A free market economist who has no idea of what is statistically significant or not?
Oh random person on slashdot with a massive ideological axe to grind, I'll just take your word for it that the respected economist doesn't understand statistics.
And I've given up on who "would be expected to give guns a fair shake" because too many people have a totally irrational fear of guns that they will not admit even to themselves.
Did it occur to you that the source of the difference isn't those peoples hidden bias, but rather your obvious one?
So? The existence of one academic who may have some dubious methods doesn't invalidate other work in a field. What about these guys? If anyone would be expected to give guns a fair shake it would be a free market economist with libertarian sympathies. The fact is the gun/suicide link it both completely expected from the relevant facts and completely backed up in the data. The fact gun rights advocates continue to deny it really just ruins their credibility on other questions like guns & crime where the data can be more fuzzy.
You originally said the study showed that increased gun ownership decreased murder. But what the study showed is that gun regulation laws increased murder.
Now assuming the study is correct and didn't get derailed by some confounder that's still a different claim. The issue with experimenting with gun regs in the US is they're at the city or state level and it's really tough to stop someone driving in from out of state with a trunk load of guns and selling them to a gang. It's almost guaranteed that the laws aren't going to affect the gangs.
Try it at the national level and you might have an easier time since there's no neighbouring state where you can easily import the guns, but you have to do something that seriously reduces the number of guns circulating in the ecosystem and you're going to have trouble trying that out at the state level first.
Except all the statistically reliable and valid studies on the subject cannot find any medium correlation between gun availability and suicide rate. The vast majority don't even find a weak correlation.
Really? Every study I've seen suggests that the correlation between gun availability and suicides is fairly incontrovertible
Making a safe GMO crop is a far easier task than making a safe pharmaceutical
I think it's fair to say [Citation needed]
No it isn't, it's fairly evident from the argument I posted, if you have to hunt down citations for every obvious fact you want to write than you'll never have time to communicate anything. Particularly when that fact is something as oddly formed as the relative complication rates of pharmaceuticals vs GMO's (am I supposed to track down a paper or something?)
I've yet to hear real evidence of any GMO related health issues in humans
yet
Considering that almost all pharmaceutical products have side effects of some kind then GMO's have already proven far safer to human health.
I'd actually hold up that 'yet' as evidence that the difference is so self evident that a citation is unnecessary.
These are the same people who think that eating an "alkalizing" diet and drinking "alkalized water"
That's an overly broad and unfair characterization. Everyone seems to be ignoring that companies are not required to prove with sufficient rigor that GMO crops are adequately safe.
The FDA requires new pharmaceuticals to undergo years of testing. In contrast, GMO crops are assumed to be safe because they 'closely approximate' their originating crop. That's a foolish assumption.
Pharmaceuticals are designed to have a significant biological effect on the body, side effects are almost impossible to avoid. GMO crops are designed to indistinguishable to the human body. Making a safe GMO crop is a far easier task than making a safe pharmaceutical (and I've yet to hear real evidence of any GMO related health issues in humans).
Kaplan says the NYT editorial calling on President Obama to grant Snowden 'some form of clemency' paints an incomplete picture when it claims that Snowden 'stole a trove of highly classified documents after he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness.' In fact, as Snowden himself told the South China Morning Post, he took his job as an NSA contractor, with Booz Allen Hamilton, because he knew that his position would grant him 'to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked.' Snowden got himself placed at the NSA's signals intelligence center in Hawaii says Kaplan for the sole purpose of pilfering extremely classified documents.
What Kaplan leaves out is that gig was not the first time Snowden worked for the NSA, he'd been working with the NSA and CIA in various capacities since 2006. It was during this work "he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness". He took the contractor position explicitly to get the evidence for the illegal programs he already had first hand knowledge of.
Kaplan actually emphasizes that this job was only 3 months, implying that Snowden had just learned about the programs and is therefore lying about all his deliberations and questioning within the agency.
Whatever you think of Snowden I think there's enough evidence to conclude that Kaplan is a hack.
Or did you think that the entire STASI popped out for the killings, rather than have experts and specialists for that work?
The TSA just pass the murdering on to specialists who are given a different arm to operate under.
So, no, no different.
Ok, which arm of the TSA or US government is going around killing Americans?
I'll say that I'm not actually sure the Stasi was in the business of killing Germans. But even so the comparisons are inaccurate, the spy apparatus in the US is rarely about pushing a particular political ideology, rather it's about control (the motive is to stop terrorism but it's a very slippery slope).
Gestapo: Detain, search and murder anyone who gets in the way, take artworks and musical instruments, including those considered heretical and destroy them as needed(or send them off to their betters for gain). TSA: Detain without warrant, search without warrant, take artworks, and musical instruments without remuneration, including those deemed heretical by letter agencies, and dispose of them, or "keep them" as witnessed by the reselling of said items.
And you forgot the STASI, who: Detained without warrant, searched without warrant, operated a vast intelligence agency that spied on everyone, and did several things already mentioned. Sounds almost like some of the letter agencies in the US doesn't it?
The difference between the three, is that the TSA doesn't have the "right to shoot someone" without due process. And I'd put that as a "yet" but you can see the trend in some of the flappy headed politicians, especially after the large scale anti-gun pushes. An armed population is a dangerous population to such ideas after all.
Yeah, other than the mass killings they're virtually identical.
You can see the problem when a Republican calls the ACA Fascist or Communist, but calling the TSA Gestapo or STASI? Suddenly it's perfectly rational.
You're not convincing people, you're playing to the crowd while making all of us who agree with you in criticizing the TSA look ridiculous.
My definition of the nature of God is perfectly in line with known science. The question is whether you think "intelligence" has to be similar to human intelligence. I don't believe that to be the case.
My definition even absorbs evolution. Just consider that "God" acts at the quantum level, influencing genetics over millenia instead of in some mythical seven days, and the two viewpoints fall together naturally.
It's a God of the gaps, technically consistent with known science but still at odds with the scientific mindset. And theistic evolution is still a form of creationism-light, the idea of evolution is that you don't need an intelligent agent at all.
I'd rather see the universe as a wonder unknoweable with the eyes of a child than as a jaded atheist who thinks life has no purpose other than to be. That's not to say I believe in miracles or anyone's religious texts. Just that the universe is a vast unknoweable wonder beyond the grasp of anything so small as a human mind as anything but symbols and approximations.
What could be more wondrous than that?
Why would you assume an atheist doesn't find the universe a wonder? For me the idea that the universe has no intelligent ruler both wonderous and terrifying. The one thing we know about a universe with a God is that it s fundamentally understandable since there's at least one intelligence who's in charge.
But a universe with no God? We don't know if it's even theoretically possible to understand the universe. How do you get more wonderous than that?
It's increasingly clear that Snowden is being "handled" though. We shouldn't overlook the fact that he is a prime target for exploitation, by the Russians, by whoever ends up with him. If he does indeed go to Germany and help them defeat NSA spying in that country, well then the treason label fits.
I don't have any problem with Snowden revealing mass surveillance on American citizens to American citizens, but spying on foreign governments is what the NSA is supposed to do. Yes, even our allies, and yes, even for economic reasons (most spying is economic in nature, and every ally spies on every ally). Snowden's reveal of spying on foreign governments and leaders, and any methods to do so, does cross a definite line. That does actually harm the US diplomatically, harms US businesses, and harms those American citizens Snowden claims to support. Snowden may be a naive idealist in over his head, or he may have been "turned" by those who are currently surrounding him.
Would you be this philosophical if Germany had been caught tapping Obama's phone?
I think it's expected that countries will pry in the sense that they'll look for sources willing to share more than they should. But the idea that allies would be breaking into each others communications feels outdated. I'm not saying other countries aren't doing this, but it's still wrong. To me this is one place where the public has moved on but the governments are still caught in some kind of Cold War or Great Powers mindset. First world Democratic governments should not be spying on each other.
At least a paid sockpuppet would try to present a good looking argument. Small sites definitely do better when it comes to comment quality, I suspect because the trolls want an audience and the flamebaiters need people to fight with. Still/. is a lot larger than many sites with degenerate comment sections, I honestly can't think of anywhere that compares.
One of the things that really differentiates/. comments from others is the relative lack of low-value comments that aren't really trying to contribute anything (other than a simple criticism or endorsement). I think there's a few things that play into this, cumulative karma probably encourages newer posters to be more judicious with their comments but I suspect a big thing is the moderation decorators. Are you trying to be informative or funny? Even if the poster isn't thinking about those explicitly the mods certainly are when they make their decisions and there isn't an option to vote someone down because they're of the wrong political affiliation, I think that really sets the tone.
Unfortunately I think the core problem with news sites has nothing to do with size or technology but community. Slashdot has one, I suspect most people reading this story saw it by visiting the front page (grandma? is that you?) or by accessing it through some kind of feed. Even on things like climate change there's a concept of talking among your tribe so you tend to be respectful. But most people commenting on news stories find them through news aggregators, so aside from being fairly passionate about the subject and talking to a bunch of people they may really disrespect there's no sense of community.
I really think the sense of community is critical, this comment right now is four paragraphs and it's certainly not the longest on the threat, do you think I'd have bothered if I didn't feel the readers were worth the contribution? I don't think a site can get a high quality comment thread without a real community.
In the article the utility suggested that power surges and other grid problems could be traced back to the influx of new solar. Could it be a valid excuse that the grid isn't smart enough to take in a bunch of additional inputs and they need some time to upgrade?
Billons were spent between 2003 and 2010 to deny climate change (pdf) and probably even more has been used for that goal in the last 3 years. In any case, is more money that was ever used to measure climate change, to detect dangerous asteroids, and prevent the spreading of pandemic diseases.
Maybe science should stop doing warnings and studies and let things happens with no preparations from our side. We deserve it.
Your characterization of the paper is misleading. They're looking at all the groups that have a denialist position and taking a sum of their income, but those groups aren't exclusively doing climate change. The billions help characterize the influence of the advocates but not the amount of advocating they're doing.
Besides, the biggest denialist advocate in the US is Fox News and the Republican party, I'd say they're worth far more than these advocacy groups to cast doubt on AGW.
"They aren't saying that the climate is not affected by changes in solar radiation."
That's what they're saying. But they're offering absolutely nothing new here. This is merely a review of others' past (perhaps too long past) work.
This paper actually claims no new evidence that Anthropogenic Global Warming (CO2 AGW) is actually occurring. Their own statements (their own concluding paragraph above if you read the whole thing) says that they are relying on past studies to come to that conclusion. Other people concluded that. And they cite as a reference, an old IPCC report. The newer IPCC report is much toned down from the 2007 version they cite.
Ok, I can't get around the paywall from home and I can't tell from the abstract whether it's a survey as your comments kinda indicate or if they're doing fresh analysis on previously collected data which the article and my reading of the abstract indicates.
But in either case the basis of your argument is a bizarre attack on standard scientific practice. I mean your damning criticism is "Other people concluded that."? I get that denialists try to deny the scientific consensus exists, but you're actually trying to claim that consensus in itself is evidence of a problem!
10 years ago my first thought probably would have been along the lines of "probably just some random burglars, he's probably just paranoid". Now? No one seems to question that it was government agents who likely broke in.
I think that's one of the strongest indictments of the NSA spying scandal I've seen yet, previously people assumed government spooks only went after other government spooks, serious criminals or terrorists, or in the very rare case, high level political subversive elements. The idea that a spook would target a somewhat ordinary activist was mostly thought to have stopped in the US after COINTELPRO.
I think we've relearned that we can't trust any government not to screw with ordinary law-abiding folks who pique their interest.
So someone managed to turn off three alarm systems, but didn't think to make sure that the contents of the apartment were all left in the same position that they found them?
If you came home after a trip and all your alarms had been turned off that's generally a better indication that you were broken into than having some items in a different position. Question is did they leave the alarms off as a practical manner (too hard to turn back on) or as a "we were here" message that some have suggested.
I don't know much about the current state of software viruses (I'm a Linux user!) but my understanding was a lot of them looked for suspicious behaviour rather than straight up definitions.
In that case if I'm a Malware writer it's nice if I can sneak around 3rd party anti-virus software, but it's not essential.
But if Security Essentials is built into Window's and it catches my suspicious behaviour every time, well there's not a big niche for my virus. Just like web developers would make sure their pages rendered under IE malware writers have to make sure their code runs under Security Essentials.
Note, this is a good sign for 3rd party anti-virus companies since it implies there's always going to be an opportunity to supply a better product.
Ironically the taboos actually has a similar motivation. In both cases they're trying to prevent their offspring from getting bad genes, the problem with the anti-miscegenation folks is they think other races are bad genes.
Taboos against inbreeding are hardly the result of intolerance since inbreeding drastically increases the probability of recessive genes becoming expressed. Since recessive genes are rarely expressed they're not exposed to the same selection pressure and tend to be less fit as a result.
So your claim is that by engaging in inbreeding, we are putting evolutionary pressure on the recessive genes, thus removing them from the gene pool, and that this is beneficial?
Beneficial for the species possibly, but not for the poor individuals who are tasked with the job of carrying those genes out of the pool.
(though it might be bad of the species as you'll lose some diversity too, recessive genes still get selection without inbreeding)
You are aware that, if you have a single gene for sickle cell anemia, rather than coming down with the disease, you're effectively immune to Malaria, since the blood cells will sickle in the presence of Malaria, but not otherwise, right?
Recessive genes are less fit on average, that doesn't mean in some instances they can't be as or even more fit than their non-recessive counterparts.
The sickle cell gene example, aside from being fascinating, actually proves my point. It would not have survived as a dominant gene in that form since the side effects of full expression are too harmful, it either would have been removed from the genepool, mutated to only go sickle with Malaria, or another gene would have popped up that made it only go sickle with Malaria. It's the fact that it's recessive that's allowed it to retain such poor fitness.
They probably didn't have intolerant idiots telling them who they could mate with, either.
Taboos against inbreeding are hardly the result of intolerance since inbreeding drastically increases the probability of recessive genes becoming expressed. Since recessive genes are rarely expressed they're not exposed to the same selection pressure and tend to be less fit as a result.
Slashdot Mirror
A free market economist who has no idea of what is statistically significant or not?
Oh random person on slashdot with a massive ideological axe to grind, I'll just take your word for it that the respected economist doesn't understand statistics.
And I've given up on who "would be expected to give guns a fair shake" because too many people have a totally irrational fear of guns that they will not admit even to themselves.
Did it occur to you that the source of the difference isn't those peoples hidden bias, but rather your obvious one?
So? The existence of one academic who may have some dubious methods doesn't invalidate other work in a field. What about these guys? If anyone would be expected to give guns a fair shake it would be a free market economist with libertarian sympathies. The fact is the gun/suicide link it both completely expected from the relevant facts and completely backed up in the data. The fact gun rights advocates continue to deny it really just ruins their credibility on other questions like guns & crime where the data can be more fuzzy.
The problem is not the guns its the culture. plain and simple.
It's guns+culture. If you want to get the guns away from the gangs you need to stop guns from being cool.
You originally said the study showed that increased gun ownership decreased murder. But what the study showed is that gun regulation laws increased murder.
Now assuming the study is correct and didn't get derailed by some confounder that's still a different claim. The issue with experimenting with gun regs in the US is they're at the city or state level and it's really tough to stop someone driving in from out of state with a trunk load of guns and selling them to a gang. It's almost guaranteed that the laws aren't going to affect the gangs.
Try it at the national level and you might have an easier time since there's no neighbouring state where you can easily import the guns, but you have to do something that seriously reduces the number of guns circulating in the ecosystem and you're going to have trouble trying that out at the state level first.
Maybe Chicago needs to mandate gun safes then.
But are you sure that's the path they take? I was under the impression that a lot of them were bought legally then sold into the gangs.
Except all the statistically reliable and valid studies on the subject cannot find any medium correlation between gun availability and suicide rate. The vast majority don't even find a weak correlation.
Really? Every study I've seen suggests that the correlation between gun availability and suicides is fairly incontrovertible
Making a safe GMO crop is a far easier task than making a safe pharmaceutical
I think it's fair to say [Citation needed]
No it isn't, it's fairly evident from the argument I posted, if you have to hunt down citations for every obvious fact you want to write than you'll never have time to communicate anything. Particularly when that fact is something as oddly formed as the relative complication rates of pharmaceuticals vs GMO's (am I supposed to track down a paper or something?)
I've yet to hear real evidence of any GMO related health issues in humans
yet
Considering that almost all pharmaceutical products have side effects of some kind then GMO's have already proven far safer to human health.
I'd actually hold up that 'yet' as evidence that the difference is so self evident that a citation is unnecessary.
These are the same people who think that eating an "alkalizing" diet and drinking "alkalized water"
That's an overly broad and unfair characterization. Everyone seems to be ignoring that companies are not required to prove with sufficient rigor that GMO crops are adequately safe.
The FDA requires new pharmaceuticals to undergo years of testing. In contrast, GMO crops are assumed to be safe because they 'closely approximate' their originating crop. That's a foolish assumption.
Pharmaceuticals are designed to have a significant biological effect on the body, side effects are almost impossible to avoid. GMO crops are designed to indistinguishable to the human body. Making a safe GMO crop is a far easier task than making a safe pharmaceutical (and I've yet to hear real evidence of any GMO related health issues in humans).
Kaplan says the NYT editorial calling on President Obama to grant Snowden 'some form of clemency' paints an incomplete picture when it claims that Snowden 'stole a trove of highly classified documents after he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness.' In fact, as Snowden himself told the South China Morning Post, he took his job as an NSA contractor, with Booz Allen Hamilton, because he knew that his position would grant him 'to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked.' Snowden got himself placed at the NSA's signals intelligence center in Hawaii says Kaplan for the sole purpose of pilfering extremely classified documents.
What Kaplan leaves out is that gig was not the first time Snowden worked for the NSA, he'd been working with the NSA and CIA in various capacities since 2006. It was during this work "he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness". He took the contractor position explicitly to get the evidence for the illegal programs he already had first hand knowledge of.
Kaplan actually emphasizes that this job was only 3 months, implying that Snowden had just learned about the programs and is therefore lying about all his deliberations and questioning within the agency.
Whatever you think of Snowden I think there's enough evidence to conclude that Kaplan is a hack.
Or could it be that the coroner was bought by the peacemaker manufacturing lobby to give that statement?
It was heroin. Someone else could have injected it.
It's possible, lots of things are possible. Where's the evidence that it happened?
Or did you think that the entire STASI popped out for the killings, rather than have experts and specialists for that work?
The TSA just pass the murdering on to specialists who are given a different arm to operate under.
So, no, no different.
Ok, which arm of the TSA or US government is going around killing Americans?
I'll say that I'm not actually sure the Stasi was in the business of killing Germans. But even so the comparisons are inaccurate, the spy apparatus in the US is rarely about pushing a particular political ideology, rather it's about control (the motive is to stop terrorism but it's a very slippery slope).
Gestapo: Detain, search and murder anyone who gets in the way, take artworks and musical instruments, including those considered heretical and destroy them as needed(or send them off to their betters for gain).
TSA: Detain without warrant, search without warrant, take artworks, and musical instruments without remuneration, including those deemed heretical by letter agencies, and dispose of them, or "keep them" as witnessed by the reselling of said items.
And you forgot the STASI, who: Detained without warrant, searched without warrant, operated a vast intelligence agency that spied on everyone, and did several things already mentioned. Sounds almost like some of the letter agencies in the US doesn't it?
The difference between the three, is that the TSA doesn't have the "right to shoot someone" without due process. And I'd put that as a "yet" but you can see the trend in some of the flappy headed politicians, especially after the large scale anti-gun pushes. An armed population is a dangerous population to such ideas after all.
Yeah, other than the mass killings they're virtually identical.
You can see the problem when a Republican calls the ACA Fascist or Communist, but calling the TSA Gestapo or STASI? Suddenly it's perfectly rational.
You're not convincing people, you're playing to the crowd while making all of us who agree with you in criticizing the TSA look ridiculous.
My definition of the nature of God is perfectly in line with known science. The question is whether you think "intelligence" has to be similar to human intelligence. I don't believe that to be the case.
My definition even absorbs evolution. Just consider that "God" acts at the quantum level, influencing genetics over millenia instead of in some mythical seven days, and the two viewpoints fall together naturally.
It's a God of the gaps, technically consistent with known science but still at odds with the scientific mindset. And theistic evolution is still a form of creationism-light, the idea of evolution is that you don't need an intelligent agent at all.
I'd rather see the universe as a wonder unknoweable with the eyes of a child than as a jaded atheist who thinks life has no purpose other than to be. That's not to say I believe in miracles or anyone's religious texts. Just that the universe is a vast unknoweable wonder beyond the grasp of anything so small as a human mind as anything but symbols and approximations.
What could be more wondrous than that?
Why would you assume an atheist doesn't find the universe a wonder? For me the idea that the universe has no intelligent ruler both wonderous and terrifying. The one thing we know about a universe with a God is that it s fundamentally understandable since there's at least one intelligence who's in charge.
But a universe with no God? We don't know if it's even theoretically possible to understand the universe. How do you get more wonderous than that?
It's increasingly clear that Snowden is being "handled" though. We shouldn't overlook the fact that he is a prime target for exploitation, by the Russians, by whoever ends up with him. If he does indeed go to Germany and help them defeat NSA spying in that country, well then the treason label fits.
I don't have any problem with Snowden revealing mass surveillance on American citizens to American citizens, but spying on foreign governments is what the NSA is supposed to do. Yes, even our allies, and yes, even for economic reasons (most spying is economic in nature, and every ally spies on every ally). Snowden's reveal of spying on foreign governments and leaders, and any methods to do so, does cross a definite line. That does actually harm the US diplomatically, harms US businesses, and harms those American citizens Snowden claims to support. Snowden may be a naive idealist in over his head, or he may have been "turned" by those who are currently surrounding him.
Would you be this philosophical if Germany had been caught tapping Obama's phone?
I think it's expected that countries will pry in the sense that they'll look for sources willing to share more than they should. But the idea that allies would be breaking into each others communications feels outdated. I'm not saying other countries aren't doing this, but it's still wrong. To me this is one place where the public has moved on but the governments are still caught in some kind of Cold War or Great Powers mindset. First world Democratic governments should not be spying on each other.
At least a paid sockpuppet would try to present a good looking argument. Small sites definitely do better when it comes to comment quality, I suspect because the trolls want an audience and the flamebaiters need people to fight with. Still /. is a lot larger than many sites with degenerate comment sections, I honestly can't think of anywhere that compares.
One of the things that really differentiates /. comments from others is the relative lack of low-value comments that aren't really trying to contribute anything (other than a simple criticism or endorsement). I think there's a few things that play into this, cumulative karma probably encourages newer posters to be more judicious with their comments but I suspect a big thing is the moderation decorators. Are you trying to be informative or funny? Even if the poster isn't thinking about those explicitly the mods certainly are when they make their decisions and there isn't an option to vote someone down because they're of the wrong political affiliation, I think that really sets the tone.
Unfortunately I think the core problem with news sites has nothing to do with size or technology but community. Slashdot has one, I suspect most people reading this story saw it by visiting the front page (grandma? is that you?) or by accessing it through some kind of feed. Even on things like climate change there's a concept of talking among your tribe so you tend to be respectful. But most people commenting on news stories find them through news aggregators, so aside from being fairly passionate about the subject and talking to a bunch of people they may really disrespect there's no sense of community.
I really think the sense of community is critical, this comment right now is four paragraphs and it's certainly not the longest on the threat, do you think I'd have bothered if I didn't feel the readers were worth the contribution? I don't think a site can get a high quality comment thread without a real community.
In the article the utility suggested that power surges and other grid problems could be traced back to the influx of new solar. Could it be a valid excuse that the grid isn't smart enough to take in a bunch of additional inputs and they need some time to upgrade?
Billons were spent between 2003 and 2010 to deny climate change (pdf) and probably even more has been used for that goal in the last 3 years. In any case, is more money that was ever used to measure climate change, to detect dangerous asteroids, and prevent the spreading of pandemic diseases.
Maybe science should stop doing warnings and studies and let things happens with no preparations from our side. We deserve it.
Your characterization of the paper is misleading. They're looking at all the groups that have a denialist position and taking a sum of their income, but those groups aren't exclusively doing climate change. The billions help characterize the influence of the advocates but not the amount of advocating they're doing.
Besides, the biggest denialist advocate in the US is Fox News and the Republican party, I'd say they're worth far more than these advocacy groups to cast doubt on AGW.
Again I can't see the actual paper but you didn't explain what you meant by that either.
Do you mean it's a review, it's a re-analysis, or it's something else entirely?
"They aren't saying that the climate is not affected by changes in solar radiation."
That's what they're saying. But they're offering absolutely nothing new here. This is merely a review of others' past (perhaps too long past) work.
This paper actually claims no new evidence that Anthropogenic Global Warming (CO2 AGW) is actually occurring. Their own statements (their own concluding paragraph above if you read the whole thing) says that they are relying on past studies to come to that conclusion. Other people concluded that. And they cite as a reference, an old IPCC report. The newer IPCC report is much toned down from the 2007 version they cite.
Ok, I can't get around the paywall from home and I can't tell from the abstract whether it's a survey as your comments kinda indicate or if they're doing fresh analysis on previously collected data which the article and my reading of the abstract indicates.
But in either case the basis of your argument is a bizarre attack on standard scientific practice. I mean your damning criticism is "Other people concluded that."? I get that denialists try to deny the scientific consensus exists, but you're actually trying to claim that consensus in itself is evidence of a problem!
10 years ago my first thought probably would have been along the lines of "probably just some random burglars, he's probably just paranoid". Now? No one seems to question that it was government agents who likely broke in.
I think that's one of the strongest indictments of the NSA spying scandal I've seen yet, previously people assumed government spooks only went after other government spooks, serious criminals or terrorists, or in the very rare case, high level political subversive elements. The idea that a spook would target a somewhat ordinary activist was mostly thought to have stopped in the US after COINTELPRO.
I think we've relearned that we can't trust any government not to screw with ordinary law-abiding folks who pique their interest.
So someone managed to turn off three alarm systems, but didn't think to make sure that the contents of the apartment were all left in the same position that they found them?
If you came home after a trip and all your alarms had been turned off that's generally a better indication that you were broken into than having some items in a different position. Question is did they leave the alarms off as a practical manner (too hard to turn back on) or as a "we were here" message that some have suggested.
I don't know much about the current state of software viruses (I'm a Linux user!) but my understanding was a lot of them looked for suspicious behaviour rather than straight up definitions.
In that case if I'm a Malware writer it's nice if I can sneak around 3rd party anti-virus software, but it's not essential.
But if Security Essentials is built into Window's and it catches my suspicious behaviour every time, well there's not a big niche for my virus. Just like web developers would make sure their pages rendered under IE malware writers have to make sure their code runs under Security Essentials.
Note, this is a good sign for 3rd party anti-virus companies since it implies there's always going to be an opportunity to supply a better product.
Ironically the taboos actually has a similar motivation. In both cases they're trying to prevent their offspring from getting bad genes, the problem with the anti-miscegenation folks is they think other races are bad genes.
Taboos against inbreeding are hardly the result of intolerance since inbreeding drastically increases the probability of recessive genes becoming expressed. Since recessive genes are rarely expressed they're not exposed to the same selection pressure and tend to be less fit as a result.
So your claim is that by engaging in inbreeding, we are putting evolutionary pressure on the recessive genes, thus removing them from the gene pool, and that this is beneficial?
Beneficial for the species possibly, but not for the poor individuals who are tasked with the job of carrying those genes out of the pool.
(though it might be bad of the species as you'll lose some diversity too, recessive genes still get selection without inbreeding)
You are aware that, if you have a single gene for sickle cell anemia, rather than coming down with the disease, you're effectively immune to Malaria, since the blood cells will sickle in the presence of Malaria, but not otherwise, right?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm
Recessive genes are less fit on average, that doesn't mean in some instances they can't be as or even more fit than their non-recessive counterparts.
The sickle cell gene example, aside from being fascinating, actually proves my point. It would not have survived as a dominant gene in that form since the side effects of full expression are too harmful, it either would have been removed from the genepool, mutated to only go sickle with Malaria, or another gene would have popped up that made it only go sickle with Malaria. It's the fact that it's recessive that's allowed it to retain such poor fitness.
They probably didn't have intolerant idiots telling them who they could mate with, either.
Taboos against inbreeding are hardly the result of intolerance since inbreeding drastically increases the probability of recessive genes becoming expressed. Since recessive genes are rarely expressed they're not exposed to the same selection pressure and tend to be less fit as a result.