thin layer.