I have 5 kids and live in the mountains. What alternative vehicle would you recommend?
Horses. And skis in the winter:-)
Seriously, I said "hard time justifying", not "never be able to justify". But it is your choice to have 5 kids and live somewhere where an SUV is necessary.
With the world population at 6 billion and growing, the only effecive solution is a mass human die off. Who's going to start?
And you don't think that will happen? That's exactly the reason for the DOD's concern.
It's interesting that an administration which can be so proactive on some issues (e.g. Iraq) can have such a pronounced "wait and see" or "more research is needed" attitude on most environmental issues, where proactive changes might adversely affect the industries that put them in power in the first place.
The better term is "Climate Change," which nullifies all the snide remarks about snowstorms and such. It was called "Global Warming" when less was known about it, though the majority of the media still refer to it that way. Most models show that some parts of the planet will get colder (such as northern Europe if the Gulf Stream is curtailed due to ocean salinity). Also, the energy in the atmosphere will increase, causing more violent storms. Witness the hurricane that hit Brazil earlier this year, where those kind of storms have never been before.
Unfortunatly, there really isn't any "conclusive data". We need to build a second Earth so we can use it for experiments:-). We can only infer from historical patterns and climate modeling, which the critics (and vested interests) attack and attack and attack while continuing to buy those SUVs and live in places with incredible energy requirements just to stay comfortable (e.g. Phoenix, Las Vegas). Remeber also that there are two kinds of skeptics, those who are open to new information and willing to be convinced, and those who will never be convinced (for many reasons) and will just nitpick arguments to death.
The main thing that would happen (according to most models) is that weather patters will change. Areas that are currently fertile and produce much of the world's food supply could suddenly (within decades) stop producing.
Even the US Department of Defence feels that this is the biggest threat that the U.S. faces in the mid-to-long term.
I'm not saying every car should be scrapped (though you'll have a hard time justifying that SUV to me), but that we really need to consider our actions now.
It just seems to me the conserv(e)ative thing to do would be not make dratic changes in the environment, and also to understand that the supply of fossil fuels is finite, and work to preserve our standard of living for future generations.
A 100 watt lightbulb, run for 1 hour, uses 100watt/hours. Run for 10 hours, it uses 1kilowatt/hour (kWh), which is precisely the unit used in figuring out most electric bills.
Well, you're essentially right, but a little unclear on the concept. A watt is a unit of power, which is measured as "unit of work (or energy)" per "unit of time". So if you want to measure energy (what the utility company charges for) you need to multiply your "unit of power" by your "unit of time". So the correct unit of energy is not a kilowatt/hour (read kilowatt per hour or kW/h) but a kilowatt-hour (kWh) which equals 3.6 megajoules (1000 joules every second for 3600 seconds). So that 100W MP3 server uses 16.8 kWh of energy per week (0.1 kWh/h times 168 hours/week).
I honestly don't remember that line. Yeesh that line is bad. Maybe I was so traumatized that I'm blocking it from my memory. Of course I read it when I was 22, so who knows:-)
Perhaps I liked the concepts so much that I just skimmed over the rest and didn't remember it, since it wasn't important for the story.
I'm going to have to dig out my copy and re-read it (it has been almost 20 years) and possibly re-appraise my opinion, but as I said in a previous post, I didn't think there was anything *that* gratuitous.
Haven't seen Matrix II, though there are other movies (e.g. Top Gun) that do the same thing. It can be annoying. But sometimes the scenes can be integral to the plot (e.g. "Basic Instinct", "Angel Heart").
The previous poster said nothing about gratuitous sex scenes. The poster just wanted to excise any sex from the plot, alien or not.
I had forgotten about the alien sex part (it's been 20 years since I read it). I was thinking of Louis Wu, Teela and the zero-g bed. However, Niven was never that graphic about it anyway.
As for "weird sexual hangups", there is a (possibly apocryphal) tale about an early sex researcher who, when defining various sexual behaviors, categorized everything he personally did not like as "abnormal" or "perverted".
And just because they are "weird" doesn't mean they are "wrong".
As long as they keep the whole sex bit out of the series, it should be very cool miniseries
True. Goodness knows that we shouldn't think of sex as part of normal human behavior, so it should never be depicted, nor even talked about in polite company, especially around the children (We MUST Protect the Children!). And then once we perfect in vitro fetilization and artificial gestation, there's no reason to have that disgusting sex whatsoever.
Remember, each of those comments would have made the card deck bigger, so they didn't comment because they wanted the card deck to be only 20 boxes instead of 40.
OK, so "all" wasn't quite correct. But though it may (but I doubt it) have as many sponsors as commercial radio, the on-air advertising time is far less (3 or 4 15-second blurbs vs. a 10-minute block of commercials every hour).
And for the "beg-a-thon's", yeah I can't stand them, either. They are necessary for bringing in new members, though. Another good reason for those CD's.
When we did the diary, they told me I could just copy the channel listing and include it with the diary, rather than writing down the entire list.
And radio is worth it for NPR, but that's pretty much all. I gladly pay my membership (and also get Valentine's Day roses sent to my wife!) to avoid all the commercials. And I also have my CD's when pledge drives roll around, or the show's utterly uninteresting (Like say, "The Spendid Table". Cooking shows on TV are bad enough.)
Obviously I've angered a master of the cut-and-paste.
We could argue the niggly details for years. So let's put it this way: You say Christ died for a day and a half and then was resurrected. Fine. He did it once, He can do it again. Have him come back and let someone we trust (James Randi, perhaps?:-) verifiably kill him, let his body rot for 36 hours, and then have him come back to life. Then I'll believe. Otherwise, it's all hearsay.
In short, to say Jesus didn't exist as a real historical figure who was executed during the Passover ceremony for blasphemy is exactly the kind of unscientific nonsense and blind faith that most often levelled against Christians.
You are putting words in my post that weren't there. I never said that Jesus wasn't a historical person. What I said was "myth" was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There are lots of more mundane reasons for being unable to produce Jesus's body, such as the followers stealing it and hiding it where the authorities couldn't find it.
Occam's razor leads to a scary conclusion. For me it did anyway - Jesus was who he said he was.
Did Jesus really say he was the Messiah? That is a debate that biblical scholars are still having today. Most of that came from John, which is by far the most "out there" of the Gospels w.r.t. earthly vs. supernatural events.
The whole point of Occam's Razor is that you don't accept the extraordinary (read supernatural) explanations (e.g. resurrection, reincarnation, alien abduction) if there are more mundane explanations that explain the facts. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And the preponderance of evidence for the resurrection of Christ comes from people who had a vested interest in the resurrection being true.
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I have 5 kids and live in the mountains. What alternative vehicle would you recommend?
:-)
Horses. And skis in the winter
Seriously, I said "hard time justifying", not "never be able to justify". But it is your choice to have 5 kids and live somewhere where an SUV is necessary.
With the world population at 6 billion and growing, the only effecive solution is a mass human die off. Who's going to start?
And you don't think that will happen? That's exactly the reason for the DOD's concern.
It's interesting that an administration which can be so proactive on some issues (e.g. Iraq) can have such a pronounced "wait and see" or "more research is needed" attitude on most environmental issues, where proactive changes might adversely affect the industries that put them in power in the first place.
A dingo stole my baby!
The better term is "Climate Change," which nullifies all the snide remarks about snowstorms and such. It was called "Global Warming" when less was known about it, though the majority of the media still refer to it that way. Most models show that some parts of the planet will get colder (such as northern Europe if the Gulf Stream is curtailed due to ocean salinity). Also, the energy in the atmosphere will increase, causing more violent storms. Witness the hurricane that hit Brazil earlier this year, where those kind of storms have never been before.
:-). We can only infer from historical patterns and climate modeling, which the critics (and vested interests) attack and attack and attack while continuing to buy those SUVs and live in places with incredible energy requirements just to stay comfortable (e.g. Phoenix, Las Vegas). Remeber also that there are two kinds of skeptics, those who are open to new information and willing to be convinced, and those who will never be convinced (for many reasons) and will just nitpick arguments to death.
Unfortunatly, there really isn't any "conclusive data". We need to build a second Earth so we can use it for experiments
The main thing that would happen (according to most models) is that weather patters will change. Areas that are currently fertile and produce much of the world's food supply could suddenly (within decades) stop producing.
Even the US Department of Defence feels that this is the biggest threat that the U.S. faces in the mid-to-long term.
I'm not saying every car should be scrapped (though you'll have a hard time justifying that SUV to me), but that we really need to consider our actions now.
It just seems to me the conserv(e)ative thing to do would be not make dratic changes in the environment, and also to understand that the supply of fossil fuels is finite, and work to preserve our standard of living for future generations.
Hey, I didn't write that empiricism was always wise, though I think the empiric would do research to see if it had ever been tried before, first.
I think what you're telling me is that the guys from Mythbusters are empirics
My faith consists of two words.
"Empiricism works."
Your faith fills up books with untestable assertions and unverifiable stories.
Which is the more rational?
Followups directed to talkorigins.org.
That happened a long time ago.
We called it "Junior High School".
In a seemingly related but actually completely offtopic vein ...
There was a report on NPR about manhole covers being stolen in England, sold as scrap, and shipped off to China to be re-smelted.
All those hunters shooting at you, you would be angry, too!
And to whomever said it before, "Life's too short to proofread"
Apparently life's too short to think about paragraphs as well.
A 100 watt lightbulb, run for 1 hour, uses 100watt/hours. Run for 10 hours, it uses 1kilowatt/hour (kWh), which is precisely the unit used in figuring out most electric bills.
Well, you're essentially right, but a little unclear on the concept. A watt is a unit of power, which is measured as "unit of work (or energy)" per "unit of time". So if you want to measure energy (what the utility company charges for) you need to multiply your "unit of power" by your "unit of time". So the correct unit of energy is not a kilowatt/hour (read kilowatt per hour or kW/h) but a kilowatt-hour (kWh) which equals 3.6 megajoules (1000 joules every second for 3600 seconds). So that 100W MP3 server uses 16.8 kWh of energy per week (0.1 kWh/h times 168 hours/week).
I honestly don't remember that line. Yeesh that line is bad. Maybe I was so traumatized that I'm blocking it from my memory. Of course I read it when I was 22, so who knows :-)
Perhaps I liked the concepts so much that I just skimmed over the rest and didn't remember it, since it wasn't important for the story.
I'm going to have to dig out my copy and re-read it (it has been almost 20 years) and possibly re-appraise my opinion, but as I said in a previous post, I didn't think there was anything *that* gratuitous.
But I'm probably in major denial.
You must remember, we have always been at war with Eastasia.
Haven't seen Matrix II, though there are other movies (e.g. Top Gun) that do the same thing. It can be annoying. But sometimes the scenes can be integral to the plot (e.g. "Basic Instinct", "Angel Heart").
The previous poster said nothing about gratuitous sex scenes. The poster just wanted to excise any sex from the plot, alien or not.
I had forgotten about the alien sex part (it's been 20 years since I read it). I was thinking of Louis Wu, Teela and the zero-g bed. However, Niven was never that graphic about it anyway.
As for "weird sexual hangups", there is a (possibly apocryphal) tale about an early sex researcher who, when defining various sexual behaviors, categorized everything he personally did not like as "abnormal" or "perverted".
And just because they are "weird" doesn't mean they are "wrong".
Seriously, what part do you think would suit you? Louis Wu just doesn't work (for obvious reasons).
That's the cool thing about being an actor, is that you envision yourself in these roles.
As long as they keep the whole sex bit out of the series, it should be very cool miniseries
True. Goodness knows that we shouldn't think of sex as part of normal human behavior, so it should never be depicted, nor even talked about in polite company, especially around the children (We MUST Protect the Children!). And then once we perfect in vitro fetilization and artificial gestation, there's no reason to have that disgusting sex whatsoever.
Tell that to Global Crossing shareholders.
And then the rich will jet off to and pay absolutely no US taxes whatsoever.
Sounds good to me.
But who gets to define what the law is?
I suggest you go back and listen to John Mellencamp's "Scarecrow".
Remember, each of those comments would have made the card deck bigger, so they didn't comment because they wanted the card deck to be only 20 boxes instead of 40.
OK, so "all" wasn't quite correct. But though it may (but I doubt it) have as many sponsors as commercial radio, the on-air advertising time is far less (3 or 4 15-second blurbs vs. a 10-minute block of commercials every hour).
And for the "beg-a-thon's", yeah I can't stand them, either. They are necessary for bringing in new members, though. Another good reason for those CD's.
When we did the diary, they told me I could just copy the channel listing and include it with the diary, rather than writing down the entire list.
And radio is worth it for NPR, but that's pretty much all. I gladly pay my membership (and also get Valentine's Day roses sent to my wife!) to avoid all the commercials. And I also have my CD's when pledge drives roll around, or the show's utterly uninteresting (Like say, "The Spendid Table". Cooking shows on TV are bad enough.)
It's the 15 religious and home shopping channels I want to get rid of.
But they'll take away my science channels when they pry the remote from my cold, dead fingers.
Obviously I've angered a master of the cut-and-paste.
:-) verifiably kill him, let his body rot for 36 hours, and then have him come back to life. Then I'll believe. Otherwise, it's all hearsay.
We could argue the niggly details for years. So let's put it this way: You say Christ died for a day and a half and then was resurrected. Fine. He did it once, He can do it again. Have him come back and let someone we trust (James Randi, perhaps?
Sounds like a fair demonstration to me.
As for the resurrection of Jesus, the burden of proof is not on those who believe it happened - it's on the sceptic.
Sorry, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
In short, to say Jesus didn't exist as a real historical figure who was executed during the Passover ceremony for blasphemy is exactly the kind of unscientific nonsense and blind faith that most often levelled against Christians.
You are putting words in my post that weren't there. I never said that Jesus wasn't a historical person. What I said was "myth" was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There are lots of more mundane reasons for being unable to produce Jesus's body, such as the followers stealing it and hiding it where the authorities couldn't find it.
Occam's razor leads to a scary conclusion. For me it did anyway - Jesus was who he said he was.
Did Jesus really say he was the Messiah? That is a debate that biblical scholars are still having today. Most of that came from John, which is by far the most "out there" of the Gospels w.r.t. earthly vs. supernatural events.
The whole point of Occam's Razor is that you don't accept the extraordinary (read supernatural) explanations (e.g. resurrection, reincarnation, alien abduction) if there are more mundane explanations that explain the facts. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And the preponderance of evidence for the resurrection of Christ comes from people who had a vested interest in the resurrection being true.