But in the grand scheme of things, we're more likely to be classified as a 'parasite' on the planet since 'modern' civilizations haven't been able to live in harmony with the environment we occupy.
They were done in by the increasing pollution of that river. So instead of feeling bad about the tuna sandwiches you had you should feel bad about the cheap DVD player you bought -- not only did the people who put it together get paid slave wages,...
Are you implying that I should feel bad about buying something that creates a job in a part of the world that desperately needs them? What is a slave wage to you may be a godsend to the worker. To quote Sowell: "The real minimum wage is zero [unemployment]."
Gray is a hurricane meteorologist, not a climate scientist. He is definitely a contrarian when it comes to anthropomorphic global warming, but he's also way out of his area of expertise.
I'll submit to you that he is less out of his area of expertise (hurricane meteorology vs. climate scientist) than many of the climate scientists who are using polar bear population data to make their case for global warming. To be clear, I am not trying to discredit anyone - simply point out that this debate is (or should be) very interdisciplinary and that no one group will be experts in everything.
Although it is entirely possible they are escaping my notice, I've not heard of cover-ups or censorship happening.
Your perception of "bias" is the same that the BBC is looking for proof of... that of some giant "left-wing/environmentalist consipiracy" against global warming. They will of course uncover no such proof as there obviously isn't any large scale overt censorship going on. However, let me offer my own (biased) right-wing view of what may be happening.
I believe that there is indeed a form of censorship going on - but that it is much more subtle - almost at the unconscious level. On the contrary I believe the bias is almost one of (for lack of a better word) inaction/agnostic. Let me give a hypothetical example [I am not claiming that any of the following is true...simply trying to demonstrate my belief in the type of bias that may be occurring]:
Let's say Al Gore goes out and make the claim that the if sea ice is melting then global warming may be occurring. He then states that melting sea ice would endgandger polar bears and then gives an example of a study that indeed shows polar bear populations decreasing. Now aside from the fact that even if all true - we still have the ever-persistent correlation vs. causality issue, we are left with a very wide interdisciplinary problem. It is highly unlikely that experts in climatology are also experts in polar bear populations.
And this is where my (completely unsubstantiated) suspicion of bias comes in. I can visualize polar bear experts all over the world watching this research unfold and thinking to themselves "odd, the population of polar bears that I am studying is not dwindling." However - and this is my key point - I also can envision them simply shrugging this off because I highly doubt that there are any neo-conservative global warming denier polar bear researchers in the field. They aren't actively supressing this hypothetical contrary data - they simply don't think their piece of the puzzle is relevant, since they probably agree with the global warming concensus.
Without getting too off-topic and in keeping within my right-wing paranoia paradigm, I see this bias functioning via exactly the same mechanism that I believe the media is biased. Neither the media, nor the global warming researchers are unethical or part of any conspiracy... they are simply sympathetic to "their" side of the argument and evidence to the contrary (however small) simply doesn't set off alarm bells like it would to someone with an axe to grind.
That said, I feel compelled to point out something very disturbing I found while researching this reply. While I only skimmed it, this petition for adding polar bears to the endangered species list contains a few egregious examples of very biased presentation of scientific results. The introduction states
"Absent substantial reductions in reductions of greenhouse gasses, by century's end average temperatures in the Arctic will likey rise upwards of 7 deg C (13.6 F)."(p. 3)
I am by no means a climatologist, but I have been following the debate and I am pretty sure that this value (14 deg F) is at the extreme side of the end of century prediction. They use the word "likely" which to me as a scientist/engineer would interpret to be at least a 1-sigma case.
Later, on page 20, 1st paragraph they note that of 20 polar bear populations, 7 were given as "declining or unknown". What the heck is this? How many are "declining" (answer == 2 but have to actually look at the table bleow) and how many are unknown (5)? By grouping the unknowns with the delcining the author is (deliberately?) attempting to make the situation look worse for the polar bears. In the next paragraph they do the same thing again, this time grouping "poor certainty" with "unknown certainty".
Yes, I am not a climatologist nor an expert in polar bear populations. But I am a scientist and engineer and I can still read research and know when someone is using shody methodology - even when I know nothing of the subject.
Nothing. What makes you think the environmentalists are going to tell you the truth? Nothing. Obviously there are two parts to this: (1) Does the speaker have access to the truth? and (2) Does the speaker present that truth (as opposed to concealing it)?
The oil industry satisfies (1); the environmentalists do not. It sort of makes point (2) moot.
Absolutely right! It doesn't work because Doc Ruby says it doesn't work. And we all know that Doc Ruby doesn't have to support his accusations/trolls/flamebaits with such trivial things as facts.
Not just is there no-one on the speaker list with an environmentalist bent, but most of the speakers apart from those employed by CERA are heads/employees of major oil/chemical companies.
Would you ask a sporting goods salesman what type of chipset to go with on your next mobo? What makes you think environmentalists would better understand oil reserves than those in the industry? I am sure environmentalists would better understand the impacts of oil exploration on the environment... but production numbers
Re:Learn for tests, that's all you need it for.
on
More A's, More Pay
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· Score: 1
This is a really bad idea. It will only encourage teaching for the test
And if the test adequately reflects the learning objectives, how is this bad?
Wrong. It is legal for "the gays" to marry in Massachusetts, right now. The Republican govenor (now a lame duck) and some Republican members of the state legislature want to now make it illegal.
How long has it been legal? How many constitutional ammendments had been suggested to define marriage as between a woman and man before Mass made it legal? In (his first?) state of the union address, Bush made if very clear that he was against such an ammendment unless states tried to start making gay marriage legal.
...in a sense the GOP position is status quo.
Segregation, slavery, the right to vote belonging to white males only...these are all examples of the status quo at one time in the USA. Does that make positions supporting them any less bigoted? Those who wish to create OR maintain an inferior class of citizen deserve to be demonized.
I never implied that "status quo" was a rational for maintaining the current policy. I mentioned "status quo" only to show that movements against gay marriage was reactionary and not spontaneous evil. You have taken my words out of context. Oh, and gays are not segregated, made into slaves or had their right to vote taken away. Are you implying that marriage is an "inalienable right?".
I hate to break it to you but every conservative I know is extremely tolerant. This is largely a war of words. Ask 99% of conservatives what they think of gay marriage, then ask them what they think of civil unions which would give effectively every legal right/protection that marriage does... and I think you will be very surprised at the response.
"And somewhat related: Who cares what someones sexual preference is?"
The republicans do. They want to limit what rights you have if you are gay. These rights include serving in the military, teaching, joining civic organizations and marriage amongst others.
That isn't true at all. Gay activists have made it sound like the GOP is waging a war against them. The reality is that the GOP has only limitted expanding rights of gays, which is very different than taking them away. It has never been legal for the gays to marry or serve in the military - in a sense the GOP position is status quo. Oh,and please cite a source where the Republicans have tried to prevent someone from teaching because they are gay.... as for civic organizations, they can accept or deny anyone they wish (I assume you are referring here to the Boy Scouts).
I'll be honest, I am a little suprised at how effective the liberals have been at demonizing the Republicans on the issue of gay rights. As many others have posted, there are actually quite a few Republicans in power who may not officially be "out" but whose sexual orientation is well known. I have never once heard of Republicans kicking anyone out of their party for being gay and are quite tolerant. However, because the Republicans have a different opinion on the legal definition of marriage - they are suddenly all homophobes and anti-gay. Extreme left-wingers have even resorted to "outing" gay republicans who do not support gay marriage. Their justification for this is that those republicans are being hypocrites. Personally, I don't think it is hypocrtical at all to be able to seperate your own feelings on issue from the legality of the issue.
Have you tried typing "list of mars missions" into www.google.com? Try it sometime. It's the third link down. I'd link to it, but I don't want to short you the education experience of using a search engine.
His strategy for war was mediocre at best. Rumsfeld was lucky enough to fight a war against a country 10 times smallert than USA (25 mil vs 300 mil population), with 20 times less money, 50 smaller army and weapons from 1980.
The second statement doesn't support the first. You may be right that there was a disparity in the composition of forces, but what about the conduct of the "hot war" made it "mediocre?"
I like lower taxes as much as anyone, but when the alternative is to have the economy crumble and all my cash become worthless, I'll vote for the tax.
Granted, the correct answer is to cut government spending, but that's something that will take a lot more political muscle to pull off.
The sad thing here (to me: a conservative) is that the Democrats made traction with labeling Republicans as not being fiscally responsible. Sure, the Republicans spent more than I had wanted them to, but on every appropration spent less than what the Dems wanted to spend. What did the Democrats not like about prescription drugs? (Answer: didn't spend enough); Homeland Security Funding? (Answer: Not enough funds for infrastructure, roads, firemen, etc...); No-Child Left Behind? (Answer: unfunded mandate!); Veterans Spending? (Answer: It goes up but they call it a cut).
So yes, the Republicans spent too much but the Democrats wanted to spend more. Why did they do this? It is called compromise. Ironically, by compromising with the Democrats (which is what I thought everyone wanted the two parties to do...) the Republicans gave them ammunition with which to finish them off...
Nothing will get done. Bush still has the VETO stamp. Its been sitting in his desk draw barely used for the last 6 years. I am sure it is going to get a major workout in the next two. This is not a bad thing, government is best when it does least.
You are right... the economy will stay exactly the same (strong with a shrinking deficit) and Iraq will stay exactly the same (a mess). The difference is now the Democrats will take credit for the economy instead of talking doom-and-gloom about it. Despite running on a campaign of change in Iraq - they will blame the Executive for not being able to do anything about it. Same facts. Different spin to suit.
While I agree that the calls are annoying - I disagree with the the summary's and your conclusion that the wording of the call is specificly designed to make the listener think that the Democratic candidate is harrassing them. The calls begin with : "I'm calling with information about [democratic candidate]." Peronally, I would also hang up here - but I certainly wouldn't make any assumption at this point as to whether or not the call supports or attack that Democratic candidate. The Republicans deserve lots of grief - but isn't this stretching it a bit?
This is probably one of the craziest ideas I've ever heard of for the mainstream media.
Bah! I think it is a great idea! And after we "crowdsource" journalism... I think we should move on to "crowdsourcing" NASA, the FAA, maybe even law enforcement! What about the FDA and CDC? I am sure there are lots of amatuers out there who would love to have a say in important food quality and disease information...
I don't know that those military papers have ever called for a Defense Sect'y to resign before, and surely not the day before an election.
Actually, they have. More to the point, they have called for Rumsfeld to resign before (at the height of Abu Gharab). The military times denies the timing of this had anything to do with the election, however, given that they have already asked from Rumsfelds resignation - I find that argument rather weak.
Adding the Aries 1 + Aries 5 to get a "total" of 150,000 kg to LEO requires 2 launches, not 1, so your math doesn't work out.
My math is fine. I was very clear that the Constellation architecture requires two launches. What isn't fair is comparing the Saturn V lift capability to the Ares V. The Saturn V was a complete solution - the Ares V only provides some of the lift. This is a physics driven problem. Physics drives rockets to be long slender cylinders. Existing materials more-or-less limit the maximum height and diamter of these rockets. Modern technology (in the form of materials advances and engine tech) can buy you some efficiency at the same form factor - but not too much and at significant additional cost. Hence another reason to split the lift capability (logically between the human-rated booster and non-rated booster)
The Saturn 5 wasn't human-rated? The Saturn 5 is going to incur development costs? Its already developed, its old dependable technology, and its relatively cheap.
Listen very carefully. THE SATURN V DOESN'T EXIST. You can't simply start making more. The development costs to re-engineer it with todays materials and methods would be on the same order as for Ares. If we wanted to send two-person crews to the moon for a few days at non-polar landing sites, then Saturn, could you build it today, would be fine. But those aren't the objective of the Constellation Program.
As for the budget, remember that the whole space program from the Mercury sub-orbital flights to the moon landing was 25 billion. Each Saturn 5 was about $100 million. Think of it - 5 launch vehicles for the cost of one shuttle mission. Aries is a contractors' pork bone.
That's ridiculous - are you really comparing "then-year" Saturn V costs with the outside current cost of Shuttle?
Also, nobody intents for any of the escape systems to actually work. They're there for public perception. the astronauts pointed this out themselves. From the "slide down a wire rope" system to the current proposal, these are basically public relations ploys.
The systems aren't there to save the crew in every situation. No one expects the crew to get out of the capsule in the middle of a catastrophic explosion and survive. They are there so that the crew has a change of survival in a small set of problems that are indeed feasible and they work very well in those situations. In the case of a catastrophic explosion - the crew will use the LAS and perform a pad abort (the Russians have done exactly this on one occasion. I for one have no problem providing scant funding for these escape systems considering the alternative is to explain why we lost a crew who otherwise would have had time to escape but for whom no escape option was preserved.
The 2020 target date for returning to the moon is longer than the whole from-scratch space program, and you can be sure the date is going to slide.
That is because the Apollo program was a schedule-driven program (and consumed 4% of the Federal Budget) while Constellation is budget-limitted and is just one of many NASA programs, the sum of which amount to a scant 1% of the federal budget. The Constellation Program could be substantially accelerated if the funding was there. You want to complete the program on 1/3rd the budget of Apollo, it is going to take longer than Apollo did.
Do it with old tech, old school know-how, and you can be back there in 5 years, with a permanent base in 7, and on to Mars in 10.
More examples that you just can't satisfy the NASA-haters. Half complain that the vehicle isn't future-tech enough, and the rest say we should just re-build Apollo. NASA is using old tech where appropriate. Much of the architecture is very similar, there is significant re-use of Apollo and Shuttle engine and other system technology (SRB, J-2X, etc). NASA knows that these were not n
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True, but it is worth pointing out that they entered the US using faslsified/altered passports to avoid raising suspicion, yet another form of ID.
Agent Smith? Is that you?
Are you implying that I should feel bad about buying something that creates a job in a part of the world that desperately needs them? What is a slave wage to you may be a godsend to the worker. To quote Sowell: "The real minimum wage is zero [unemployment]."
I'll submit to you that he is less out of his area of expertise (hurricane meteorology vs. climate scientist) than many of the climate scientists who are using polar bear population data to make their case for global warming. To be clear, I am not trying to discredit anyone - simply point out that this debate is (or should be) very interdisciplinary and that no one group will be experts in everything.
Your perception of "bias" is the same that the BBC is looking for proof of... that of some giant "left-wing/environmentalist consipiracy" against global warming. They will of course uncover no such proof as there obviously isn't any large scale overt censorship going on. However, let me offer my own (biased) right-wing view of what may be happening.
I believe that there is indeed a form of censorship going on - but that it is much more subtle - almost at the unconscious level. On the contrary I believe the bias is almost one of (for lack of a better word) inaction/agnostic. Let me give a hypothetical example [I am not claiming that any of the following is true...simply trying to demonstrate my belief in the type of bias that may be occurring]:
Let's say Al Gore goes out and make the claim that the if sea ice is melting then global warming may be occurring. He then states that melting sea ice would endgandger polar bears and then gives an example of a study that indeed shows polar bear populations decreasing. Now aside from the fact that even if all true - we still have the ever-persistent correlation vs. causality issue, we are left with a very wide interdisciplinary problem. It is highly unlikely that experts in climatology are also experts in polar bear populations.
And this is where my (completely unsubstantiated) suspicion of bias comes in. I can visualize polar bear experts all over the world watching this research unfold and thinking to themselves "odd, the population of polar bears that I am studying is not dwindling." However - and this is my key point - I also can envision them simply shrugging this off because I highly doubt that there are any neo-conservative global warming denier polar bear researchers in the field. They aren't actively supressing this hypothetical contrary data - they simply don't think their piece of the puzzle is relevant, since they probably agree with the global warming concensus.
Without getting too off-topic and in keeping within my right-wing paranoia paradigm, I see this bias functioning via exactly the same mechanism that I believe the media is biased. Neither the media, nor the global warming researchers are unethical or part of any conspiracy... they are simply sympathetic to "their" side of the argument and evidence to the contrary (however small) simply doesn't set off alarm bells like it would to someone with an axe to grind.
That said, I feel compelled to point out something very disturbing I found while researching this reply. While I only skimmed it, this petition for adding polar bears to the endangered species list contains a few egregious examples of very biased presentation of scientific results. The introduction states
I am by no means a climatologist, but I have been following the debate and I am pretty sure that this value (14 deg F) is at the extreme side of the end of century prediction. They use the word "likely" which to me as a scientist/engineer would interpret to be at least a 1-sigma case.Later, on page 20, 1st paragraph they note that of 20 polar bear populations, 7 were given as "declining or unknown". What the heck is this? How many are "declining" (answer == 2 but have to actually look at the table bleow) and how many are unknown (5)? By grouping the unknowns with the delcining the author is (deliberately?) attempting to make the situation look worse for the polar bears. In the next paragraph they do the same thing again, this time grouping "poor certainty" with "unknown certainty".
Yes, I am not a climatologist nor an expert in polar bear populations. But I am a scientist and engineer and I can still read research and know when someone is using shody methodology - even when I know nothing of the subject.
Speaking of glacial... is it getting warmer in here too?
Speaking of magic... I think your "how" magically vanished!
also... 8 in 9 MMO players are liars.
I think you will appreciate this
NASA: Never tell me the odds!
The oil industry satisfies (1); the environmentalists do not. It sort of makes point (2) moot.
Absolutely right! It doesn't work because Doc Ruby says it doesn't work. And we all know that Doc Ruby doesn't have to support his accusations/trolls/flamebaits with such trivial things as facts.
Would you ask a sporting goods salesman what type of chipset to go with on your next mobo? What makes you think environmentalists would better understand oil reserves than those in the industry? I am sure environmentalists would better understand the impacts of oil exploration on the environment ... but production numbers
And if the test adequately reflects the learning objectives, how is this bad?
How long has it been legal? How many constitutional ammendments had been suggested to define marriage as between a woman and man before Mass made it legal? In (his first?) state of the union address, Bush made if very clear that he was against such an ammendment unless states tried to start making gay marriage legal.
Segregation, slavery, the right to vote belonging to white males only...these are all examples of the status quo at one time in the USA. Does that make positions supporting them any less bigoted? Those who wish to create OR maintain an inferior class of citizen deserve to be demonized.
I never implied that "status quo" was a rational for maintaining the current policy. I mentioned "status quo" only to show that movements against gay marriage was reactionary and not spontaneous evil. You have taken my words out of context. Oh, and gays are not segregated, made into slaves or had their right to vote taken away. Are you implying that marriage is an "inalienable right?".
I hate to break it to you but every conservative I know is extremely tolerant. This is largely a war of words. Ask 99% of conservatives what they think of gay marriage, then ask them what they think of civil unions which would give effectively every legal right/protection that marriage does... and I think you will be very surprised at the response.
That isn't true at all. Gay activists have made it sound like the GOP is waging a war against them. The reality is that the GOP has only limitted expanding rights of gays, which is very different than taking them away. It has never been legal for the gays to marry or serve in the military - in a sense the GOP position is status quo. Oh,and please cite a source where the Republicans have tried to prevent someone from teaching because they are gay.... as for civic organizations, they can accept or deny anyone they wish (I assume you are referring here to the Boy Scouts).
I'll be honest, I am a little suprised at how effective the liberals have been at demonizing the Republicans on the issue of gay rights. As many others have posted, there are actually quite a few Republicans in power who may not officially be "out" but whose sexual orientation is well known. I have never once heard of Republicans kicking anyone out of their party for being gay and are quite tolerant. However, because the Republicans have a different opinion on the legal definition of marriage - they are suddenly all homophobes and anti-gay. Extreme left-wingers have even resorted to "outing" gay republicans who do not support gay marriage. Their justification for this is that those republicans are being hypocrites. Personally, I don't think it is hypocrtical at all to be able to seperate your own feelings on issue from the legality of the issue.
Have you tried typing "list of mars missions" into www.google.com? Try it sometime. It's the third link down. I'd link to it, but I don't want to short you the education experience of using a search engine.
The second statement doesn't support the first. You may be right that there was a disparity in the composition of forces, but what about the conduct of the "hot war" made it "mediocre?"
The sad thing here (to me: a conservative) is that the Democrats made traction with labeling Republicans as not being fiscally responsible. Sure, the Republicans spent more than I had wanted them to, but on every appropration spent less than what the Dems wanted to spend. What did the Democrats not like about prescription drugs? (Answer: didn't spend enough); Homeland Security Funding? (Answer: Not enough funds for infrastructure, roads, firemen, etc...); No-Child Left Behind? (Answer: unfunded mandate!); Veterans Spending? (Answer: It goes up but they call it a cut).
So yes, the Republicans spent too much but the Democrats wanted to spend more. Why did they do this? It is called compromise. Ironically, by compromising with the Democrats (which is what I thought everyone wanted the two parties to do...) the Republicans gave them ammunition with which to finish them off...
You are right... the economy will stay exactly the same (strong with a shrinking deficit ) and Iraq will stay exactly the same (a mess). The difference is now the Democrats will take credit for the economy instead of talking doom-and-gloom about it. Despite running on a campaign of change in Iraq - they will blame the Executive for not being able to do anything about it. Same facts. Different spin to suit.
While I agree that the calls are annoying - I disagree with the the summary's and your conclusion that the wording of the call is specificly designed to make the listener think that the Democratic candidate is harrassing them. The calls begin with : "I'm calling with information about [democratic candidate]." Peronally, I would also hang up here - but I certainly wouldn't make any assumption at this point as to whether or not the call supports or attack that Democratic candidate. The Republicans deserve lots of grief - but isn't this stretching it a bit?
o<----your head
/\
T
Bah! I think it is a great idea! And after we "crowdsource" journalism... I think we should move on to "crowdsourcing" NASA, the FAA, maybe even law enforcement! What about the FDA and CDC? I am sure there are lots of amatuers out there who would love to have a say in important food quality and disease information...
Actually, they have. More to the point, they have called for Rumsfeld to resign before (at the height of Abu Gharab). The military times denies the timing of this had anything to do with the election, however, given that they have already asked from Rumsfelds resignation - I find that argument rather weak.
My math is fine. I was very clear that the Constellation architecture requires two launches. What isn't fair is comparing the Saturn V lift capability to the Ares V. The Saturn V was a complete solution - the Ares V only provides some of the lift. This is a physics driven problem. Physics drives rockets to be long slender cylinders. Existing materials more-or-less limit the maximum height and diamter of these rockets. Modern technology (in the form of materials advances and engine tech) can buy you some efficiency at the same form factor - but not too much and at significant additional cost. Hence another reason to split the lift capability (logically between the human-rated booster and non-rated booster)
The Saturn 5 wasn't human-rated? The Saturn 5 is going to incur development costs? Its already developed, its old dependable technology, and its relatively cheap.
Listen very carefully. THE SATURN V DOESN'T EXIST. You can't simply start making more. The development costs to re-engineer it with todays materials and methods would be on the same order as for Ares. If we wanted to send two-person crews to the moon for a few days at non-polar landing sites, then Saturn, could you build it today, would be fine. But those aren't the objective of the Constellation Program.
As for the budget, remember that the whole space program from the Mercury sub-orbital flights to the moon landing was 25 billion. Each Saturn 5 was about $100 million. Think of it - 5 launch vehicles for the cost of one shuttle mission. Aries is a contractors' pork bone.
That's ridiculous - are you really comparing "then-year" Saturn V costs with the outside current cost of Shuttle?
Also, nobody intents for any of the escape systems to actually work. They're there for public perception. the astronauts pointed this out themselves. From the "slide down a wire rope" system to the current proposal, these are basically public relations ploys.
The systems aren't there to save the crew in every situation. No one expects the crew to get out of the capsule in the middle of a catastrophic explosion and survive. They are there so that the crew has a change of survival in a small set of problems that are indeed feasible and they work very well in those situations. In the case of a catastrophic explosion - the crew will use the LAS and perform a pad abort (the Russians have done exactly this on one occasion. I for one have no problem providing scant funding for these escape systems considering the alternative is to explain why we lost a crew who otherwise would have had time to escape but for whom no escape option was preserved.
The 2020 target date for returning to the moon is longer than the whole from-scratch space program, and you can be sure the date is going to slide.
That is because the Apollo program was a schedule-driven program (and consumed 4% of the Federal Budget) while Constellation is budget-limitted and is just one of many NASA programs, the sum of which amount to a scant 1% of the federal budget. The Constellation Program could be substantially accelerated if the funding was there. You want to complete the program on 1/3rd the budget of Apollo, it is going to take longer than Apollo did.
Do it with old tech, old school know-how, and you can be back there in 5 years, with a permanent base in 7, and on to Mars in 10.
More examples that you just can't satisfy the NASA-haters. Half complain that the vehicle isn't future-tech enough, and the rest say we should just re-build Apollo. NASA is using old tech where appropriate. Much of the architecture is very similar, there is significant re-use of Apollo and Shuttle engine and other system technology (SRB, J-2X, etc). NASA knows that these were not n