"Anyway, no state, and I doubt any country, has a general right enjoyed by all citizens to refuse to testify in court when they have relevant knowledge about a criminal proceeding."
They do if that citizen gained that knowledge in the course of acting as a journalist. The logic is that if journalists could routinely be compelled to testify, no one would give them information worth testifying to, so it's better for society to not compel them. In the US currently we have a screwed up system where they can be compelled to testify, but big media outlets can afford to keep paying them in jail, and put up an expensive legal and publicity fight to get them out. So it is in fact only the special class of reporters for big-name papers and such that enjoy protection; exactly the situation you decry. It would be better, in my opinion, to extend this protection to everyone.
You certainly seem to consider "The Press" some seperate group that doesn't include anyone who takes up the pen. I don't know why you think anyone else thinks so. Freedom of the press, for everyone, is helped out considerably if those who exercise it are protected from being prosecuted as a result, and even alowed to keep their promises on anonymity to sources. Several states and countries have the protections I'm arguing for, and have yet to collapse into anarchy.
Well, I think you should better understand who Reporters Without Borders is, and what they advocate for, before calling them a "trade guild", and saying they want "special rights".
"Any normal person with knowledge of a crime can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify as to what it is they know. Journalists assert to have a special exception to this responsibility based on their occupation. It is possible that journalists would like this to be a general right (though that seems like a profoundly unserious proposal)"
It IS a general right in several states and various foreign countries; so calling it "profoundly unserious" to even propose it is a little silly. I assure you, I am quite serious: Journalists should not be compelled to testify as to their sources. It is not a "special right" because "Journalist" is not a trade guild; it is anyone acting as a journalist in the matter at hand. You're free to disagree with me, and argue that people should not have this right. But I imagine Reporters Without Borders will rank places that recognize this right highter than those that don't.
Um, He, and lot's of other suspects, signed a generic waiver under threat of being fired. She went on national TV and said, generic waivers signed under threat of being fired are obviously bullshit, and I can't give up my source based on that; if my source really wants me to give him up, he'll have to contact me directly and convince me he really means it; you know, he could mention the secret password or something. Hint Hint, Wink Wink. So months later when they are closing in on him anyway, Scooter sends her a note rambling about the how the aspens turn together, and she imediately gives him up. Gee, I just can't understand what went on there.
Sorry, I just find it really amusing that anyone can still be parotting the whole "but he said to go ahead and give hime up" thing; I mean, come on.
So now the line is that it was all a stupid non-issue, and the administrations evasions were just an attempt to keep it from blowing up into more than it was. Now my instict is to mistrust this line. But what it amounts to is that the administration wasted vast amount of time and taxpayers money in a pointlessly secretive pattern of lies exectued so incompetently that it acomplished the exact opposite of what it intended. I find that completely beleivable.
"I also think freedom of the press is very important, but that there is no such thing as freedom of press without freedom of speech."
You said:
"What journalists have long since forgotten is that Freedom of the press is derived from freedom of speech, not vice-versa,... Freedom of the press is not an institution, freedom of speech is."
I've still no clear idea where you get this idea, or where you think it is enshrined such that others might be criticized for forgetting it (as opposed to just never agreeing in the first place). In what sense is freedom of speech "an institution" that freedom of the press is not? Again, in my own view, it's silly to distinguish between the two, we should just call it freedom of expression; it's all the same thing.
"In the U.S, imprisoned reporters are most likely violating court orders, ordering them to reveal their source."
Because the reporters disagree with the States position that they should reveal their source.
"While in some other countries reporters are imprisoned simply for disagreeing with the state."
And violating court orders requiring them not to publish.
"I object to comparing the two."
You ARE comparing the two. You think the restrictions on the press in the US are more reasonable than the restrictions on the press in Iran, for example. Well, good comparison, I agree. Reporters Without Borders agrees too, based on their list.
You appear to support the sort of restrictions on freedom of the press in place in the US. That's fine; that's a perfectly reasonable position. But then you object when someone makes a list ranked by how unrestricted the press is, and doesn't put the US on top? Sorry, I don't get it. Which country higher on the list do you argue has less press freedom than the US?
It does not make sense if you just read the summary article, and from that conclude something like: There were a whole BUNCH of stars, and they were like, WAY close together, which would mean a BUTLOAD of gravity, so even though there was an explosion, or they were moving real fast or something, I totaly don't get how they could get away.
I would speculate that it does make sense if you actually do the math, as astrophysicists are wont to do.
Sorry, but it's awfully typical: Slashdot reports what several highly trained scientists have spent several years figuring out. A reader such as yourself gives 30 seconds thought to this theory in a field he knows nothing about, and doesn't understand it. So he concludes the scientists are obviously wrong.
So you're saying it doesn't make any sense, unless the argument is for the most obvious explanation, that upon reflection would certainly have to be the case?
"This is a report by a trade guild that wants special legal status for members of their guild"
Where do you get this impression? Trade guilds restrict their membership. "Reporters" is a group anyone may join by picking up a pen. This group wants these freedoms for everyone. They advocate for this set of freedoms, as oposed ot others, because this set is particularly impotant to members of their profession. A profession they specifically want anyone to be free to join at any time by picking up a pen.
"Historians have argued that the first amendment to the U.S. constitution is concerned about that general, individual right."
I cannot imagine an honest historian possibly arguing otherwise. Nor can I imagine Reporters Without Borders disagreeing with anything in your final paragraph; nor do I. I'm just not clear why you see them as the bad guys here?
"Freedom of the press is derived from freedom of speech"
According to whom? Since this is an intenational organization, a definitive legal document may be hard to come by. Personally, I wouldn't make much distinction between the two; Freedom to Express Stuff, if you will. Still, the writers of the Constitution in my country mentioned Speach and Press right next to one another in the first amendment, no deriving at all.
In any case, I do not beleive Reporters Without Borders argues "the Press" should have any rigths any one else shouldn't. They think everyone should have these rights.
The list is just Reporters Without Borders judgement of how free the press is according to their own (clearly stated) criteria. Since you haven't bothered understanding their criteria, and don't think freedom of the press is very important, why does it matter if your country ranks lower?
To probably misquote Napoleon: "The graveyards are full of irreplaceable men."
The trick here is that the writers don't know how they will be treated until after they've written something and it has become a smashing success. Sure, then they can go elsewhere, but many things besides their own talent will decide if the next thing they write will be a smashing success. So going elsewhere won't necessarily make up for getting screwed on residuals for their big hit.
Many are lambasting Apple because they put out an infected product with their name on it, and blamed someone else. I don't care how the problem came about, when Apple puts their logo on the case, they vouch for what's inside.
Oh, and in every production line system I'm familiar with, adding a ten second step adds ten seconds.
As long as we're getting our facts straight, the "upcoming" formats are just that, upcoming. By the time they are anywhere near as standard in new computers as CD drives and USB ports are now, flash drives will have out-stripped their capacity. (Based on any reasonable estimate of adoption rates and flash capacity increase.) Mass produced, inert platic discs will continue to be far cheaper of course, but this whole idea is to add much of the expense of a flash drive to the disc. For no benefit to the customer.
You are quite simply wrong. Warrants are for conducting any searches or surviellance on Americans that is constitutional. Nobody has the power to conduct survielance without a warrant; read the 4th amendment some time. The Foriegn Intelligence Survielance Act is generally concerned with survielance not related to crime. It lets you get a warrant for survielance needed for National Security under significantly relaxed rules. And if it doesn't apply, you're left with the standard survielance rules, which are more restrictive. But it does apply, because this is exactly the sort of thing FISA was passed to cover.
The CIA (or NSA) is not legally allowed to spy on Americans, no matter who they think that American is talking to, without a warrant. Luckily, they have a special court made up of top-secret-cleared judges, operating under very permissive rules who can approve warrants retroactively, and who do approve them in virtually all cases. Why is this not good enough? We've been told only that it's not fast enough, because apparently the american people are deemed too stupid to know what "retroactively" means. Does it matter why it's not good enough? No, because the Executive Branch does not have the constitutional power to change the rules no matter why it wants to.
Given that they are in Europe, they are presumably using british English, where "thousands of billions" is the correct term for 10^15. So in American English, that would be Quadrillions.
Trillions, in British English, would be 10^18, but if he meant that he'd probalby have said so.
That American & British English spell various words differently is completely understandable, that we use the same words for totally different numbers is utterly ridiculous.
Besides an admonition not to consider the nationality of candidates, the entirety of the criteria set forth in Alfred Nobels will for the Nobel prize in Physics is as follows:
"...to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics"
So, no, it's not only for imediately useful things; it's for whatever the Swedish Academy of Sciences decides is "most important".
I've specifically avoided any health arguments, since you dispute them, so I'm not sure why you're expending so much effort attacking that straw man. Rates of lung cancer amongst non-smokers are particularly uninteresting to me, as lung cancer is an essentially negligible risk for non-smokers. Lung cancer is 90+% smokers; not to speculate any causation associated with that correlation.
I object to your smoking in public places you share with me, and support smoking bans in those places. I do think it is unhealthy for me, but not enough to get excited about at my current exposure levels, so that is not why I object. I don't think there is anything immoral about smoking, as evidenced by the fact that I don't care in the least if you smoke in places I don't go, so that is not why I object.
I object because I find cigarrette smoke disgusting. I find the smell of it so objectionable that I can not stand to remain in a place someone is smoking. Contrary to your assertions, I find that one smoker fills a very large volume with smoke that doesn't dissipate very quickly at all. It's worth noting that frequent smokers have little sense of smell to speak of, and so are uniquely poor judges of this.
Being banned from smoking in non-public spaces, and certainly your own home, is dumb, but I don't beleive this is widespread. Stay out of Bhutan, and there are plenty of places you can go smoke.
You want to do something in a public space that makes that place so unpleasant for others that they cannot use it themselves. Either you must leave or they must, how shall we decide? While the majority is not always right, surely the relative sizes of the two groups has some relevance?
Are you suggesting being asked to smoke somewhere else is equivalent to beign enslaved? I hope not. As for interracial mairaige: Who you marry does not impact me; obviously I should have no say in it. Your smoking in a public place does have a negative impact on me, so we must figure out whose desires shall yield.
"Tyranny of the majority" may not be great, but "tyranny of the lone jerk" isn't any better.
You like to sit on the park bench producing stinky cigarrette smoke; I like to urinate on park benches. If you don't like it, leave.
And I believe you're making stuff up. They shine a bright light at the cameras we're using to spy on them so all our pictures look washed out, and you think that's probably illegal? This makes sense to you? What if they threw a tarp over something to prevent pictures being taken of it? Hey, I'm sure we have radio receivers listening in on China somewhere; it must be illegal for them to encrypt their communications!
Please remove all the curtains from your windows. They are causing peeping toms cameras to not function right, which is illegal.
Cigarrette smoke is f*ing annoying. It's not a moral issue. I don't think smoking is morraly wrong. In fact, I don't care in the least if you smoke somewhere nowhere near me. I care if you smoke in the park because it prevents me from enjoing the park. So those of us who are bugged by smoking could leave, or you could leave, at least while you smoke. Well, as evidenced by our ability to pass smoking bans, there are more of us than there are of you. So take a hike, bub.
"I've always wondered about all the terminology that we have for derivative creative work. I doubt that anyone could come up with a coherent definition of 'rip-off' that didn't rely on subjective evaluation of quality and/or a subjective evaluation of sameness."
Why do you expect a judgement of a creative work to be non-subjective? All the interesting things to be said about a creative work are subjective.
So if Iran does it, it must be OK? That's your standard? You look to the behavior of people you think are evil for your standard of morality?
Contrary to your assertion, people do enforce international law, but the real point is that it should be a guide for reasonable behavior. When you find yourself breaking rules that are otherwise broken by the likes of Iran and North Korea, you might want to give it some thought.
On a different front, I'm not clear what principle of international law China is supposed to have violated in this particular case. The "no stopping us from spying on you rule"?
Right, and things only get to be considered "basic concepts" because lots of people have double checked them, and seperately derived them, and challenged them. And if you can show that a "basic concept" is wrong, you get a Nobel prize. If you like, I'll give tyou five examples off the top of my head.
"For example, over a period of 100 years, a 0.05% error in something like cloud reflectivity could easily compound into the kind of calculated temperature rise presently being predicted."
The core argument here isn't a 0.05% error in an assumption. It's not a slight difference somebodies guess.
In the past hundred years, worldwide temperatures appear to have been increasing a thousand times faster than they have at any time previously.
Slashdot Mirror
They anounced the pricing. They are undercutting Red Hat dramatically.
"Anyway, no state, and I doubt any country, has a general right enjoyed by all citizens to refuse to testify in court when they have relevant knowledge about a criminal proceeding."
They do if that citizen gained that knowledge in the course of acting as a journalist. The logic is that if journalists could routinely be compelled to testify, no one would give them information worth testifying to, so it's better for society to not compel them. In the US currently we have a screwed up system where they can be compelled to testify, but big media outlets can afford to keep paying them in jail, and put up an expensive legal and publicity fight to get them out. So it is in fact only the special class of reporters for big-name papers and such that enjoy protection; exactly the situation you decry. It would be better, in my opinion, to extend this protection to everyone.
You certainly seem to consider "The Press" some seperate group that doesn't include anyone who takes up the pen. I don't know why you think anyone else thinks so. Freedom of the press, for everyone, is helped out considerably if those who exercise it are protected from being prosecuted as a result, and even alowed to keep their promises on anonymity to sources. Several states and countries have the protections I'm arguing for, and have yet to collapse into anarchy.
Well, I think you should better understand who Reporters Without Borders is, and what they advocate for, before calling them a "trade guild", and saying they want "special rights".
"Any normal person with knowledge of a crime can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify as to what it is they know. Journalists assert to have a special exception to this responsibility based on their occupation. It is possible that journalists would like this to be a general right (though that seems like a profoundly unserious proposal)"
It IS a general right in several states and various foreign countries; so calling it "profoundly unserious" to even propose it is a little silly. I assure you, I am quite serious: Journalists should not be compelled to testify as to their sources. It is not a "special right" because "Journalist" is not a trade guild; it is anyone acting as a journalist in the matter at hand. You're free to disagree with me, and argue that people should not have this right. But I imagine Reporters Without Borders will rank places that recognize this right highter than those that don't.
Um, He, and lot's of other suspects, signed a generic waiver under threat of being fired. She went on national TV and said, generic waivers signed under threat of being fired are obviously bullshit, and I can't give up my source based on that; if my source really wants me to give him up, he'll have to contact me directly and convince me he really means it; you know, he could mention the secret password or something. Hint Hint, Wink Wink. So months later when they are closing in on him anyway, Scooter sends her a note rambling about the how the aspens turn together, and she imediately gives him up. Gee, I just can't understand what went on there.
Sorry, I just find it really amusing that anyone can still be parotting the whole "but he said to go ahead and give hime up" thing; I mean, come on.
So now the line is that it was all a stupid non-issue, and the administrations evasions were just an attempt to keep it from blowing up into more than it was. Now my instict is to mistrust this line. But what it amounts to is that the administration wasted vast amount of time and taxpayers money in a pointlessly secretive pattern of lies exectued so incompetently that it acomplished the exact opposite of what it intended. I find that completely beleivable.
"I also think freedom of the press is very important, but that there is no such thing as freedom of press without freedom of speech."
... Freedom of the press is not an institution, freedom of speech is."
You said:
"What journalists have long since forgotten is that Freedom of the press is derived from freedom of speech, not vice-versa,
I've still no clear idea where you get this idea, or where you think it is enshrined such that others might be criticized for forgetting it (as opposed to just never agreeing in the first place). In what sense is freedom of speech "an institution" that freedom of the press is not? Again, in my own view, it's silly to distinguish between the two, we should just call it freedom of expression; it's all the same thing.
"In the U.S, imprisoned reporters are most likely violating court orders, ordering them to reveal their source."
Because the reporters disagree with the States position that they should reveal their source.
"While in some other countries reporters are imprisoned simply for disagreeing with the state."
And violating court orders requiring them not to publish.
"I object to comparing the two."
You ARE comparing the two. You think the restrictions on the press in the US are more reasonable than the restrictions on the press in Iran, for example. Well, good comparison, I agree. Reporters Without Borders agrees too, based on their list.
You appear to support the sort of restrictions on freedom of the press in place in the US. That's fine; that's a perfectly reasonable position. But then you object when someone makes a list ranked by how unrestricted the press is, and doesn't put the US on top? Sorry, I don't get it. Which country higher on the list do you argue has less press freedom than the US?
It does not make sense if you just read the summary article, and from that conclude something like: There were a whole BUNCH of stars, and they were like, WAY close together, which would mean a BUTLOAD of gravity, so even though there was an explosion, or they were moving real fast or something, I totaly don't get how they could get away.
I would speculate that it does make sense if you actually do the math, as astrophysicists are wont to do.
Sorry, but it's awfully typical: Slashdot reports what several highly trained scientists have spent several years figuring out. A reader such as yourself gives 30 seconds thought to this theory in a field he knows nothing about, and doesn't understand it. So he concludes the scientists are obviously wrong.
So you're saying it doesn't make any sense, unless the argument is for the most obvious explanation, that upon reflection would certainly have to be the case?
"This is a report by a trade guild that wants special legal status for members of their guild"
Where do you get this impression? Trade guilds restrict their membership. "Reporters" is a group anyone may join by picking up a pen. This group wants these freedoms for everyone. They advocate for this set of freedoms, as oposed ot others, because this set is particularly impotant to members of their profession. A profession they specifically want anyone to be free to join at any time by picking up a pen.
"Historians have argued that the first amendment to the U.S. constitution is concerned about that general, individual right."
I cannot imagine an honest historian possibly arguing otherwise. Nor can I imagine Reporters Without Borders disagreeing with anything in your final paragraph; nor do I. I'm just not clear why you see them as the bad guys here?
"Freedom of the press is derived from freedom of speech"
According to whom? Since this is an intenational organization, a definitive legal document may be hard to come by. Personally, I wouldn't make much distinction between the two; Freedom to Express Stuff, if you will. Still, the writers of the Constitution in my country mentioned Speach and Press right next to one another in the first amendment, no deriving at all.
In any case, I do not beleive Reporters Without Borders argues "the Press" should have any rigths any one else shouldn't. They think everyone should have these rights.
The list is just Reporters Without Borders judgement of how free the press is according to their own (clearly stated) criteria. Since you haven't bothered understanding their criteria, and don't think freedom of the press is very important, why does it matter if your country ranks lower?
To probably misquote Napoleon: "The graveyards are full of irreplaceable men."
The trick here is that the writers don't know how they will be treated until after they've written something and it has become a smashing success. Sure, then they can go elsewhere, but many things besides their own talent will decide if the next thing they write will be a smashing success. So going elsewhere won't necessarily make up for getting screwed on residuals for their big hit.
Many are lambasting Apple because they put out an infected product with their name on it, and blamed someone else. I don't care how the problem came about, when Apple puts their logo on the case, they vouch for what's inside.
Oh, and in every production line system I'm familiar with, adding a ten second step adds ten seconds.
As long as we're getting our facts straight, the "upcoming" formats are just that, upcoming. By the time they are anywhere near as standard in new computers as CD drives and USB ports are now, flash drives will have out-stripped their capacity. (Based on any reasonable estimate of adoption rates and flash capacity increase.) Mass produced, inert platic discs will continue to be far cheaper of course, but this whole idea is to add much of the expense of a flash drive to the disc. For no benefit to the customer.
You are quite simply wrong. Warrants are for conducting any searches or surviellance on Americans that is constitutional. Nobody has the power to conduct survielance without a warrant; read the 4th amendment some time. The Foriegn Intelligence Survielance Act is generally concerned with survielance not related to crime. It lets you get a warrant for survielance needed for National Security under significantly relaxed rules. And if it doesn't apply, you're left with the standard survielance rules, which are more restrictive. But it does apply, because this is exactly the sort of thing FISA was passed to cover.
The CIA (or NSA) is not legally allowed to spy on Americans, no matter who they think that American is talking to, without a warrant. Luckily, they have a special court made up of top-secret-cleared judges, operating under very permissive rules who can approve warrants retroactively, and who do approve them in virtually all cases. Why is this not good enough? We've been told only that it's not fast enough, because apparently the american people are deemed too stupid to know what "retroactively" means. Does it matter why it's not good enough? No, because the Executive Branch does not have the constitutional power to change the rules no matter why it wants to.
Given that they are in Europe, they are presumably using british English, where "thousands of billions" is the correct term for 10^15. So in American English, that would be Quadrillions.
Trillions, in British English, would be 10^18, but if he meant that he'd probalby have said so.
That American & British English spell various words differently is completely understandable, that we use the same words for totally different numbers is utterly ridiculous.
"Does it experience the same initial SLAM that the conventional round does?"
YES. Aparently others attempts to spell it out for you were too confusing, so let's keep it to one word: YES.
Besides an admonition not to consider the nationality of candidates, the entirety of the criteria set forth in Alfred Nobels will for the Nobel prize in Physics is as follows:
"...to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics"
So, no, it's not only for imediately useful things; it's for whatever the Swedish Academy of Sciences decides is "most important".
I've specifically avoided any health arguments, since you dispute them, so I'm not sure why you're expending so much effort attacking that straw man. Rates of lung cancer amongst non-smokers are particularly uninteresting to me, as lung cancer is an essentially negligible risk for non-smokers. Lung cancer is 90+% smokers; not to speculate any causation associated with that correlation.
I object to your smoking in public places you share with me, and support smoking bans in those places. I do think it is unhealthy for me, but not enough to get excited about at my current exposure levels, so that is not why I object. I don't think there is anything immoral about smoking, as evidenced by the fact that I don't care in the least if you smoke in places I don't go, so that is not why I object.
I object because I find cigarrette smoke disgusting. I find the smell of it so objectionable that I can not stand to remain in a place someone is smoking. Contrary to your assertions, I find that one smoker fills a very large volume with smoke that doesn't dissipate very quickly at all. It's worth noting that frequent smokers have little sense of smell to speak of, and so are uniquely poor judges of this.
Being banned from smoking in non-public spaces, and certainly your own home, is dumb, but I don't beleive this is widespread. Stay out of Bhutan, and there are plenty of places you can go smoke.
You want to do something in a public space that makes that place so unpleasant for others that they cannot use it themselves. Either you must leave or they must, how shall we decide? While the majority is not always right, surely the relative sizes of the two groups has some relevance?
Are you suggesting being asked to smoke somewhere else is equivalent to beign enslaved? I hope not. As for interracial mairaige: Who you marry does not impact me; obviously I should have no say in it. Your smoking in a public place does have a negative impact on me, so we must figure out whose desires shall yield.
"Tyranny of the majority" may not be great, but "tyranny of the lone jerk" isn't any better.
You like to sit on the park bench producing stinky cigarrette smoke; I like to urinate on park benches. If you don't like it, leave.
And I believe you're making stuff up. They shine a bright light at the cameras we're using to spy on them so all our pictures look washed out, and you think that's probably illegal? This makes sense to you? What if they threw a tarp over something to prevent pictures being taken of it? Hey, I'm sure we have radio receivers listening in on China somewhere; it must be illegal for them to encrypt their communications!
Please remove all the curtains from your windows. They are causing peeping toms cameras to not function right, which is illegal.
Let's skip the health threats you dispute.
Cigarrette smoke is f*ing annoying. It's not a moral issue. I don't think smoking is morraly wrong. In fact, I don't care in the least if you smoke somewhere nowhere near me. I care if you smoke in the park because it prevents me from enjoing the park. So those of us who are bugged by smoking could leave, or you could leave, at least while you smoke. Well, as evidenced by our ability to pass smoking bans, there are more of us than there are of you. So take a hike, bub.
"I've always wondered about all the terminology that we have for derivative creative work. I doubt that anyone could come up with a coherent definition of 'rip-off' that didn't rely on subjective evaluation of quality and/or a subjective evaluation of sameness."
Why do you expect a judgement of a creative work to be non-subjective? All the interesting things to be said about a creative work are subjective.
So if Iran does it, it must be OK? That's your standard? You look to the behavior of people you think are evil for your standard of morality?
Contrary to your assertion, people do enforce international law, but the real point is that it should be a guide for reasonable behavior. When you find yourself breaking rules that are otherwise broken by the likes of Iran and North Korea, you might want to give it some thought.
On a different front, I'm not clear what principle of international law China is supposed to have violated in this particular case. The "no stopping us from spying on you rule"?
You know that ants breate through tiny pores, because they actually do need oxygen, "but still" what?
Right, and things only get to be considered "basic concepts" because lots of people have double checked them, and seperately derived them, and challenged them. And if you can show that a "basic concept" is wrong, you get a Nobel prize. If you like, I'll give tyou five examples off the top of my head.
"For example, over a period of 100 years, a 0.05% error in something like cloud reflectivity could easily compound into the kind of calculated temperature rise presently being predicted."
The core argument here isn't a 0.05% error in an assumption. It's not a slight difference somebodies guess.
In the past hundred years, worldwide temperatures appear to have been increasing a thousand times faster than they have at any time previously.
One trivial mistake, and everyone else would just take the result on faith? You really have no idea how this "science" thing works, do you?