There is more ice in the arctic this year compared to last year. It's not inconsistent with known data (the figures have been posted here)...
Where's your data? So far as I can tell you are just pulling this out of your hat, and stating it as fact.
Total ice = ice area * average ice thickness
= (land ice area + sea ice area) * average ice thickness
The only data far posted for this year is that the total sea area with more than 15% ice was nearly the same as last year, which was an all time record low. We don't even know the distribution (so one hundred square miles of 15% ice cover would count as "more" than 99 square miles of 90% cover). So you can't say your numbers have been posted here.
What has been posted here is the fact that the total ice thickness has been on multi-year trend of steady decline.
...and it does not require some unknown mechanism (water, like, flows).
Salt water does not typically flow to the top of an ice shelf and freeze. The increase (if any) would have to come from precipitation. And the arctic simply does not get that much precipitation. Cold, dry air does not carry much water or lead to big storms (nor, for that matter, does cold wet air--the water carrying capacity of extremely cold air is very, very low). Arctic precipitation is on the order of that in the southwest North America, or in northern Africa.
Your post clearly shows you not understanding the topic you're posting about however. Is it fun?
I should be asking you. Come on, the top story on your blog is that you think we may be heading into an ice age because something in the sun switched off (that's pretty much a direct quote--you wrote "Something..switched off?") in October of 2005. So, like many other human caused global warming deniers you blame the sun. But while they claim that the sun is heating up, and it is causing the warming rather than us, you go one step further and claim that the sun has cooled down and that the warming isn't happening at all. In fact, contrary to pretty much everyone else, you claim that the arctic ice cap is actually growing (I'm assuming that's what you mean by your claim that "there is more ice in the arctic this year compared to last year").
So yes, I can see how you might think that none of the rest of us know what we're talking about.
We had a discussion about 2008 vs 2007. You tried to make a point and failed since you didn't have data for 2008.
You made a claim ("There is more ice in the arctic than last year") that would 1) be inconsistent with the known data, which show steady reduction in total ice volume and 2) would require an as-yet-unexplained mechanism to get the water up there.
In support you provided a story which had originally made a claim ("sea ice is increasing") which would have (partially) supported your theory but was later corrected by the author so that it is nearly neutral with regards to your theory ("area of sea with > 15% ice coverage is nearly the same as last year"). However, even if the original story had held up, you would not have proved your point since you failed to address ice thickness (which has been steadily decreasing), non-sea ice coverage, etc.
It is you who have tried to make a point and failed because you don't have data to support your claim.
Your link does not support your statement (thickness, no data for 2008). Please try again. I do read your reply as you acknowledging your first error though (extent).
I see from the blog you link to in your sig that you have gone past the point of being a global warming denier to actually claiming that we are heading into an ice age, due to the fact (you claim) that the sun is cooling off or at least that "something switched off" in the sun. You hold to this belief despite the fact that actuate measurements of insolation clearly disprove prove your theory. This would explain why you feel the need to argue that there is, by some measure or other "more ice" in the arctic than there used to be.
You are, I believe, wrong. Further, I believe that your beliefs are blinding you to reasonable discourse.
For example, dismissing the most recent data on ice thickness because it doesn't (yet) contain the numbers for the current season is unreasonable. Even if partial data (up through August 2008, for example) were included you could just say "Oh well, we are a week into September now so things may have changed."
This is, frankly, an unreasonable position to take, though it makes sense in the context of your coming-Ice-Age theory. A more reasonable assumption would be that, as annualized ice thicknesses have steadily decreased year over year for the past decade and there is a well understood mechanism for why they are doing so, they will continue on the same trend for the foreseeable future. If we do not have today's reading in hand, we would be well advised to assume that they fall along the trend line and not that a great deal of additional ice has mysteriously* appeared since we last measured.
Please do not read this as an acknowledgment of a prior error. It is not, nor was my last post. When and if I acknowledge an error, I try to do so clearly and explicitly, not in some secret code only you can understand.
--MarkusQ
* It would have to be mysterious, too, since the rate of precipitation in the arctic is low and has apparently been declining. So if the ice suddenly got much thicker, there would be one heck of a question created--where did it come from?
And before you run off on some weird tangent, there isn't a corresponding mystery when the ice melts, since the melt water simply flows into the sea, where it can be (and has been) detected as local decrease in salinity.
The claim that the arctic ice cap is growing simply isn't true. The "increase" you refer to is really a reduction in the rate at which it is shrinking. At the time the article was written, the arctic ice cover had been shrinking 10% or less than at the same time last year. This does not mean that it was growing.
Further, (as I believe the article states) the rate of melting is not uniform and it was still possible (even probable) that this year would exceed last year in terms of total icecap loss. Given the events which started this thread:
We went under cloud for a bit during our research and when the weather cleared up, all of a sudden there was no more ice shelf. It was a shocking event that underscores the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic," said Mueller.
The "ice cover in the arctic is growing" claim is bogus, and they know it (or should). It keeps coming up and people point out that even the authors of the claim now say it's bogus (see linked thread) but the same claim keeps coming back, generally worded the same way ("the real inconvenient truth is that the ice cap is growing" or some such).
I used to think it was just cluelessness, but I'm starting to suspect trolls.
Now you say the ice sheets are receeding. Graph of Artic Sea Ice Extent from National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO actually shows about a 10% increase from last year. Granted its lower than the average from 1979 to 2000, but it is growing compared to last year.
We are not communicating on at least a couple levels. I promise I'm not completely stupid - just dense sometimes.
I'm certainly willing to posit both points; thus my willingness to continue the discussion.
But go somewhere like little green footballs or huffpo and tell me that there is a lot of discussion going on that encompasses a wide range of view points.
Give me a sec...
By "huffpo" I assume you mean huffingtonpost.com (or at least Google thinks so). The top story a few minutes ago on both were basically about Palin, LGF solidly for and Huffpo against but contained a scattering of comments such as this, which so far as I could see were not getting slamed or shot down in any way:
Kudos to Palin
Worked hard for her community while raising five kids.
Whats more deserving that?
She might not be a gifted verbal diaretic but at least she's trying.
Even though the LGF site did seem monoculturally pro-Palin, that may be because they rapidly drifted semi-off-topic into a discussion about evolution and creationism in which a fair variety of positions were expressed and, so far as I could tell, respected.
I go to church. Sure - there are certain things we hold in common, but politics is one place where there a very wide array of positions and they are all respected. There are places like that on-line, there are places that are not like that. People who belong to the places that don't allow true discussion and the representation of lots of ideas are full of people who think 'everyone' thinks like them. And once again, I don't know real world places like that.
The next time you're in church, try preaching a little of the Gospel of Satan and see how far you get. Or go to your local vegan restaurant and order a steak. Be sure to make it clear you don't want some tofu steak-a-like. Ask for it still bleeding.
The fact that you can have friendly, unheated discussions about politics at your church is no different than the occasional football talk that occurs from time to time on most politics sites.
Go to the Jawa report and have a nice discussion on why we shouldn't have gone into Iraq or socialized medicine.
It's been pretty obvious since Dean's flameout in Iowa that there is an exceedingly vocal minority on both the (libertarian) right and progressive left that is rich and likes politics. However, as devoted as they are they are they are pretty few in number.
I suppose that's one theory, but it doesn't fit the data very well. The Dean flameout is a pretty good example; his fundraising success (like Paul's) came from a large number of small donors, not from a small number of larger donors, as your theory would suggest. Also, like Paul, he was able to get an awful lot of boots on the ground; hard to reconcile with the dalliance of the wealthy few theory.
Finally, they both had very populist stances, relative to their parties, and neither was pushing policies favorable to the wealthy. In fact, neither of them were very conciliatory towards corporate America (which is where you'd expect to find most people with excess money and an interest in politics).
The converse theory, that their support was real and the media painted them as fringe until it sank them (the Dean scream being an excellent example of a media take down) fits the known data far better. The means, motives, and tactics* of all the players fit much better and you don't need to hypothesize heretofore unobserved players to explain what happened.
--MarkusQ
P.S. By this I mean that bunches of average people trying to solve their problems by forming a mod in support of whoever seems to represent their views is pretty typical, as is the response of entrenched corporate types (think *IAA's, Microsoft, Telecos, etc.) to resort to underhanded tactics with a thin veiner of plausible deniability. Your rich but powerless, exceedingly vocal yet essentially anonymous extremists who like politics a lot but are absolutely no good at it, on the other hand would seem to be following a new strategy.
You can't go to a real space meeting with lots of people on any regular basis where you will hear everyone agree with you like you can on-line.
First, I dispute your claim that everyone I meet on-line agrees with me. The proof should be self evident.
Second, people can and do come darned close to it in the physical world every day, at churches and clubs and so forth.
Anyone - from anywhere could donate on-line. So it builds this false sense that voters in America are generating all these funds. But I doubt that was the case.
The effect I'm talking about doesn't happen, in my experience, in real life on any sort of regular basis. I can right now log into any number of web sites where literally thousands of people will all argue the same point of view and tell me any other view is idiotic. I can't think of anywhere I can go in the state I live in, let alone the country and get that same environment.
First off, I don't think "literally" means what you think it does. If you do literally mean "literally thousands" I'd be curious what sites you are talking about. Certainly not slashdot, where any given story draws dozens to hundreds of comments, not thousands, individual threads garner far less, and the opinions expressed on them are far from homogeneous.
Secondly, you need to get out more.
Seriously. For example, I'm sure there are churches near you (I suspect you'll have to change the ZIP).
I'm not saying small groups can't change thing. I'm saying that relatively small groups can feel like they are large groups on-line. They can give members false impressions of relative size and influence.
Which is why my counter examples were all based on real world measurements, rather than on-line polls or something. Yes, the meet-up people may have arranged them on-line, but they showed up in person. You can have a thousand online sock puppets but when you show up in person there's only one body standing there, and everyone can see that. The fund raising may have had an online component, but the money was real US currency, not something from 2nd Life or whatever. Real people in the real world had a choice of which candidate they wanted to give there hard earned money to, and the sum of all this is what's being measured.
So the internet component of your claim is completely superfluous. The effect you are observing happens just the same in meat space--in a church or temple, in a football stadium or a vegan restaurant. Or even watching TV. And striped of that component, your claim is so broad as to be vacuous.
--MarkusQ
P.S. To touch briefly on the marginally off topic side point you keep trying to argue (the disparity between Ron Paul's apparent popularity and his actual showing in the polls) the case can be boiled down to this: he apparently raised more money from a larger donor base than any of his contemporary competitors, yet he apparently got far fewer votes than they did.
I have floated one possible explanation: the reported vote totals were wrong. This has the advantage of neatly explaining the existing data and has been shown to be the case in at least some precincts.
What is your competing hypothesis? Do you, for example, claim that Ron Paul donors were part of a counterfeiting ring? Or that, despite our intuitions, people are actually more likely to give money to candidates they don't like?
Note that this isn't something you can blame on the internet.
All of this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
Except that it had nothing to do with the internet, which was the point you were explicitly making and I was rebutting. You can't lay something on Digg if the whole thing is played out in meat space--with real bodies, real money, etc. Nor can you lay it off on Nerds if most of the participants are non-nerds, which I believe is the case here as well.
If you're trying to dilute your point to something that would cover all the data, you'll wind up with something like "members of groups with strong beliefs tend to discount the beliefs of non-members and inflate the importance of their own" I'd have to agree with you. But then so what?
Also, as to your large point, that small groups of people never change anything, I'd have to disagree. While most small groups never accomplish anything lasting, there are a huge number of "small groups" out there, and the small percentage of them that do manage to bring about lasting change still account for the vast majority of human progress. While playing on the fringe is unlikely to bring about purposeful change, blindly hugging the status quo can't by definition.
Heck, even if you counted yard signs or just talked to your local Republican-on-the-street, you were probably surprised by how poorly he did.
In fact, I'd bet only the people who get most of their news from corporate media knew how badly he would do at the polls, but most of them probably don't know why*.
--MarkusQ
* Diebold / Premiere finally admitted that their machines drop some votes. And they've previously admitted that they also add votes. And they've famously expressed strong preferences over who should when an election.
By focusing on factual evidence and constructive dialog, we hope NewsTrust can bring Americans closer together and that we can all learn from each other, across party lines.
and
[I] agree with you that accuracy and factual evidence are the most important criteria for determining the quality of news and information. However, these qualities take much longer to evaluate, because they require extensive fact checking, which a casual reviewer doesn't have the time or the resources to conduct regularly.
Seem diametrically opposed. If their reviewers aren't expected to fact check, how can the claim to be focused on factual evidence?
Oh, a bit like when they say humans cause all Global Warming.
Anyone who says humans cause "all global warming" are either nuts or talking very loosely. Obviously the sun causes the vast majority of "global warming". Just as obviously, humans activities make a small contribution, as do a host of other things, such as stars and tides. And, if you look at the data*, it is quite clear that the comparatively insignificant part of the whole that humans are causing just happens to be the difference between a planet that is well suited to life as we know it and one that won't be.
So no, we aren't causing all global warming, just the deadly part.
--MarkusQ
*Measured CO2 rise, when you subtract out the seasonal effects of plants, matches world fossil fuel consumption quite nicely. Increased heat retention is about what you'd expect from the measured CO2 increase, and when you take account of the various mechanisms (melting ice, increased sea temp., etc.) the total retained heat fits pretty well. There are certainly areas that need to be fleshed out, but overall the data are irrefutable.
Going back to the 1950's at least, they have pushed an anti-nuclear agenda, funded think tanks (and even bad sci-fi movies) to poison the well as it were. Nowadays we recognize such tactics for what they are, but by the time the fossil fuel industry's involvement came to light the movement was entrenched.
Fortunately, some environmentalists have woken up to this and are becoming increasingly pronuclear.
It only seems strange if you can't tell heat from temperature. But this is exactly what happens in a glass of ice water on a summer day: heat flows in, which melts the ice, keeping the water cool.
I can see why you posted AC, given that the article you cite has a note at the end of it saying that it's core premise wrong:
Walt Meier, research scientist at the NSIDC, has contacted us disputing the validity of Steven Goddard's methodology, and of his use of University of Illinois data to question the NSIDC's charts. We accept that these two data sets are not directly comparable, and that the University of Illinois data does not provide support for Goddard's charge that the NSIDC data is incorrect.
What I don't understand is why you bothered posting it at all.
The volume is increasing where it isn't melting outright; this is due to a number of factors including the fact that like other materials ice expands when heated. But around the edges we find significant melting:
Between February 28 and March 8, 2008, about 570 square kilometers of ice from the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Western Antarctica collapsed, putting the remaining 15,000 square kilometers of the ice shelf at risk. The ice is being held back by a "thread" of ice about 6 km wide.[62][63] According to NASA, the most significant Antarctic melting in the past 30 years occurred in 2005, when a mass of ice comparable in size to California briefly melted and refroze; this may have resulted from temperatures rising to as high as 5 C (41 F).[64]
I take you you're granting the point on the north?
I pretty much agree with you, except for one point:
Only oil and nuclear have limited supply.
Nuclear doesn't have a limited supply in any realistic sense. This is just part of the massive anti-nuclear FUD brought to us by big oil & friends. In fact, it was one of the first, since nuclear was the first serious alternative to fossil fuels. The only reason nuclear seems limited is because we've let ourselves get boxed in to thinking in terms of one of the most wasteful and dangerous fuel cycles imaginable, which relies on comparatively rare feedstock and produces much more waste than it needs to*.
In a rational world, what we now call "nuclear waste" would be known as "fuel reserves" and we'd be set for the foreseeable future.
--MarkusQ
* But still nothing compared to what fossil fuels produce. There isn't a coal plant on the planet that could get an operating license as a nuclear plant, given the amount of radioactive carbon they dump into the air.
The last ice age was before the start of the Holocene, over 11,000 years ago. Not, as you claim the "late 19th centure[sic]."
Uhh, the Little Ice Age ended in the late 19th century.
Ah well, that's the funny thing about going by names. The Little Ice Age wasn't actually an ice age, it's just called that. It only lasted a few years, (less than a tenth as long as the present Global Warming trend, for example) and was not connected with any of the processes normally associated with an ice age.
In other news, "hot dogs" aren't actually dogs, "hamburgers" aren't actually made of ham (or in Hamburg) and Queen Latifah, Nat King Cole, and Prince are not royalty.
there must be a lot of planetary heat being stored away somewhere
Oh give me a break. The ice caps are melting, or haven't you heard?
That's why we use ice in our cooler chests: when they melt they absorb a lot of heat, and the ice cold runoff keeps the things around them cooler than they would otherwise be. But just because the ice is melting but your beer is cold you can't conclude that the sun has cooled off.
What you should conclude is that you'd better drink your beer before the ice melts, 'cause it's going to warm up real fast as soon as the ice is gone.
The list you linked to starts in the late 19th centure, at the tail end of a freakin' ice age.
The last ice age was before the start of the Holocene, over 11,000 years ago. Not, as you claim the "late 19th centure[sic]."
Is it any wonder there would be warmer years after that?
And all the other years in the 21st century have been record breakers. At some point, some year has to be the "coldest since year X," and with a sample size of eight there's nothing amazing about it being this one. What's more important is it's still far warmer than most of the preceeding hundred years.
But still, there have been a number of core differences over the years, from event bubbling to Function#caller(), some edge cases w. nested functions, things like (1 != "1"), Date#getYear(), string subscripting, and so on.
Nothing as bad as the DOM differences, granted, but enough to gripe about in what is, after all, a pretty small language.
-- MarkusQ
Slashdot Mirror
Where's your data? So far as I can tell you are just pulling this out of your hat, and stating it as fact.
Total ice = ice area * average ice thickness
= (land ice area + sea ice area) * average ice thickness
The only data far posted for this year is that the total sea area with more than 15% ice was nearly the same as last year, which was an all time record low. We don't even know the distribution (so one hundred square miles of 15% ice cover would count as "more" than 99 square miles of 90% cover). So you can't say your numbers have been posted here.
What has been posted here is the fact that the total ice thickness has been on multi-year trend of steady decline.
Salt water does not typically flow to the top of an ice shelf and freeze. The increase (if any) would have to come from precipitation. And the arctic simply does not get that much precipitation. Cold, dry air does not carry much water or lead to big storms (nor, for that matter, does cold wet air--the water carrying capacity of extremely cold air is very, very low). Arctic precipitation is on the order of that in the southwest North America, or in northern Africa.
I should be asking you. Come on, the top story on your blog is that you think we may be heading into an ice age because something in the sun switched off (that's pretty much a direct quote--you wrote "Something..switched off?") in October of 2005. So, like many other human caused global warming deniers you blame the sun. But while they claim that the sun is heating up, and it is causing the warming rather than us, you go one step further and claim that the sun has cooled down and that the warming isn't happening at all. In fact, contrary to pretty much everyone else, you claim that the arctic ice cap is actually growing (I'm assuming that's what you mean by your claim that "there is more ice in the arctic this year compared to last year").
So yes, I can see how you might think that none of the rest of us know what we're talking about.
--MarkusQ
You made a claim ("There is more ice in the arctic than last year") that would 1) be inconsistent with the known data, which show steady reduction in total ice volume and 2) would require an as-yet-unexplained mechanism to get the water up there.
In support you provided a story which had originally made a claim ("sea ice is increasing") which would have (partially) supported your theory but was later corrected by the author so that it is nearly neutral with regards to your theory ("area of sea with > 15% ice coverage is nearly the same as last year"). However, even if the original story had held up, you would not have proved your point since you failed to address ice thickness (which has been steadily decreasing), non-sea ice coverage, etc.
It is you who have tried to make a point and failed because you don't have data to support your claim.
--MarkusQ
I see from the blog you link to in your sig that you have gone past the point of being a global warming denier to actually claiming that we are heading into an ice age, due to the fact (you claim) that the sun is cooling off or at least that "something switched off" in the sun. You hold to this belief despite the fact that actuate measurements of insolation clearly disprove prove your theory. This would explain why you feel the need to argue that there is, by some measure or other "more ice" in the arctic than there used to be.
You are, I believe, wrong. Further, I believe that your beliefs are blinding you to reasonable discourse.
For example, dismissing the most recent data on ice thickness because it doesn't (yet) contain the numbers for the current season is unreasonable. Even if partial data (up through August 2008, for example) were included you could just say "Oh well, we are a week into September now so things may have changed."
This is, frankly, an unreasonable position to take, though it makes sense in the context of your coming-Ice-Age theory. A more reasonable assumption would be that, as annualized ice thicknesses have steadily decreased year over year for the past decade and there is a well understood mechanism for why they are doing so, they will continue on the same trend for the foreseeable future. If we do not have today's reading in hand, we would be well advised to assume that they fall along the trend line and not that a great deal of additional ice has mysteriously* appeared since we last measured.
Please do not read this as an acknowledgment of a prior error. It is not, nor was my last post. When and if I acknowledge an error, I try to do so clearly and explicitly, not in some secret code only you can understand.
--MarkusQ
* It would have to be mysterious, too, since the rate of precipitation in the arctic is low and has apparently been declining. So if the ice suddenly got much thicker, there would be one heck of a question created--where did it come from?
And before you run off on some weird tangent, there isn't a corresponding mystery when the ice melts, since the melt water simply flows into the sea, where it can be (and has been) detected as local decrease in salinity.
No, there is less. As the graph from the article you site shows, the present sea-ice coverage area is very slightly larger than it was this time last year (which was a record low), but the thickness of the ice is steadily decreasing, and as a consequence, so is the total amount of ice.
In fact, as the ice melts and breaks up it tends to spread out, temporarily increasing the "sea area with > 15% ice" which is what the graph shows.
--MarkusQ
The claim that the arctic ice cap is growing simply isn't true. The "increase" you refer to is really a reduction in the rate at which it is shrinking. At the time the article was written, the arctic ice cover had been shrinking 10% or less than at the same time last year. This does not mean that it was growing.
Further, (as I believe the article states) the rate of melting is not uniform and it was still possible (even probable) that this year would exceed last year in terms of total icecap loss. Given the events which started this thread:
...I'd say that it was more, not less likely.
--MarkusQ
The "ice cover in the arctic is growing" claim is bogus, and they know it (or should). It keeps coming up and people point out that even the authors of the claim now say it's bogus (see linked thread) but the same claim keeps coming back, generally worded the same way ("the real inconvenient truth is that the ice cap is growing" or some such).
I used to think it was just cluelessness, but I'm starting to suspect trolls.
--MarkusQ
The latest data begs to differ. See Arctic Ice On Verge Of Another All-time Low.
--MarkusQ
I'm certainly willing to posit both points; thus my willingness to continue the discussion.
Give me a sec...
By "huffpo" I assume you mean huffingtonpost.com (or at least Google thinks so). The top story a few minutes ago on both were basically about Palin, LGF solidly for and Huffpo against but contained a scattering of comments such as this, which so far as I could see were not getting slamed or shot down in any way:
Even though the LGF site did seem monoculturally pro-Palin, that may be because they rapidly drifted semi-off-topic into a discussion about evolution and creationism in which a fair variety of positions were expressed and, so far as I could tell, respected.
The next time you're in church, try preaching a little of the Gospel of Satan and see how far you get. Or go to your local vegan restaurant and order a steak. Be sure to make it clear you don't want some tofu steak-a-like. Ask for it still bleeding.
The fact that you can have friendly, unheated discussions about politics at your church is no different than the occasional football talk that occurs from time to time on most politics sites.
No need, google turned this one up for me as the top link.
--MarkusQ
I suppose that's one theory, but it doesn't fit the data very well. The Dean flameout is a pretty good example; his fundraising success (like Paul's) came from a large number of small donors, not from a small number of larger donors, as your theory would suggest. Also, like Paul, he was able to get an awful lot of boots on the ground; hard to reconcile with the dalliance of the wealthy few theory.
Finally, they both had very populist stances, relative to their parties, and neither was pushing policies favorable to the wealthy. In fact, neither of them were very conciliatory towards corporate America (which is where you'd expect to find most people with excess money and an interest in politics).
The converse theory, that their support was real and the media painted them as fringe until it sank them (the Dean scream being an excellent example of a media take down) fits the known data far better. The means, motives, and tactics* of all the players fit much better and you don't need to hypothesize heretofore unobserved players to explain what happened.
--MarkusQ
P.S. By this I mean that bunches of average people trying to solve their problems by forming a mod in support of whoever seems to represent their views is pretty typical, as is the response of entrenched corporate types (think *IAA's, Microsoft, Telecos, etc.) to resort to underhanded tactics with a thin veiner of plausible deniability. Your rich but powerless, exceedingly vocal yet essentially anonymous extremists who like politics a lot but are absolutely no good at it, on the other hand would seem to be following a new strategy.
First, I dispute your claim that everyone I meet on-line agrees with me. The proof should be self evident.
Second, people can and do come darned close to it in the physical world every day, at churches and clubs and so forth.
Hmmm. I don't suppose you are referring to the fact that active duty military personnel donated far more to Paul than any other Republican canidate; your tone implies some sort of conspiracy theory. Do you happen to have any idea who decided to try and influence America's political system by pouring money into the Paul campaign?
First off, I don't think "literally" means what you think it does. If you do literally mean "literally thousands" I'd be curious what sites you are talking about. Certainly not slashdot, where any given story draws dozens to hundreds of comments, not thousands, individual threads garner far less, and the opinions expressed on them are far from homogeneous.
Secondly, you need to get out more.
Seriously. For example, I'm sure there are churches near you (I suspect you'll have to change the ZIP).
--MarkusQ
Which is why my counter examples were all based on real world measurements, rather than on-line polls or something. Yes, the meet-up people may have arranged them on-line, but they showed up in person. You can have a thousand online sock puppets but when you show up in person there's only one body standing there, and everyone can see that. The fund raising may have had an online component, but the money was real US currency, not something from 2nd Life or whatever. Real people in the real world had a choice of which candidate they wanted to give there hard earned money to, and the sum of all this is what's being measured.
So the internet component of your claim is completely superfluous. The effect you are observing happens just the same in meat space--in a church or temple, in a football stadium or a vegan restaurant. Or even watching TV. And striped of that component, your claim is so broad as to be vacuous.
--MarkusQ
P.S. To touch briefly on the marginally off topic side point you keep trying to argue (the disparity between Ron Paul's apparent popularity and his actual showing in the polls) the case can be boiled down to this: he apparently raised more money from a larger donor base than any of his contemporary competitors, yet he apparently got far fewer votes than they did.
I have floated one possible explanation: the reported vote totals were wrong. This has the advantage of neatly explaining the existing data and has been shown to be the case in at least some precincts.
What is your competing hypothesis? Do you, for example, claim that Ron Paul donors were part of a counterfeiting ring? Or that, despite our intuitions, people are actually more likely to give money to candidates they don't like?
Note that this isn't something you can blame on the internet.
Except that it had nothing to do with the internet, which was the point you were explicitly making and I was rebutting. You can't lay something on Digg if the whole thing is played out in meat space--with real bodies, real money, etc. Nor can you lay it off on Nerds if most of the participants are non-nerds, which I believe is the case here as well.
If you're trying to dilute your point to something that would cover all the data, you'll wind up with something like "members of groups with strong beliefs tend to discount the beliefs of non-members and inflate the importance of their own" I'd have to agree with you. But then so what?
Also, as to your large point, that small groups of people never change anything, I'd have to disagree. While most small groups never accomplish anything lasting, there are a huge number of "small groups" out there, and the small percentage of them that do manage to bring about lasting change still account for the vast majority of human progress. While playing on the fringe is unlikely to bring about purposeful change, blindly hugging the status quo can't by definition.
--MarkusQ
Heck, not just digg. If you were paying any attention to the fundraising numbers you were probably surprised by how poorly he did.
Or, for that matter, if you saw the crowds he drew whenever he spoke, you were probably surprised by how poorly he did.
Heck, even if you counted yard signs or just talked to your local Republican-on-the-street, you were probably surprised by how poorly he did.
In fact, I'd bet only the people who get most of their news from corporate media knew how badly he would do at the polls, but most of them probably don't know why*.
--MarkusQ
* Diebold / Premiere finally admitted that their machines drop some votes. And they've previously admitted that they also add votes. And they've famously expressed strong preferences over who should when an election.
These two statements:
and
Seem diametrically opposed. If their reviewers aren't expected to fact check, how can the claim to be focused on factual evidence?
--MarkusQ
Anyone who says humans cause "all global warming" are either nuts or talking very loosely. Obviously the sun causes the vast majority of "global warming". Just as obviously, humans activities make a small contribution, as do a host of other things, such as stars and tides. And, if you look at the data*, it is quite clear that the comparatively insignificant part of the whole that humans are causing just happens to be the difference between a planet that is well suited to life as we know it and one that won't be.
So no, we aren't causing all global warming, just the deadly part.
--MarkusQ
*Measured CO2 rise, when you subtract out the seasonal effects of plants, matches world fossil fuel consumption quite nicely. Increased heat retention is about what you'd expect from the measured CO2 increase, and when you take account of the various mechanisms (melting ice, increased sea temp., etc.) the total retained heat fits pretty well. There are certainly areas that need to be fleshed out, but overall the data are irrefutable.
Going back to the 1950's at least, they have pushed an anti-nuclear agenda, funded think tanks (and even bad sci-fi movies) to poison the well as it were. Nowadays we recognize such tactics for what they are, but by the time the fossil fuel industry's involvement came to light the movement was entrenched.
Fortunately, some environmentalists have woken up to this and are becoming increasingly pronuclear.
--MarkusQ
I believe you are correct, that there is some C14 but it's contribution is dwarfed by radon. I shouldn't try to type faster than I can think.
--MarkusQ
It only seems strange if you can't tell heat from temperature. But this is exactly what happens in a glass of ice water on a summer day: heat flows in, which melts the ice, keeping the water cool.
--MarkusQ
I can see why you posted AC, given that the article you cite has a note at the end of it saying that it's core premise wrong:
What I don't understand is why you bothered posting it at all.
--MarkusQ
The volume is increasing where it isn't melting outright; this is due to a number of factors including the fact that like other materials ice expands when heated. But around the edges we find significant melting:
I take you you're granting the point on the north?
--MarkusQ
I pretty much agree with you, except for one point:
Nuclear doesn't have a limited supply in any realistic sense. This is just part of the massive anti-nuclear FUD brought to us by big oil & friends. In fact, it was one of the first, since nuclear was the first serious alternative to fossil fuels. The only reason nuclear seems limited is because we've let ourselves get boxed in to thinking in terms of one of the most wasteful and dangerous fuel cycles imaginable, which relies on comparatively rare feedstock and produces much more waste than it needs to*.
In a rational world, what we now call "nuclear waste" would be known as "fuel reserves" and we'd be set for the foreseeable future.
--MarkusQ
* But still nothing compared to what fossil fuels produce. There isn't a coal plant on the planet that could get an operating license as a nuclear plant, given the amount of radioactive carbon they dump into the air.
Ah well, that's the funny thing about going by names. The Little Ice Age wasn't actually an ice age, it's just called that. It only lasted a few years, (less than a tenth as long as the present Global Warming trend, for example) and was not connected with any of the processes normally associated with an ice age.
In other news, "hot dogs" aren't actually dogs, "hamburgers" aren't actually made of ham (or in Hamburg) and Queen Latifah, Nat King Cole, and Prince are not royalty.
--MarkusQ
Oh give me a break. The ice caps are melting, or haven't you heard?
That's why we use ice in our cooler chests: when they melt they absorb a lot of heat, and the ice cold runoff keeps the things around them cooler than they would otherwise be. But just because the ice is melting but your beer is cold you can't conclude that the sun has cooled off.
What you should conclude is that you'd better drink your beer before the ice melts, 'cause it's going to warm up real fast as soon as the ice is gone.
--MarkusQ
The last ice age was before the start of the Holocene, over 11,000 years ago. Not, as you claim the "late 19th centure[sic]."
And all the other years in the 21st century have been record breakers. At some point, some year has to be the "coldest since year X," and with a sample size of eight there's nothing amazing about it being this one. What's more important is it's still far warmer than most of the preceeding hundred years.
--MarkusQ
Agreed, the main problem is the DOM.
But still, there have been a number of core differences over the years, from event bubbling to Function#caller(), some edge cases w. nested functions, things like (1 != "1"), Date#getYear(), string subscripting, and so on.
Nothing as bad as the DOM differences, granted, but enough to gripe about in what is, after all, a pretty small language. -- MarkusQ