So... Pelosi is crazy because she's rich? Or she's crazy because she rich and a democrat and only Republicans are allowed to be rich?
I do wonder how the money "spent" by Pelosi on travel compares to other Speakers of the House both past and present. It's quite easy to quote a number without providing context and get worked up over it. Lastly, the site you linked to is a clearly partisan. I have some difficulty trusting them due to a history of misrepresentations by Republican partisans.
I bet there was a guy just like you a hundred years ago who'd proclaim "We are not going to stop using horses or buggies. Period." The U.S. is paralyzed by greed and stupidity, so maybe you won't change until you have to but that will be your loss. The United States used to be a backwards former colony of little import, and many Americans seem intent on return to those "glory days". Frankly, I'm pretty sure the world will run out of oil and coal before the atmosphere could "turn toxic" (at least from CO2 emissions). Diseases, pest, and massive agricultural failures are the biggest threats associated with global warming.
Maybe you should actually look at the temperature record. The years 2000-2009 were on average 0.2 degrees warmer than the years 1990-1999 which were themselves on average 0.24 degrees warmer than the years 1980-1989.
If you imagine the bit coins being created mostly at the top of pyramid and being sold down to the new people at the bottom, you should be able to see how it could be viewed as a pyramid scheme. If the top of the pyramid only sells coins to people lower on the pyramid than themselves, eventually you'd end up with a big base of suckers left with worthless tokens while the early adopters walk away with bags of cash.
I'm not saying it's actually a pyramid scheme, because I think some of the early adopters believe in Bitcoins. However, I think if someone is going to claim it's all a scam, they make sure the scam they're accusing it of being makes sense. Bitcoin is not at all like a Ponzi scheme.
I don't think Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. It's not really an investment scheme at all. It's closer to a pyramid scheme or possibly a just a simple con. After all, the more people "mining" Bitcoins, the less productive mining Bitcoins becomes. The early investors got Bitcoins faster and cheaper and as demand rises they can sell their Bitcoins that cost less to make for the same amount as the later, harder to make Bitcoins.
Ironically, you can thank the Republicans for that, actually. It's not just that Reagan, Quayle, Bush II, and Palin are not exactly world-class intellectuals. The Republican party has been engaged in a political war on intelligence and education since Nixon. "Elitist" seems to have become a code word for anyone who actually know things, disagreeing with ignorant people is now "elitist". The only exception is businesspeople who are expected to know how business works, and sometimes economists, but only if they support lowering taxes.
I suspect both of you would disagree on who was the winner of that comparison. Frankly, as a non-American, I think I'd have to give Pelosi the advantage. She seems to be a hard-working no-nonsense type, she reminds me a bit of Margaret Thatcher, without the charisma. In contrast, Palin appears to be a bit dimwitted and her only advantages appear to be her appearance and charisma. Her political views seem to change to match the craziest wing of the Republicans. She seems to have demonstrated an inability to put in the hard work of governance. Frankly comparing the two brings the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper to mind.
The Grasshopper may be more fun at parties, but I think I'd rather have the Ant running my country.
I don't think I believe that story, it may be part of truth, and I'm not even sure that what you wrote is true at all. However, I know it missing much of the truth. For example, it neglects to mention the multi-million dollar offer from Fox News. It seems far more likely that she realized that Alaska is fairly remote from much of American politics and she could make a lot more money than a governor's salary by working for Fox. That was likely an opportunity that she couldn't refuse, but it seems to me she quit her elected position so that she could cash in on her sudden fame.
Of course, it's not my method, it's one of a number of methods used by experts on climate. And it has been chosen for valid reasons, a multi-year average smoothes out year-to-year variability so that the temperature trend is more clearly visible. Of course, I suppose if you were attempting to hide the trend in the noise, it obviously wouldn't be your method of choice.
Of course, we don't need a graph to tell us that the 2000s were warmer than the 90s. Nine of the ten warmest years on record occurred since the year 2000. Simple math tells us if 9 of the 10 hottest years occurred in the last decade, that is pretty damn likely to be the warmest decade.
No. It makes no sense at all. You've cherry-picked two values to generate the line you want. It's either stupidity or dishonesty, pick one.
To get accurate information you need to look at multi-year moving averages, otherwise the data can be easily drowned out by the noise. When you look at the moving averages, temperatures are clearly increasing.
I'm not sure "Dr. Clive Best" did a very good job on those graph, from his comments, I suspect he's not using the actual temperature data. If the climate has cooled since 2000, then why are 9 of the 10 warmest years after 2000? In any case, the Real Climate graphs show a different picture.
that is false, temperature rise stopped, the differences over 2005 to 2010 according to NASA were less than 0.03 degrees C, in the realm of noise
It is difficult to put into words how profoundly ignorant that statement is in regards to science, mathematics and even common sense.
There is danger in extrapolating data from two datapoints. What you've done is conclude that because 2010 was only marginally warmer than the previous warmest year on record that it can't possibly be still getting warmer. Anyone with either a little common sense or a basic understanding of statistics will immediately understand that what you wrote makes no sense whatsoever. There's a reason why 30 year moving averages are used in climate studies, that to prevent exactly this type of idiocy.
Similar Donald Knuth stopped issuing his reward checks for finding errors in his books because people were so proud of receiving them that they posted pictures of the checks online. The information visible on the front of the check in some of the pictures was enough to enable someone to steal money from his bank account. The moral of the story? The entire banking system is mostly insecure.
I'm not sure that much has improved since the events depicted in the movie Catch Me If You Can happened. It seems like the banks don't bother fixing anything until after it has been used to steal a significant amount of money.
Except history tells us that the first actual money was created by early governments. This should not be a surprise, you needed to have a social agreement that the money has value before it actually is money and in groups small enough to not need government, it would have been easier to mentally track who owed whom what than to invent a currency.
I'm not saying that Bitcoin is useless or anything, just that according to historians, early governments created the first money. So while value may predate governments, money does not. Personally, I think it's important to at least get the basic facts right.
I meant even in theory it could be no more than a successful electronic transaction system. Sepcifically that it probably can't do much better than replacing PayPal (or similar services) as the method of choice for conducting transactions online.
Well, in theory there would be many companies providing solar power. Although, I suppose, they could get together and form an organization to control the export of solar power. They might call it the Organization of Solar Exporting Countries (OSEC) or something similar. Obviously, if that ever happened with something much of the world relied on for power, it would definitely mean war.
Seriously, you can build redundant supply. Most countries should be able to generate at least some of their own power and as long as supply exceeds demand by some reasonable amount, it will prevent any one country from demanding huge prices in return for power. Of course, an OSEC organization might develop but we already have one, and while they're generally a bunch of nasty characters at the heads of those countries, the world has survived their price fixing schemes.
Also the insurance company that has to compensate the guy who lost the finger(s) might like to know which one(s) were amputated and how much was amuptated. They pay different amounts for different fingers and different amounts depending on how many joints were lost.
I would say it far from certain that Bitcoin will be successful at all. I find it actually inconceivable that it would ever be considered as successful as the Internet. Time will tell if it can manage to be more successful than PayPal, but that's about as high as it can go even in theory.
I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of true. There was government long before there was money. This is logically consistent because any sufficiently large group of people will form a government. I'd suggesting doing some more reading on the history of money.
"[E]lectronically and pseudonymously" seems like code for drug trafficking, human smuggling and tax evasion. Of course those won't be the only things it's used for, but if it actually worked well that way, it would attract those users.
From my perspective, it's a matter of figuring out which group will destroy bitcoin first: hoarders, crackers, speculators, governments, or hardware failures. Bitcoin just seems like a pointless currency bubble. I mean why not just go back to Tulip bulbs?
I don't think you're actually interested in what I say only in what you decide I've said.
Flying around in private jets isn't a means to lower CO2 output, attending a climate conference is. If it's in Copenhagen, for example, the only practical way to get there for American politicians is flying. Now that we know they're going to be flying to it, it's simply a matter of whether a public jet or private jet would be more appropriate. You will also need to remember that it is not, as you wildly imagine, a single politician flying by himself to the conference. Usually a contingent of civil servants will also be going to the conference to engage their counterparts in negotiations. So a country like the United States might be sending dozens of people to a single conference. It might end up being a trade off between what produces the least amount of CO2 and what costs the least.
As I said, the additional emissions created by the private jet may be significantly smaller than the emissions reduced by treaties negotiated at the conference. In contrast to your crude virginity joke, this is more like my original analogy: Spending money to make money. Only a fool would try to tell a man that spending any money on his business was hypocritical and counterproductive, and yet here you are.
I'm sure it's both arrogant and elitist in your imagination, however I'm not convinced at all that the reality of the situation matches the one you imagine. The decision to use a private jet may be a simple economic one, where it actually costs less to use the private (government owned) jet than it does to fly on public airlines, especially when the additional security measures that would likely be used on a public airline are factored in. Contrary to what some people seem to believe, recognizing the existence of global warming does not force an automatic conversion to fiscal irresponsibility.
Yet a democrat doesn't lose support of the sheep for preaching about global warming from the inside of a private jet, paid by taxpayer's dollars on the way to -hold it- a climate conference.
It's interesting that you probably inherently understand you have to spend money to make money but can't envision the possibility that the jet's emissions might be less than the emissions reduced or prevented by participation at the climate conference.
republicans have to keep into account that their voters are actually relatively poor people, working hard
I also find it interesting that you think that Republican voters are poor people because research indicates otherwise: "Pew surveys also find that Republicans have more money than Democrats -- on average, about $18,000 more a year in annual family income". What you seem to believe is actually the opposite of what is true.
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Actually, it's not the heat island effect. Both urban and rural areas show the same warming trend.
So... Pelosi is crazy because she's rich? Or she's crazy because she rich and a democrat and only Republicans are allowed to be rich?
I do wonder how the money "spent" by Pelosi on travel compares to other Speakers of the House both past and present. It's quite easy to quote a number without providing context and get worked up over it. Lastly, the site you linked to is a clearly partisan. I have some difficulty trusting them due to a history of misrepresentations by Republican partisans.
I bet there was a guy just like you a hundred years ago who'd proclaim "We are not going to stop using horses or buggies. Period." The U.S. is paralyzed by greed and stupidity, so maybe you won't change until you have to but that will be your loss. The United States used to be a backwards former colony of little import, and many Americans seem intent on return to those "glory days". Frankly, I'm pretty sure the world will run out of oil and coal before the atmosphere could "turn toxic" (at least from CO2 emissions). Diseases, pest, and massive agricultural failures are the biggest threats associated with global warming.
Maybe you should actually look at the temperature record. The years 2000-2009 were on average 0.2 degrees warmer than the years 1990-1999 which were themselves on average 0.24 degrees warmer than the years 1980-1989.
If you imagine the bit coins being created mostly at the top of pyramid and being sold down to the new people at the bottom, you should be able to see how it could be viewed as a pyramid scheme. If the top of the pyramid only sells coins to people lower on the pyramid than themselves, eventually you'd end up with a big base of suckers left with worthless tokens while the early adopters walk away with bags of cash.
I'm not saying it's actually a pyramid scheme, because I think some of the early adopters believe in Bitcoins. However, I think if someone is going to claim it's all a scam, they make sure the scam they're accusing it of being makes sense. Bitcoin is not at all like a Ponzi scheme.
I don't think Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. It's not really an investment scheme at all. It's closer to a pyramid scheme or possibly a just a simple con. After all, the more people "mining" Bitcoins, the less productive mining Bitcoins becomes. The early investors got Bitcoins faster and cheaper and as demand rises they can sell their Bitcoins that cost less to make for the same amount as the later, harder to make Bitcoins.
Ironically, you can thank the Republicans for that, actually. It's not just that Reagan, Quayle, Bush II, and Palin are not exactly world-class intellectuals. The Republican party has been engaged in a political war on intelligence and education since Nixon. "Elitist" seems to have become a code word for anyone who actually know things, disagreeing with ignorant people is now "elitist". The only exception is businesspeople who are expected to know how business works, and sometimes economists, but only if they support lowering taxes.
It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect, but you may be right. It may need a shorter, snappier name. Bill Maher calls it "doubling down on stupid".
I suspect both of you would disagree on who was the winner of that comparison. Frankly, as a non-American, I think I'd have to give Pelosi the advantage. She seems to be a hard-working no-nonsense type, she reminds me a bit of Margaret Thatcher, without the charisma. In contrast, Palin appears to be a bit dimwitted and her only advantages appear to be her appearance and charisma. Her political views seem to change to match the craziest wing of the Republicans. She seems to have demonstrated an inability to put in the hard work of governance. Frankly comparing the two brings the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper to mind.
The Grasshopper may be more fun at parties, but I think I'd rather have the Ant running my country.
I don't think I believe that story, it may be part of truth, and I'm not even sure that what you wrote is true at all. However, I know it missing much of the truth. For example, it neglects to mention the multi-million dollar offer from Fox News. It seems far more likely that she realized that Alaska is fairly remote from much of American politics and she could make a lot more money than a governor's salary by working for Fox. That was likely an opportunity that she couldn't refuse, but it seems to me she quit her elected position so that she could cash in on her sudden fame.
Of course, it's not my method, it's one of a number of methods used by experts on climate. And it has been chosen for valid reasons, a multi-year average smoothes out year-to-year variability so that the temperature trend is more clearly visible. Of course, I suppose if you were attempting to hide the trend in the noise, it obviously wouldn't be your method of choice.
Of course, we don't need a graph to tell us that the 2000s were warmer than the 90s. Nine of the ten warmest years on record occurred since the year 2000. Simple math tells us if 9 of the 10 hottest years occurred in the last decade, that is pretty damn likely to be the warmest decade.
No. It makes no sense at all. You've cherry-picked two values to generate the line you want. It's either stupidity or dishonesty, pick one.
To get accurate information you need to look at multi-year moving averages, otherwise the data can be easily drowned out by the noise. When you look at the moving averages, temperatures are clearly increasing.
I'm not sure "Dr. Clive Best" did a very good job on those graph, from his comments, I suspect he's not using the actual temperature data. If the climate has cooled since 2000, then why are 9 of the 10 warmest years after 2000? In any case, the Real Climate graphs show a different picture.
that is false, temperature rise stopped, the differences over 2005 to 2010 according to NASA were less than 0.03 degrees C, in the realm of noise
It is difficult to put into words how profoundly ignorant that statement is in regards to science, mathematics and even common sense.
There is danger in extrapolating data from two datapoints. What you've done is conclude that because 2010 was only marginally warmer than the previous warmest year on record that it can't possibly be still getting warmer. Anyone with either a little common sense or a basic understanding of statistics will immediately understand that what you wrote makes no sense whatsoever. There's a reason why 30 year moving averages are used in climate studies, that to prevent exactly this type of idiocy.
Similar Donald Knuth stopped issuing his reward checks for finding errors in his books because people were so proud of receiving them that they posted pictures of the checks online. The information visible on the front of the check in some of the pictures was enough to enable someone to steal money from his bank account. The moral of the story? The entire banking system is mostly insecure.
I'm not sure that much has improved since the events depicted in the movie Catch Me If You Can happened. It seems like the banks don't bother fixing anything until after it has been used to steal a significant amount of money.
Except history tells us that the first actual money was created by early governments. This should not be a surprise, you needed to have a social agreement that the money has value before it actually is money and in groups small enough to not need government, it would have been easier to mentally track who owed whom what than to invent a currency.
I'm not saying that Bitcoin is useless or anything, just that according to historians, early governments created the first money. So while value may predate governments, money does not. Personally, I think it's important to at least get the basic facts right.
I meant even in theory it could be no more than a successful electronic transaction system. Sepcifically that it probably can't do much better than replacing PayPal (or similar services) as the method of choice for conducting transactions online.
Well, in theory there would be many companies providing solar power. Although, I suppose, they could get together and form an organization to control the export of solar power. They might call it the Organization of Solar Exporting Countries (OSEC) or something similar. Obviously, if that ever happened with something much of the world relied on for power, it would definitely mean war.
Seriously, you can build redundant supply. Most countries should be able to generate at least some of their own power and as long as supply exceeds demand by some reasonable amount, it will prevent any one country from demanding huge prices in return for power. Of course, an OSEC organization might develop but we already have one, and while they're generally a bunch of nasty characters at the heads of those countries, the world has survived their price fixing schemes.
Also the insurance company that has to compensate the guy who lost the finger(s) might like to know which one(s) were amputated and how much was amuptated. They pay different amounts for different fingers and different amounts depending on how many joints were lost.
So it's something sensible that should have been done a long time ago?
I would say it far from certain that Bitcoin will be successful at all. I find it actually inconceivable that it would ever be considered as successful as the Internet. Time will tell if it can manage to be more successful than PayPal, but that's about as high as it can go even in theory.
There was money long before there was government.
I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of true. There was government long before there was money. This is logically consistent because any sufficiently large group of people will form a government. I'd suggesting doing some more reading on the history of money.
"[E]lectronically and pseudonymously" seems like code for drug trafficking, human smuggling and tax evasion. Of course those won't be the only things it's used for, but if it actually worked well that way, it would attract those users.
From my perspective, it's a matter of figuring out which group will destroy bitcoin first: hoarders, crackers, speculators, governments, or hardware failures. Bitcoin just seems like a pointless currency bubble. I mean why not just go back to Tulip bulbs?
I don't think you're actually interested in what I say only in what you decide I've said.
Flying around in private jets isn't a means to lower CO2 output, attending a climate conference is. If it's in Copenhagen, for example, the only practical way to get there for American politicians is flying. Now that we know they're going to be flying to it, it's simply a matter of whether a public jet or private jet would be more appropriate. You will also need to remember that it is not, as you wildly imagine, a single politician flying by himself to the conference. Usually a contingent of civil servants will also be going to the conference to engage their counterparts in negotiations. So a country like the United States might be sending dozens of people to a single conference. It might end up being a trade off between what produces the least amount of CO2 and what costs the least.
As I said, the additional emissions created by the private jet may be significantly smaller than the emissions reduced by treaties negotiated at the conference. In contrast to your crude virginity joke, this is more like my original analogy: Spending money to make money. Only a fool would try to tell a man that spending any money on his business was hypocritical and counterproductive, and yet here you are.
I'm sure it's both arrogant and elitist in your imagination, however I'm not convinced at all that the reality of the situation matches the one you imagine. The decision to use a private jet may be a simple economic one, where it actually costs less to use the private (government owned) jet than it does to fly on public airlines, especially when the additional security measures that would likely be used on a public airline are factored in. Contrary to what some people seem to believe, recognizing the existence of global warming does not force an automatic conversion to fiscal irresponsibility.
Yet a democrat doesn't lose support of the sheep for preaching about global warming from the inside of a private jet, paid by taxpayer's dollars on the way to -hold it- a climate conference.
It's interesting that you probably inherently understand you have to spend money to make money but can't envision the possibility that the jet's emissions might be less than the emissions reduced or prevented by participation at the climate conference.
republicans have to keep into account that their voters are actually relatively poor people, working hard
I also find it interesting that you think that Republican voters are poor people because research indicates otherwise: "Pew surveys also find that Republicans have more money than Democrats -- on average, about $18,000 more a year in annual family income". What you seem to believe is actually the opposite of what is true.