it would be beneficial to those reading your post to know who the hell you are referring to.
No, it would not, because the concerns have been resolved.
it also helps to put in a link to lend credence to your claims
Well, let's see here. There's a few possible responses that spring to mind.
1) Exactly what difference does it make to me if the bottom feeders infesting this place think I've got "credence" or not? None worth any effort that I can see.
2) Those who are too stupid to figure out how to use this new "Google" thing on their own -- y'know, I'm perfectly cool with that kind of moron questioning my "credence". Shows their level of insight and intelligence to everybody nicely.
3) "Claims"? CLAIMS? You mean, you cretin, it even crossed your mind for a MOMENT that Canada is not actually the most fantastic country in the world in every conceivable way, and specifically in the ways I mention!?!?!
Yeah, we'll go with 3) for now. Even though it is just slightly into the workday here so it's stretching our non-bottom-feederness a tad. That's it, though, talk amongst yourselves now.
Actually, we were rated by the IMF the most stable banking system in the world, beating out Switzerland and Luxembourg. Pretty cool, huh?
There's no real trick to it, we just have small-c conservative approach to our financial affairs, even when the big-C Conservatives aren't running the government. We've had unbroken federal surpluses for a decade now, and the first half of that was under the Liberals.
OK... there's a little trick to it. Beginning of last year a number of federally insured deposit institutions, including some of our larger chartered banks, had a good talking to about their asset ratios. Not naming names or anything, but if you care to dig into it a bit you can fairly easily find some unusually big bond issues with no apparent use of the proceeds around that time. At the time this was generally regarded as a heavy-handed way of cutting the feet from under their ability to compete with other countries' banks' spending sprees... but, in hindsight, looks pretty much downright prescient.
Why will white goods need to be on the internet at all?
Well, as an immediate convenience, if I decide to go out overnight instead of going home, it would be nice to be able to tell my crockpot to shut off and my coffee maker and alarm clock to not do their thing tomorrow morning.
In general, the class of problem apotheosized by wondering "did I leave the oven on?" as one leaves for a month's vacation could be eliminated if all one's appliances were connected.
Also, once I know when I'm arriving home, it would be nice to be able to tell the heater/air conditioner to fix the temperature for when I arrive. Or to start cooking the casserole I left in the oven. Or to put on appropriate mood music and lighting.
A good bit of the above is possible already, just at insane expense. But since the iPod fridges are hitting the market already,
I quite confidently predict that within half a dozen product cycles or so every high range appliance is going to have some kind of network access option.
Except that those polls don't account for new voters, which are overwhelmingly Democrat. They also don't call cellphones, only landlines.
Could be, could be.
But if that position had any connection to reality, you'd logically expect to see its consequences in the primaries, yes?
The RCP average of polls in New Hampshire had Obama leading by 8.3 percent; he lost by 2.6 percent. In Nevada, the RCP average was 4 percent; Clinton won by 5.5 percent. In Pennsylvania, the RCP average was Clinton by 6.1 percent; she won by 9.2 percent. The final RCP average in Ohio had Clinton by 7.1 percent, but she won by 10.1 percent. In Texas, the RCP average had Clinton ahead by 1.7 percent, but she won by 3.5 percent.
Now... how exactly is it that you reconcile the demonstrated actual facts of substantial UNDERperformance from polling numbers with your blithe prediction of overperformance from methodologically identical current polling numbers? I'm not really coming up with any good reasons on my own, here...
(I'm surprised, because Clinton and Palin are almost 180 degrees apart on so many issues.)
Welcome to the real world, son. What you're seeing in those swings is how much of the female electorate has identity politics trump issues for them. Educational, no?
To put it another way, as from this WSJ editorial (can't be bothered to look up the exact wording, but you get the gist):
"My five-year old granddaughter has no idea what 'pro-choice' or 'pro-life' means. However, she can see clearly that there is a girl in the White House. That means she'll grow up seeing that there's nothing a girl can't do. And that's why for the first time in my life I am voting Republican, so that she and all the other little girls in this country can see a role model to set their expectations from long before they can grasp her politics."
Not being a girl, I can't say I find the argument compelling exactly, but I do find it completely understandable.
He was disbarred voluntarily to get the Arkansas prosecutor off his back over the Lewinsky thing.
Ah, no. You are 100% incorrect here.
The actual agreement was that Whitewater prosecutors would stay federal perjury charges. Come on, keep your scandals straight.
That's not the same thing as being disbarred because you were proven to have done something illegal.
Technically no, but any sane person sees it as self-evident that there was enough substance to the Whitewater case to scare him into that alternative.
If you disagree and wish to argue that Clinton disbarred voluntarily just for the hell of it -- well then go right ahead, all reasonable people will see your lack of sanity demonstrated.
All the more reason to get out and vote for Obama. Let's see how far the GOP is willing to go to retain power. Voter caging and outright fraud might win them a state or two, but I really don't think they'll be able to turn back a landslide.
What "landslide" is this you speak of? The one that's currently in negative territory, making it an antilandslide?
That should tell you right away how much commitment there is to protecting intellectual property.
Yes, it should -- 100% complete commitment.
In all three of the cases you mention, an appropriate ASCAP performance license was obtained by the campaign.
There is no other legal requirement to perform a song, and there is no form of veto by the recording artist. The bluster in your links is just blowhard preening, there is no legal foundation for it whatsoever.
And why stick to Christian beliefs? There are plenty of other creation theories out there.
Indeed. I think if you're against teaching the warmed over Sumerian mythology we refer to as "Genesis" these days in schools, a particularly apropos argument would be insisting on equal time for Memphite Theology.
A) If that is so, why didn't you go on Kos to point it out, specifically which ones? They are not like a typical right-wing site, they do not insta-ban people just for voicing dissent.
Except, of course, for when that dissent is advocating disclosure of conflict of interest.
And except, of course, for when that dissent is (#1) defending Ralph Nader; (#2) defending an SNL skit; (#3) correctly observing that Al Gore Sr. was a segregationist.
And except, of course, for when... ah hell, go Google some more yourself if you're still thinking "IgnoramusMaximus" is anything but completely accurately named.
Look at the list that was circulated to support this myth and youâ(TM)ll find books Gov. Palin supposedly tried to ban...that hadnâ(TM)t even been published yet. Example: The Harry Potter books, the first of which wasnâ(TM)t published until 1998.
My God! The woman is PSYCHIC! How can anyone stand against her?
Well, I'm talking about alternatives to the theory of natural selection generally, not the Babylonian-cribbed words of Genesis specifically.
As long as problems like "so where's some evidence that flowering plants arose in a believably evolutionary fashion?" continue to exist, we don't have a compelling narrative that natural selection is a sufficient mechanism -- and I note again that Darwin himself was on board with that position from the beginning, it's not a creationist talking point -- so one should keep an open mind to the Cosmic Ancestry (aka "panspermia") or Intelligent Design (in the Sitchinesque "aliens genetically engineered us!" form, anyways) or whatever other wildeyed alternatives anyone comes up with.
If someone does come up with fossils that make a believable case that flowering plants could actually have arisen by natural selection alone, then by Occam's Razor we can make a better case that aliens/God/whatever aren't necessary. But at the moment, the evidence -- lack of, more precisely -- indicates that some outside interfering agency is, at the very least, not a position that can be easily dismissed.
Well, let's take one genuine problem in current evolutionary theory which has been so ever since Charles Darwin called it an "abominable mystery".
A creationist hypothesis for the emergence of flowering plants would be that no plausible fossil record can be found bridging the gap between reproduction by spores and, at best, Archaefructus liaoningensis -- and even its status as a progenitor is on the iffily interpreted side. An evolutionary hypothesis would be that such a dramatic development could not possibly fail to leave a solid track record.
So far the creationists are out ahead on that one!
Well, if you really sit down and think about it, it is pretty bloody strange that all domesticated plant species appear in the archaeological record at pretty much exactly the time that the Sumerian creation myths tell us that the Annunkai descended from heaven and gave them to humanity, isn't it now?
Do you honestly think that we should be teaching creationism in science class?
Well, as a matter of fact, yes I do.
And its slightly evolved (heh) descendant Intelligent Design, and Lamarckism/Lysenkoism, and Panspermia/Cosmic Ancestry, and that Odin created the world from the body of Ymir, and at least half a dozen widely scattered other mythological creation stories as well.
That's because I don't think "science" class is adequate pedagogically when its content is only current dogma. "Science" class should include the examination of historical, cultural, and political pressures that led to the evolution (heh) of conventionally accepted beliefs on scientific subjects, and a full and frank discussion of precisely why it is that people feel that creationism should still have a place in the curriculum today seems to me to be a piece of wisdom much more valuable to impart than any discussion about the mechanics of evolution past basic Mendelian genetics.
Face it, virtually nobody ever needs to apply anything they learn in even middle school "science" classes. Reframing the subject as "cultural evolution (heh) of scientific beliefs" prepares them for the actual debates arising in the real world much more usefully, I say. The current strategy of censoring one side of the debate they will actually be presented with in real life is, I feel, I disservice.
You do realize I'm not in charge of anybody's global warming policy besides my own and there's really no point arguing with me, the only reason I follow the global warming debate at all is to figure out whether I should be buying up tundra for my new beachfront condo development in Nunavut, stay where I am, or flee in panic for the Equator? And that whether I continue to believe solar theories in general and Svensmark in particular are more likely to be correct than the AGW Chicken Littleism depends on whether temperatures keep plummeting until SC24 starts, not what you or anyone else says without producing actual physical evidence?
Still, if your understanding is so shallow that you're still quoting those clowns at RealClimate, first off, may I suggest you widen your knowledge base a bit instead of relying on the Hockey Team idiots, and second off sure you've sucked me in to one more response ok:)
in addition to the lack of trend in GCR
Flat out lie, here. Svensmark uses five different radiation measurement locations to document the 11 year radiation cycle and its remarkably good correlation with solar activity. You want long-term? How about the last 500 million years? We got your last 500 million years right here.
Oh, that's right, you think RealClimate is worth parroting, and those nasty geologists, being real scientists, wrote their paper with all big words and equations, waaaaah. Here's a direct link to their pretty picture:
Far as I'm concerned that conclusively refutes any "lack of trend" argument over a... uh-oh, I have no idea what the word is for "half-billion-year"... a very very long time scale indeed. To insist that the last 20 year time period outweighs this is to ignore that the climate system acts as a low pass filter, and that currently warmed oceans are a heat sink. So that argument is functionally identical to comparing the temperature between noon and 2 PM with the solar insolation, and reaching the conclusion that solar radiation decreases the temperature.
It's tricky to explain how a warming caused by decreasing albedo would be stronger at the night-side (dark) of the planet.
It's only tricky if you haven't, you know, actually read the book. If you have not, in fact, read anything beyond the Amazon page for the book you pretend to be reviewing, as apparently RealClimate does not, then only in that case would it be acceptable for you to be unaware that the CRF/climate link is only going to make an observable difference where there's very little background cloud condensation nuclei -- that is, over the oceans. Since we expect a warmer climate to have more water vapour in the atmosphere, we will also expect to form more low level clouds over land, which will reduce the IR cooling during the nights, and thus reduce the diurnal cycle. No trickiness here!
So... sorry, son, I'm going to have to give your argument a 'D' for 'Insufficient and Unsupported Research'. There definitely are several unproven links in the Svensmark et al. theses... but you're not even close to them here. And, in any case, if the CERN CLOUD experiment goes as I expect, those links will be pretty much proven by the end of 2010. Which may be almost superfluous at that point anyways, because if SC24 keeps on not happening and temperatures keep plummeting, the discrepancy between AGW models and real life is going to be too big by then for even RealClimate to explain with a straight face.
It's not absolute numbers that appears to be the first order correlation -- it's length of solar cycle. Just so happens that extremely long cycles tend to also have very low numbers, so it's a fairly convenient shorthand.
In any case, it appears that my credibility regarding solar models as alternatives to AGW orthodoxy is in the middle of being put to the test; they've just added 6 months to the predicted beginning of SC24 because, well, because nobody has a fucking clue what's going on:
If the global temperature anomaly suddenly starts shooting back up despite the ever-lengthening-SC-23, then I'll stop bringing up solar explanations.
If it continues to decline in lockstep with a quietening Sun -- yet ever more quickly increasing C02! -- as the last year and a half has been demonstrating... well, that's just going to keep getting harder and harder for the AGW-fixated alarmists to explain away, isn't it now?
If you actually look at how the models are constructed, it's really quite horrifying. If they do turn out to be anywhere even vaguely in the neighborhood of right, it'll be by pure chance, as they are literally guesswork. And embarrassingly simplistic guesswork at that.
Personally, I think Svensmark is on to something with his cosmic ray vs. cloud theories, and since Solar Cycle 24 is being considerate enough to conduct a real world experiment for us by steadfastly refusing to get started, we'll have solid verification (or falsification) of them within a couple years it's looking like and probable consequent showing up quite irrefutably of all the AGW alarmists.
That would be a rather Pyrrhic victory for the scientific method, mind you, since a new Little Ice Age would be a pretty much unmitigated catastrophe all around...
It is still probably a good idea to cut carbon output
As a matter of fact, it isn't. Ask anyone who runs a greenhouse. C02 is plant food. Plants are good. QED.
The one actually provable consequence of the recent increase in C02 levels is a 6% increase in biomass over the last 30 years. You whippersnappers are probably too young to remember, but back in the 70s one of the Environmentalist Crises Du Jour(tm) was desertification. And, indeed, it actually was a pretty serious problem. But since then, desertification has reversed itself by over 400 million square kilometers, due to that 6% increase in biomass, which in case you don't understand that phrasing can be stated colloquially as "a fuckload more plants".
Mind you, there's lots of other excellent reasons to stop industrial emissions, but reducing C02 is not one of them. The demonstrated benefits of increasing biomass wildly outweigh any provable negative consequences. (And pretty much all of the unprovable ones the Chicken Littles try to terrify us with to boot.)
Yes we do. We've been warming since 1830 as sunspots have increased after the Little Ice Age. For details, see the Svensmark book.
If his solar-driven model is correct, and if Solar Cycle 24 continues its petulant refusal to actually exist, then the entire-20th-C.-warming plunge over the last year and a bit is just a little foretaste and things are about to get very cold indeed.
Perhaps you should consider whether you think these people would rather have the jobs in question, or jobs with basic western labour standards (limited hours, safety, minimum pay, paid leave, and so on). I would also be interested to know what exactly you think stops Apple offering those conditions within China (other than greed/profit motive or "they don't have to").
Short answer: You saw where I said "historically effective"? Figure out why.
Guidance to get you started: Forget the Third World, look around your neighbourhood. Would the cashiers at McDonald's rather have the minimum wage jobs they have now, or would they prefer jobs that paid $1,000,000 an hour for 2 hours work a day and 10 months paid vacation a year? Well then, ask yourself your question: What exactly do you think stops McDonalds offering those conditions within America? Hint: It's not greed/profit motive or "they don't have to", as you suggested.
As I see other people have already mentioned, until/unless you have something in spitting distance of publishable territory to acquire, no publisher and vanishingly few development houses are going to be interested in allocating a single second to reviewing whatever it is you have in mind; they are constrained by resources, not by good ideas.
However, if your idea is on a scale that can be implemented -- at least to acquisition candidate stage -- by a single programmer, then your probably not insurmountable task is to find a programmer who's interested in investing their time in hopes of some eventual payout. Like, for instance, myself; I happen to be an iPhone developer just finishing up my first project (a brainteaser type game port) and I'm flexible as to what I take on next. If your idea is appropriate for implementation on an iPhone, and it looks like it would be not too big of a job to do the programming side of things, I'd be quite interested in doing that, publishing the result through the App Store, and splitting the take.
What is actually relevant to this situation is the routine exposure of corruption among the recruiting process for these allegedly horrific conditions.
So, to connect your phrasing to reality,
"Why, my nigger paid the overseer under the table his entire family's life savings plus sold two of his daughters to get to work for me! Don't have to ask him nuttin' do ya?"
When there no longer are stories of that sort about how desperately people bribe anyone they can to get a chance at these allegedly horrific conditions, then perhaps there might be something to discuss.
In the meantime, the politest thing you can say about people who think there is a problem is that they are not familiar with the alternatives available to the workers, and they lack the basic grasp of economics that the only historically effective way to improve working conditions has been to reduce labor surplus, which is most effectively done by increasing number of jobs. (In a few cases restricting supply by unionization or its bastard cousin "professional certification" works too, yes, but simply growing the economy so jobs outpace workforce growth is much better as it does not restrict the freedom of individuals.)
Slashdot Mirror
it would be beneficial to those reading your post to know who the hell you are referring to.
No, it would not, because the concerns have been resolved.
it also helps to put in a link to lend credence to your claims
Well, let's see here. There's a few possible responses that spring to mind.
1) Exactly what difference does it make to me if the bottom feeders infesting this place think I've got "credence" or not? None worth any effort that I can see.
2) Those who are too stupid to figure out how to use this new "Google" thing on their own -- y'know, I'm perfectly cool with that kind of moron questioning my "credence". Shows their level of insight and intelligence to everybody nicely.
3) "Claims"? CLAIMS? You mean, you cretin, it even crossed your mind for a MOMENT that Canada is not actually the most fantastic country in the world in every conceivable way, and specifically in the ways I mention!?!?!
Yeah, we'll go with 3) for now. Even though it is just slightly into the workday here so it's stretching our non-bottom-feederness a tad. That's it, though, talk amongst yourselves now.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081009/canadian_banks_081009/20081009?hub=TopStories
Actually, we were rated by the IMF the most stable banking system in the world, beating out Switzerland and Luxembourg. Pretty cool, huh?
There's no real trick to it, we just have small-c conservative approach to our financial affairs, even when the big-C Conservatives aren't running the government. We've had unbroken federal surpluses for a decade now, and the first half of that was under the Liberals.
OK ... there's a little trick to it. Beginning of last year a number of federally insured deposit institutions, including some of our larger chartered banks, had a good talking to about their asset ratios. Not naming names or anything, but if you care to dig into it a bit you can fairly easily find some unusually big bond issues with no apparent use of the proceeds around that time. At the time this was generally regarded as a heavy-handed way of cutting the feet from under their ability to compete with other countries' banks' spending sprees ... but, in hindsight, looks pretty much downright prescient.
Why will white goods need to be on the internet at all?
Well, as an immediate convenience, if I decide to go out overnight instead of going home, it would be nice to be able to tell my crockpot to shut off and my coffee maker and alarm clock to not do their thing tomorrow morning.
In general, the class of problem apotheosized by wondering "did I leave the oven on?" as one leaves for a month's vacation could be eliminated if all one's appliances were connected.
Also, once I know when I'm arriving home, it would be nice to be able to tell the heater/air conditioner to fix the temperature for when I arrive. Or to start cooking the casserole I left in the oven. Or to put on appropriate mood music and lighting.
A good bit of the above is possible already, just at insane expense. But since the iPod fridges are hitting the market already,
http://devicedaily.com/gadgets/gorenje-the-ipod-fridge-launched-at-ifa-2008.html
I quite confidently predict that within half a dozen product cycles or so every high range appliance is going to have some kind of network access option.
Except that those polls don't account for new voters, which are overwhelmingly Democrat. They also don't call cellphones, only landlines.
Could be, could be.
But if that position had any connection to reality, you'd logically expect to see its consequences in the primaries, yes?
The RCP average of polls in New Hampshire had Obama leading by 8.3 percent; he lost by 2.6 percent. In Nevada, the RCP average was 4 percent; Clinton won by 5.5 percent. In Pennsylvania, the RCP average was Clinton by 6.1 percent; she won by 9.2 percent. The final RCP average in Ohio had Clinton by 7.1 percent, but she won by 10.1 percent. In Texas, the RCP average had Clinton ahead by 1.7 percent, but she won by 3.5 percent.
Now ... how exactly is it that you reconcile the demonstrated actual facts of substantial UNDERperformance from polling numbers with your blithe prediction of overperformance from methodologically identical current polling numbers? I'm not really coming up with any good reasons on my own, here...
(I'm surprised, because Clinton and Palin are almost 180 degrees apart on so many issues.)
Welcome to the real world, son. What you're seeing in those swings is how much of the female electorate has identity politics trump issues for them. Educational, no?
To put it another way, as from this WSJ editorial (can't be bothered to look up the exact wording, but you get the gist):
"My five-year old granddaughter has no idea what 'pro-choice' or 'pro-life' means. However, she can see clearly that there is a girl in the White House. That means she'll grow up seeing that there's nothing a girl can't do. And that's why for the first time in my life I am voting Republican, so that she and all the other little girls in this country can see a role model to set their expectations from long before they can grasp her politics."
Not being a girl, I can't say I find the argument compelling exactly, but I do find it completely understandable.
He was disbarred voluntarily to get the Arkansas prosecutor off his back over the Lewinsky thing.
Ah, no. You are 100% incorrect here.
The actual agreement was that Whitewater prosecutors would stay federal perjury charges. Come on, keep your scandals straight.
That's not the same thing as being disbarred because you were proven to have done something illegal.
Technically no, but any sane person sees it as self-evident that there was enough substance to the Whitewater case to scare him into that alternative.
If you disagree and wish to argue that Clinton disbarred voluntarily just for the hell of it -- well then go right ahead, all reasonable people will see your lack of sanity demonstrated.
All the more reason to get out and vote for Obama. Let's see how far the GOP is willing to go to retain power.
Voter caging and outright fraud might win them a state or two, but I really don't think they'll be able to turn back a landslide.
What "landslide" is this you speak of? The one that's currently in negative territory, making it an antilandslide?
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
I'm not really seeing where fraud is needed when the opinion polls have the results 270-268 in McCain's favour...
That should tell you right away how much commitment there is to protecting intellectual property.
Yes, it should -- 100% complete commitment.
In all three of the cases you mention, an appropriate ASCAP performance license was obtained by the campaign.
There is no other legal requirement to perform a song, and there is no form of veto by the recording artist. The bluster in your links is just blowhard preening, there is no legal foundation for it whatsoever.
And why stick to Christian beliefs? There are plenty of other creation theories out there.
Indeed. I think if you're against teaching the warmed over Sumerian mythology we refer to as "Genesis" these days in schools, a particularly apropos argument would be insisting on equal time for Memphite Theology.
http://books.google.com/books?id=8Op3RD28z_4C&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=Memphite+Theology+semen&source=web&ots=eK4VSoUOn6&sig=6UVfAw53j6fJ3jWU9jJlPpgKTzI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result
A) If that is so, why didn't you go on Kos to point it out, specifically which ones? They are not like a typical right-wing site, they do not insta-ban people just for voicing dissent.
Except, of course, for when that dissent is advocating disclosure of conflict of interest.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2006/07/29/tikun-olam-banned-at-daily-kos/
And except, of course, for when that dissent is bringing up facts that are actually true about John Edwards.
http://stranahan.com/2008/08/03/ive-been-banned-at-dailykos-because-of-john-edwards/
And except, of course, for when that dissent is (#1) defending Ralph Nader; (#2) defending an SNL skit; (#3) correctly observing that Al Gore Sr. was a segregationist.
http://polizeros.com/2006/02/09/banned-from-kos-again/
And except, of course, for when that dissent is defending Barack Obama from the pro-Edwards site narrative!
http://students.barackobama.com/page/community/post/brionlutz/CZ7l
And except, of course, for when ... ah hell, go Google some more yourself if you're still thinking "IgnoramusMaximus" is anything but completely accurately named.
Look at the list that was circulated to support this myth and youâ(TM)ll find books Gov. Palin supposedly tried to ban...that hadnâ(TM)t even been published yet. Example: The Harry Potter books, the first of which wasnâ(TM)t published until 1998.
My God! The woman is PSYCHIC! How can anyone stand against her?
I, for one, welcome our new Alaskan overlady!
Well, I'm talking about alternatives to the theory of natural selection generally, not the Babylonian-cribbed words of Genesis specifically.
As long as problems like "so where's some evidence that flowering plants arose in a believably evolutionary fashion?" continue to exist, we don't have a compelling narrative that natural selection is a sufficient mechanism -- and I note again that Darwin himself was on board with that position from the beginning, it's not a creationist talking point -- so one should keep an open mind to the Cosmic Ancestry (aka "panspermia") or Intelligent Design (in the Sitchinesque "aliens genetically engineered us!" form, anyways) or whatever other wildeyed alternatives anyone comes up with.
If someone does come up with fossils that make a believable case that flowering plants could actually have arisen by natural selection alone, then by Occam's Razor we can make a better case that aliens/God/whatever aren't necessary. But at the moment, the evidence -- lack of, more precisely -- indicates that some outside interfering agency is, at the very least, not a position that can be easily dismissed.
Well, let's take one genuine problem in current evolutionary theory which has been so ever since Charles Darwin called it an "abominable mystery".
A creationist hypothesis for the emergence of flowering plants would be that no plausible fossil record can be found bridging the gap between reproduction by spores and, at best, Archaefructus liaoningensis -- and even its status as a progenitor is on the iffily interpreted side. An evolutionary hypothesis would be that such a dramatic development could not possibly fail to leave a solid track record.
So far the creationists are out ahead on that one!
Well, if you really sit down and think about it, it is pretty bloody strange that all domesticated plant species appear in the archaeological record at pretty much exactly the time that the Sumerian creation myths tell us that the Annunkai descended from heaven and gave them to humanity, isn't it now?
Just sayin' ...
Do you honestly think that we should be teaching creationism in science class?
Well, as a matter of fact, yes I do.
And its slightly evolved (heh) descendant Intelligent Design, and Lamarckism/Lysenkoism, and Panspermia/Cosmic Ancestry, and that Odin created the world from the body of Ymir, and at least half a dozen widely scattered other mythological creation stories as well.
That's because I don't think "science" class is adequate pedagogically when its content is only current dogma. "Science" class should include the examination of historical, cultural, and political pressures that led to the evolution (heh) of conventionally accepted beliefs on scientific subjects, and a full and frank discussion of precisely why it is that people feel that creationism should still have a place in the curriculum today seems to me to be a piece of wisdom much more valuable to impart than any discussion about the mechanics of evolution past basic Mendelian genetics.
Face it, virtually nobody ever needs to apply anything they learn in even middle school "science" classes. Reframing the subject as "cultural evolution (heh) of scientific beliefs" prepares them for the actual debates arising in the real world much more usefully, I say. The current strategy of censoring one side of the debate they will actually be presented with in real life is, I feel, I disservice.
You do realize I'm not in charge of anybody's global warming policy besides my own and there's really no point arguing with me, the only reason I follow the global warming debate at all is to figure out whether I should be buying up tundra for my new beachfront condo development in Nunavut, stay where I am, or flee in panic for the Equator? And that whether I continue to believe solar theories in general and Svensmark in particular are more likely to be correct than the AGW Chicken Littleism depends on whether temperatures keep plummeting until SC24 starts, not what you or anyone else says without producing actual physical evidence?
Still, if your understanding is so shallow that you're still quoting those clowns at RealClimate, first off, may I suggest you widen your knowledge base a bit instead of relying on the Hockey Team idiots, and second off sure you've sucked me in to one more response ok :)
in addition to the lack of trend in GCR
Flat out lie, here. Svensmark uses five different radiation measurement locations to document the 11 year radiation cycle and its remarkably good correlation with solar activity. You want long-term? How about the last 500 million years? We got your last 500 million years right here.
http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1130%2F1052-5173(2003)013%3C0004:CDOPC%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1
Oh, that's right, you think RealClimate is worth parroting, and those nasty geologists, being real scientists, wrote their paper with all big words and equations, waaaaah. Here's a direct link to their pretty picture:
http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?request=display-figures&name=i1052-5173-13-7-4-f02
Far as I'm concerned that conclusively refutes any "lack of trend" argument over a ... uh-oh, I have no idea what the word is for "half-billion-year" ... a very very long time scale indeed. To insist that the last 20 year time period outweighs this is to ignore that the climate system acts as a low pass filter, and that currently warmed oceans are a heat sink. So that argument is functionally identical to comparing the temperature between noon and 2 PM with the solar insolation, and reaching the conclusion that solar radiation decreases the temperature.
It's tricky to explain how a warming caused by decreasing albedo would be stronger at the night-side (dark) of the planet.
It's only tricky if you haven't, you know, actually read the book. If you have not, in fact, read anything beyond the Amazon page for the book you pretend to be reviewing, as apparently RealClimate does not, then only in that case would it be acceptable for you to be unaware that the CRF/climate link is only going to make an observable difference where there's very little background cloud condensation nuclei -- that is, over the oceans. Since we expect a warmer climate to have more water vapour in the atmosphere, we will also expect to form more low level clouds over land, which will reduce the IR cooling during the nights, and thus reduce the diurnal cycle. No trickiness here!
So ... sorry, son, I'm going to have to give your argument a 'D' for 'Insufficient and Unsupported Research'. There definitely are several unproven links in the Svensmark et al. theses ... but you're not even close to them here. And, in any case, if the CERN CLOUD experiment goes as I expect, those links will be pretty much proven by the end of 2010. Which may be almost superfluous at that point anyways, because if SC24 keeps on not happening and temperatures keep plummeting, the discrepancy between AGW models and real life is going to be too big by then for even RealClimate to explain with a straight face.
Interesting times ahead!
Well, if you're actually that interested -- hey, go straight to the source!
http://www.amazon.com/Chilling-Stars-Theory-Climate-Change/dp/1840468157
It's not absolute numbers that appears to be the first order correlation -- it's length of solar cycle. Just so happens that extremely long cycles tend to also have very low numbers, so it's a fairly convenient shorthand.
In any case, it appears that my credibility regarding solar models as alternatives to AGW orthodoxy is in the middle of being put to the test; they've just added 6 months to the predicted beginning of SC24 because, well, because nobody has a fucking clue what's going on:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/australian-space-weather-agency-pushes-solar-cycle-24-up-6-months/
If the global temperature anomaly suddenly starts shooting back up despite the ever-lengthening-SC-23, then I'll stop bringing up solar explanations.
If it continues to decline in lockstep with a quietening Sun -- yet ever more quickly increasing C02! -- as the last year and a half has been demonstrating ... well, that's just going to keep getting harder and harder for the AGW-fixated alarmists to explain away, isn't it now?
If you actually look at how the models are constructed, it's really quite horrifying. If they do turn out to be anywhere even vaguely in the neighborhood of right, it'll be by pure chance, as they are literally guesswork. And embarrassingly simplistic guesswork at that.
Personally, I think Svensmark is on to something with his cosmic ray vs. cloud theories, and since Solar Cycle 24 is being considerate enough to conduct a real world experiment for us by steadfastly refusing to get started, we'll have solid verification (or falsification) of them within a couple years it's looking like and probable consequent showing up quite irrefutably of all the AGW alarmists.
That would be a rather Pyrrhic victory for the scientific method, mind you, since a new Little Ice Age would be a pretty much unmitigated catastrophe all around...
It is still probably a good idea to cut carbon output
As a matter of fact, it isn't. Ask anyone who runs a greenhouse. C02 is plant food. Plants are good. QED.
The one actually provable consequence of the recent increase in C02 levels is a 6% increase in biomass over the last 30 years. You whippersnappers are probably too young to remember, but back in the 70s one of the Environmentalist Crises Du Jour(tm) was desertification. And, indeed, it actually was a pretty serious problem. But since then, desertification has reversed itself by over 400 million square kilometers, due to that 6% increase in biomass, which in case you don't understand that phrasing can be stated colloquially as "a fuckload more plants".
Mind you, there's lots of other excellent reasons to stop industrial emissions, but reducing C02 is not one of them. The demonstrated benefits of increasing biomass wildly outweigh any provable negative consequences. (And pretty much all of the unprovable ones the Chicken Littles try to terrify us with to boot.)
Yes we do. We've been warming since 1830 as sunspots have increased after the Little Ice Age. For details, see the Svensmark book.
If his solar-driven model is correct, and if Solar Cycle 24 continues its petulant refusal to actually exist, then the entire-20th-C.-warming plunge over the last year and a bit is just a little foretaste and things are about to get very cold indeed.
Perhaps you should consider whether you think these people would rather have the jobs in question, or jobs with basic western labour standards (limited hours, safety, minimum pay, paid leave, and so on). I would also be interested to know what exactly you think stops Apple offering those conditions within China (other than greed/profit motive or "they don't have to").
Short answer: You saw where I said "historically effective"? Figure out why.
Guidance to get you started: Forget the Third World, look around your neighbourhood. Would the cashiers at McDonald's rather have the minimum wage jobs they have now, or would they prefer jobs that paid $1,000,000 an hour for 2 hours work a day and 10 months paid vacation a year? Well then, ask yourself your question: What exactly do you think stops McDonalds offering those conditions within America? Hint: It's not greed/profit motive or "they don't have to", as you suggested.
As I see other people have already mentioned, until/unless you have something in spitting distance of publishable territory to acquire, no publisher and vanishingly few development houses are going to be interested in allocating a single second to reviewing whatever it is you have in mind; they are constrained by resources, not by good ideas.
However, if your idea is on a scale that can be implemented -- at least to acquisition candidate stage -- by a single programmer, then your probably not insurmountable task is to find a programmer who's interested in investing their time in hopes of some eventual payout. Like, for instance, myself; I happen to be an iPhone developer just finishing up my first project (a brainteaser type game port) and I'm flexible as to what I take on next. If your idea is appropriate for implementation on an iPhone, and it looks like it would be not too big of a job to do the programming side of things, I'd be quite interested in doing that, publishing the result through the App Store, and splitting the take.
Witty, but not relevant to this situation.
What is actually relevant to this situation is the routine exposure of corruption among the recruiting process for these allegedly horrific conditions.
So, to connect your phrasing to reality,
"Why, my nigger paid the overseer under the table his entire family's life savings plus sold two of his daughters to get to work for me! Don't have to ask him nuttin' do ya?"
When there no longer are stories of that sort about how desperately people bribe anyone they can to get a chance at these allegedly horrific conditions, then perhaps there might be something to discuss.
In the meantime, the politest thing you can say about people who think there is a problem is that they are not familiar with the alternatives available to the workers, and they lack the basic grasp of economics that the only historically effective way to improve working conditions has been to reduce labor surplus, which is most effectively done by increasing number of jobs. (In a few cases restricting supply by unionization or its bastard cousin "professional certification" works too, yes, but simply growing the economy so jobs outpace workforce growth is much better as it does not restrict the freedom of individuals.)
Oil isn't a renewable...
That's where you're wrong, friend!
At least, with any luck, will be soon...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/31/biofuels.travelandtransport?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews