so when 26 species of animals (articulated [intact]), some natural predator/prey, all die in mud in a cave (articulated [intact]), and a Flood is never mentioned, is that theory changing or acting as a filter?
That's it. That's the proof I have been looking for all my life and I've finally seen the light. Oh Lord how could I have been so blind. An anonymous disciple has wiped the caked on mud of scientific evidence from my eyes and now I can finally see! All floods are caused by God and any flood of any reasonable size is proof of the biblical/global flood, and they are obviously to punish the unbelievers, er, and some undisclosed group of animals in some cave somewhere or other...
No... wait... what's that smell... is it goats? Maybe it's pigs... no definitely cattle of some sort...
The Lords hasn't had the power to block legislation for a about a hundred years. The most that they can do is delay it. A shame, because they're generally more rational that the House of think-of-the-children-and-terrorists-OMG-ponies Commons.
Indeed. Historically the Lords have a very different view on The World than those in the commons because they tended to be wealthy landed gentry. I won't say they didn't have their problems but it tended to be more difficult to buy them off 'cos they already had more money than they knew what to do with.
Labour have been trying to change this, and on the face of it an "unelected house" does seem rather odd in this day and age, but if they were elected wouldn't they just be a carbon copy of the commons, and therefore not such a good check or balance on what the muppets in the commons are up to!
The old adage of "If it ain't broke don't fix it springs to mind!
Easy peasy... pull up outside their houses and crack their wireless before downloading Britney's latest single... then dob 'em in to the Internet Police!
Job done!
How many UK citizens have enough money to even reach European courts after being disconnected?
I can see it now, the 'phone message saying "if you're having trouble getting through to the European Court of Human Rights please try using our website..."
Every time my Virgin broadband dies and I call 'em up I have to sit through a message like that and you have no idea how annoying it is! "Right, let's get you some help"... oh please make it stop!
If any fellow Anonymous in Germany feel like telling the German government why they should not consider Scientology a religion, then please be my guest. Be clear, make yourself heard. "Ich bin Anonymous!"
Looking at this problem from the other side, if we're against Scientology getting tax breaks and whatnot because they reckon they're a religion why don't we revisit the tax (et al) perks for ALL religions?
Why do religions get tax perks? Why the special status?
OK, so _some_ religions do charitable works. That's fine. The "Charitable Works" parts of religions can have some tax breaks because other charities have tax breaks. But a lot of what "religions" do is far more akin to just being a business and they damn well should be taxed on it!
Ask yourself, "If they charged me less, who would benefit?"
Now find some way to make "the hospital" part of that answer.
Pretty hard, isn't it?
Somewhat disingenuous, but I can fix that for you...
Ask yourself, "If they could charge me less, who would benefit?"
Now find some way to make "the hospital would be no worse off" part of that answer.
A few individuals are unlucky enough to have medical procedures go wrong and sue the hospitals/doctors/anyone and get large settlements.
The hospitals/doctors/everyone has to pay large premiums to the insurance companies and therefore have to put their prices up accordingly.
So actually you had it the wrong way around...:
If the hospitals could spend more of their money on providing health care and less on insuring against court cases they could offer better and cheaper services!
There is a HUGE amount of overhead in US health care starting with a massive markup on medicine which isn't seen elsewhere and ending with the support of a lot of middlemen.
It doesn't matter if it's private or public - what matters is removing the leeches and profiteers from the system and turning it back into medicine instead of a protection racket pretending to be insurance and hospitals where care is an afterthought. The doctors are not the ones getting rich and if you want to see a nurse laugh ask them if they are rich.
I doubt that the same amount of care elsewhere with the same treatments under a public system would have cost the taxpayer anywhere near one fifth of that. Remember folks, it's still a drain on the economy even if rich sick people are the ones getting ripped off instead of the taxpayer - it still hurts everyone to an extent.
My Dad was a doctor - a GP - in the UK and back in the 80's I remember him telling me about "medical insurance" for Drs, in case you get sued. He told me that Drs in the US paid more in insurance premiums than he earned per year! Who's benefiting from that and who's paying the cost!
This isn't an issue when people pay for themselves.
No indeed! Screw the poor people who are ill - hell, let's screw all the poor people anyway! We could probably get a posse together and drive those low-life middle income people out of town too!
Oddly, we pay less for our Social Healthcare in the UK than those who can pay pay in the US for their private health care, and this includes the safety net for the poorer people in the UK who are otherwise unprovided for in the US. I'm not saying the NHS is perfect (or actually that it even could be perfect) but it sure as hell beats the alternative!
yes, but GP was talking about cancer. Is any joke appropriate?
Do what now? Are you saying there's some law forbidding jokes about cancer? Are there any other diseases on that list or are safe to joke about menstrual cramps, MS (the disease not the software company... actually on this w/s that doesn't necessarily disambiguate!), D&V?
I used to wonder whether doctors should have a "Fuck me! Cancer" form they could just sign and hand to patients instead of all that hand wringing sad face crap!
We'd learn to dread the doctor pressing the intercom button and saying "Nurse, could you get me the FMC pad please".
IMHO laughing at cancer is the way forward. We should do all we can to diminish the general conception that cancer is a death sentence. Obviously, some cancers are bad - REALLY BAD - but a lot aren't, and something's got to get us in the end. There may even be some mileage in the perception that "being happy" is better for you than "being sad" so what better medicine than a book of cancer jokes, to be taken twice a day before meals.
People need to talk about this, and we need to reach a consensus to where the line is.
Actually, first we need to agree that there is, and has to be, a line!
No health care setup can be fully funded, whether private or public, as there will always come a time when someone needs something new and leading edge and they tend to be expensive. Not that money can always be thrown at the problem - I remember feeling particularly sorry for Paul McCartney when Linda died because I think I would have been looking for any and all treatments regardless of cost... and yet she died!
So assuming we can agree that any health system has a budget we need people to administer that budget and that involves wieghing up the relative merits of treatment A for one (very sick) person vs treatment B for several (not so sick) people: eg Heart Swap vs Hip Replacement.
The people making those decisions HAVE to be cold and calculating about it. This means none of the (now normal!) "how does it feel" style reporting we're now too often saddled with by lazy reporters. The argument of "what if it was your father" is a ridiculous argument - of course you want the best for you and yours but that isn't necessarily the best for 'society' - in much the same way with kidnapping/hostages. As an individual I would say pay them what they ask for to buy my freedom, but as part of 'society' I would say you should NOT pay for my release because I recognise that paying them off encourages more kidnappings!
Strewth, they're all skin and bone anyway! If you took away the bones I guess they'd be a bit more comfortable to lie on, but it's really not going to help their self esteem problems now is it!
... but that puts 600,000,000 Metric Tons of water at 240,000 Olympic swimming pools worth =D
OK, so that's by far and away NOT an inexhaustible supply then!
Using it for basic 'living' needs ought to be all fine and dandy (ie O2, drinkies, plants, washing, sports) assuming we can sensibly recycle the stuff, and AFAIK we're already OK at that (see ISS). Indeed, that much water should support a pretty sizeable colony.
Using it as 'propellant' might not be so sensible though, as it will dwindle PDQ!
I was lucky enough to get a couple of tickets to the original Live Aid gig in Wembley and the word went out that there were tickets still for sale at the box office and to not buy from the scalpers. After an hour or so the scalpers realised they were never going to sell any tickets, even at reduced prices (because everyone was so intent on helping the 'cause' and the scalpers had already bought their tickets!) that they gave up and handed in all the tickets to the box office where they were re-sold by the event to raise yet-more cash!
But isn't it similar to the success spammers have with spamming? If no one answered the spam emails they'd go out of business, and it's the same with the scalpers... if you simply don't buy off them they will also go out of business!
That said, I don't see what's wrong with it and how you can make general scalping illegal and yet still permit Joe Schmo to sell a couple of spare gig tickets if some of his mates can't make it on the day?
But the "Don't Talk To The Police" video is saying "Don't Talk To The Police If You Don't Have To". Once the police arrest you, and read you your rights you're already in the frame. A lot of what the video says is if you talk to the cops it may well put you in the frame, so keep it zipped!
It is an interesting video and well worth a watch. The most interesting/funny part for me was the detective chap talking about interviewing suspects and the suspects thinking they're "all that" and can easily pull the wool over the eyes of the cop who's been interviewing people for 20+ years!
Let's look at the nasty assassination of the Hamas chap in the middle east. A bunch of people got forged passports to gain entry to the country he was residing in, waltzed into the guy's hotel, off'ed him and strolled out. In and out of the country in a couple of hours, tops. Now had they wanted to it wouldn't have been too much of a stretch for them to pick up some 'genetic material' from the legitimate owners of the passports. Break in to their houses and take some hair from hair brushes, get finger prints from glasses in the pub, etc, etc. Now we could _totally_ frame the legitimate owners of the passports and create enough doubt so if the actual miscreants ever come to court they can obfuscate the case sufficiently to walk free... obviously in this case they didn't want or need to drop the actual passport owners in the crap 'cos all they wanted to do was off the geezer and get out of the country, but if yer a burglar you should totally rummage through bins for old hair and the like and drop it like confetti whenever yer on the job!
A. They never happened! That's what they have in common, they have all been concocted by scientists with an agenda to undermine scripture.
And for all those who think that this earthquake wasn't caused by Man... well it was! Fornication, homosexuality, feminism, democracy, drug-taking, violent video games, on-line porn, science, charity, freedom of speech, blashpemy, etc. etc. all these evils will not go unpunished!
Cool... so how does this work then? Do we just pick our favourite 5 or something? OK... give me a fornication, drug-taking, on-line porn, with a side of violent video games, and good God why not, throw in some blasphemy!
Meh, those are private establishments that have their own rules. If you don't like it, don't give them money when you're the age they will accept money from you.
Of course, by the time you're old enough to be able to rent it you don't want loads of screaming kids partying all night and keeping you awake so it's an ideal place!
I also don't believe anyone has the political solution to the tradgedy of the commons.
Unfortunately, almost all our political systems are based around far too short a time-frame for anything in the 15 to 40 year planning range to be considered good busines.
I have it on good authority that back in the day the political elite were in it for the common good (because they tended to be the already well off and didn't otherwise need regular income from their political lives). This is no longer the case for the most of us, which is good in many many ways, but now it would seem that the overriding driver for our political masters (notice, elite is now masters, and who could have seen that coming with all the social reform eh!) is to do whatever it takes to get re-elected to the gravy train.
Now which grasping 4 year politico is going to sign their own death warrant by raising taxes, etc, to fix something that's only going to start being a real problem for their successors!
Honestly, we're doomed! DOOMED I TELLS YA, DOOOOOOMED!
... that moon base is starting to look like a better idea every day!
Er, yes, ok. Thanks. The parent to my post was talking about "doubt" when he said:
"... people always keep claiming 'there is no doubt about it' right after someone expresses doubt about it... "
That's why I posted the "... likely cause... links as I thought that had some relevance, doubt-wise to his comment.
FWIW, I'm pretty happy with the concept that the world is warming. I don't even discount the idea that it's the Human Plague that's (at least partially) involved. What I do find annoying is scientists saying they "know" (ie for sure) when, as I understand it, they can't know they can only guess within a certain probability.
I'd have far more respect for the claims if they were honest - eg we're 95% confident that CO2 levels are raising the temperature, we're 70% sure that humans are a contributory factor in the CO2 rise...
FWIW, I'm also pretty happy with the idea that humans should be looking into ways of combating climate change whether it's because of us or not!
If you're on a boat that's sinking do you argue dusk 'till dawn about whether it's filling up with rain or leaking, or do you just bail? You start bailing, and look for the cause.
I'd say we're still looking for the cause w.r.t. GW, and we haven't really started bailing yet!
There's no point putting up a tarpaulin if the boat is leaking, or patching the hull if it's raining, and if we're still arguing the toss over rain vs leak when the boat sinks we're going to be the laughing stock of the Universe - "Earth(Sol3) nominated for Darwin Award Gold Star".
IMHO It makes sense to start bailing as soon as you see the first water in the boat, then look about to see what the cause is. And remember we don't have the option of 'swimming' if the boat goes under!
I don't want to be more cynical than necessary but stories like this are simply deliberate leaks from Congress to stimulate contributions from both sides of an issue....
I can understand people lobbying to make it legal but who the hell is throwing money at Congress trying to keep it illegal, and why?
The pro-internet gambling side have an obvious 'side' here. If it becomes legal they are likely to make more money. Simples.
The anti-internet gambling folks though... what do they gain? What's in it for them?
Are they also making money out of it, 'cos that then sounds like some sort of Congress sponsored protection racket... No Thanks!
Are they agin it for some other reason? Morally opposed perhaps, 'cos that's none of your damn business... No Thank You Very Much!!
So, who's funding the anti-internet gambling side and WHY?
It's similar to saying that every person would be able to control what they're eating, if everything were printed on the label. However, as we already see today, you can put processed crap into food, put it on the label, and people will still buy and eat it, if it's cheap.
So why don't the Gov ban unhealthy foods then? Could it be that there's no money in it for them? If they were serious about trying to protect the population from their own stupidity they'd do it. And make tobacco illegal. etc.
All the (US) Gov has to do is specify a bunch of rules for any US citizen signing up to some online gambling site: A welcome page that explains the rules and shows the percentages (eg for slot/fruit machines, black jack, etc) and perhaps even a cooling off period - you'll get your login info in 24 hrs which will allow you to watch games, then a further 24hrs before you can actually play, but with some limit to bets that could maybe increase as you remain a member.
Really, after that if you still gamble away your house it's your own fault!
Actually, what's the likelihood of a numb-nuts like that having a damn house in the first place?
Really, it's all about money. Money money money. All that's required is some way to guarantee the US Gov a slice of the action...
One of the problems with overseas casinos is lack of oversight. With no oversight, there's a very good chance that the casino you are logged into will cheat...
LOL, yer that's right. The only way casinos can make money is by cheating... er, have you ever been to Vegas?
Slashdot Mirror
so when 26 species of animals (articulated [intact]), some natural predator/prey, all die in mud in a cave (articulated [intact]), and a Flood is never mentioned, is that theory changing or acting as a filter?
That's it. That's the proof I have been looking for all my life and I've finally seen the light. Oh Lord how could I have been so blind. An anonymous disciple has wiped the caked on mud of scientific evidence from my eyes and now I can finally see! All floods are caused by God and any flood of any reasonable size is proof of the biblical/global flood, and they are obviously to punish the unbelievers, er, and some undisclosed group of animals in some cave somewhere or other ...
No ... wait ... what's that smell ... is it goats? Maybe it's pigs ... no definitely cattle of some sort ...
Look at the quantum level, but try not to think about it or you'll go blind.
Dude! This is Slashdot so I'd say thinking about the quantum level is the least likely cause of blindness amongst our readers!
The Lords hasn't had the power to block legislation for a about a hundred years. The most that they can do is delay it. A shame, because they're generally more rational that the House of think-of-the-children-and-terrorists-OMG-ponies Commons.
Indeed. Historically the Lords have a very different view on The World than those in the commons because they tended to be wealthy landed gentry. I won't say they didn't have their problems but it tended to be more difficult to buy them off 'cos they already had more money than they knew what to do with.
Labour have been trying to change this, and on the face of it an "unelected house" does seem rather odd in this day and age, but if they were elected wouldn't they just be a carbon copy of the commons, and therefore not such a good check or balance on what the muppets in the commons are up to!
The old adage of "If it ain't broke don't fix it springs to mind!
Easy peasy ... pull up outside their houses and crack their wireless before downloading Britney's latest single ... then dob 'em in to the Internet Police!
Job done!
How many UK citizens have enough money to even reach European courts after being disconnected?
I can see it now, the 'phone message saying "if you're having trouble getting through to the European Court of Human Rights please try using our website ..."
Every time my Virgin broadband dies and I call 'em up I have to sit through a message like that and you have no idea how annoying it is! "Right, let's get you some help" ... oh please make it stop!
... "oiling a few door hinges" ...
Well if there's any oiling to be done then Lord Mandlemort/Voldeson is the man for the job!
If any fellow Anonymous in Germany feel like telling the German government why they should not consider Scientology a religion, then please be my guest. Be clear, make yourself heard. "Ich bin Anonymous!"
Looking at this problem from the other side, if we're against Scientology getting tax breaks and whatnot because they reckon they're a religion why don't we revisit the tax (et al) perks for ALL religions?
Why do religions get tax perks? Why the special status?
OK, so _some_ religions do charitable works. That's fine. The "Charitable Works" parts of religions can have some tax breaks because other charities have tax breaks. But a lot of what "religions" do is far more akin to just being a business and they damn well should be taxed on it!
Ask yourself, "If they charged me less, who would benefit?"
Now find some way to make "the hospital" part of that answer.
Pretty hard, isn't it?
Somewhat disingenuous, but I can fix that for you ...
Ask yourself, "If they could charge me less, who would benefit?" Now find some way to make "the hospital would be no worse off" part of that answer.
A few individuals are unlucky enough to have medical procedures go wrong and sue the hospitals/doctors/anyone and get large settlements. ...:
The hospitals/doctors/everyone has to pay large premiums to the insurance companies and therefore have to put their prices up accordingly.
So actually you had it the wrong way around
If the hospitals could spend more of their money on providing health care and less on insuring against court cases they could offer better and cheaper services!
There is a HUGE amount of overhead in US health care starting with a massive markup on medicine which isn't seen elsewhere and ending with the support of a lot of middlemen. It doesn't matter if it's private or public - what matters is removing the leeches and profiteers from the system and turning it back into medicine instead of a protection racket pretending to be insurance and hospitals where care is an afterthought. The doctors are not the ones getting rich and if you want to see a nurse laugh ask them if they are rich. I doubt that the same amount of care elsewhere with the same treatments under a public system would have cost the taxpayer anywhere near one fifth of that. Remember folks, it's still a drain on the economy even if rich sick people are the ones getting ripped off instead of the taxpayer - it still hurts everyone to an extent.
My Dad was a doctor - a GP - in the UK and back in the 80's I remember him telling me about "medical insurance" for Drs, in case you get sued. He told me that Drs in the US paid more in insurance premiums than he earned per year! Who's benefiting from that and who's paying the cost!
This isn't an issue when people pay for themselves.
No indeed! Screw the poor people who are ill - hell, let's screw all the poor people anyway! We could probably get a posse together and drive those low-life middle income people out of town too!
Oddly, we pay less for our Social Healthcare in the UK than those who can pay pay in the US for their private health care, and this includes the safety net for the poorer people in the UK who are otherwise unprovided for in the US. I'm not saying the NHS is perfect (or actually that it even could be perfect) but it sure as hell beats the alternative!
yes, but GP was talking about cancer. Is any joke appropriate?
Do what now? Are you saying there's some law forbidding jokes about cancer? Are there any other diseases on that list or are safe to joke about menstrual cramps, MS (the disease not the software company ... actually on this w/s that doesn't necessarily disambiguate!), D&V?
I used to wonder whether doctors should have a "Fuck me! Cancer" form they could just sign and hand to patients instead of all that hand wringing sad face crap!
We'd learn to dread the doctor pressing the intercom button and saying "Nurse, could you get me the FMC pad please".
IMHO laughing at cancer is the way forward. We should do all we can to diminish the general conception that cancer is a death sentence. Obviously, some cancers are bad - REALLY BAD - but a lot aren't, and something's got to get us in the end. There may even be some mileage in the perception that "being happy" is better for you than "being sad" so what better medicine than a book of cancer jokes, to be taken twice a day before meals.
People need to talk about this, and we need to reach a consensus to where the line is.
Actually, first we need to agree that there is, and has to be, a line!
No health care setup can be fully funded, whether private or public, as there will always come a time when someone needs something new and leading edge and they tend to be expensive. Not that money can always be thrown at the problem - I remember feeling particularly sorry for Paul McCartney when Linda died because I think I would have been looking for any and all treatments regardless of cost ... and yet she died!
So assuming we can agree that any health system has a budget we need people to administer that budget and that involves wieghing up the relative merits of treatment A for one (very sick) person vs treatment B for several (not so sick) people: eg Heart Swap vs Hip Replacement.
The people making those decisions HAVE to be cold and calculating about it. This means none of the (now normal!) "how does it feel" style reporting we're now too often saddled with by lazy reporters. The argument of "what if it was your father" is a ridiculous argument - of course you want the best for you and yours but that isn't necessarily the best for 'society' - in much the same way with kidnapping/hostages. As an individual I would say pay them what they ask for to buy my freedom, but as part of 'society' I would say you should NOT pay for my release because I recognise that paying them off encourages more kidnappings!
Maybe he gets to bone supermodels.
Strewth, they're all skin and bone anyway! If you took away the bones I guess they'd be a bit more comfortable to lie on, but it's really not going to help their self esteem problems now is it!
... but that puts 600,000,000 Metric Tons of water at 240,000 Olympic swimming pools worth =D
OK, so that's by far and away NOT an inexhaustible supply then!
Using it for basic 'living' needs ought to be all fine and dandy (ie O2, drinkies, plants, washing, sports) assuming we can sensibly recycle the stuff, and AFAIK we're already OK at that (see ISS). Indeed, that much water should support a pretty sizeable colony.
Using it as 'propellant' might not be so sensible though, as it will dwindle PDQ!
But isn't it similar to the success spammers have with spamming? If no one answered the spam emails they'd go out of business, and it's the same with the scalpers ... if you simply don't buy off them they will also go out of business!
That said, I don't see what's wrong with it and how you can make general scalping illegal and yet still permit Joe Schmo to sell a couple of spare gig tickets if some of his mates can't make it on the day?
It is an interesting video and well worth a watch. The most interesting/funny part for me was the detective chap talking about interviewing suspects and the suspects thinking they're "all that" and can easily pull the wool over the eyes of the cop who's been interviewing people for 20+ years!
Let's look at the nasty assassination of the Hamas chap in the middle east. A bunch of people got forged passports to gain entry to the country he was residing in, waltzed into the guy's hotel, off'ed him and strolled out. In and out of the country in a couple of hours, tops. Now had they wanted to it wouldn't have been too much of a stretch for them to pick up some 'genetic material' from the legitimate owners of the passports. Break in to their houses and take some hair from hair brushes, get finger prints from glasses in the pub, etc, etc. Now we could _totally_ frame the legitimate owners of the passports and create enough doubt so if the actual miscreants ever come to court they can obfuscate the case sufficiently to walk free ... obviously in this case they didn't want or need to drop the actual passport owners in the crap 'cos all they wanted to do was off the geezer and get out of the country, but if yer a burglar you should totally rummage through bins for old hair and the like and drop it like confetti whenever yer on the job!
Q. What do all ice ages have in common?
A. They never happened! That's what they have in common, they have all been concocted by scientists with an agenda to undermine scripture.
And for all those who think that this earthquake wasn't caused by Man ... well it was! Fornication, homosexuality, feminism, democracy, drug-taking, violent video games, on-line porn, science, charity, freedom of speech, blashpemy, etc. etc. all these evils will not go unpunished!
Cool ... so how does this work then? Do we just pick our favourite 5 or something? OK ... give me a fornication, drug-taking, on-line porn, with a side of violent video games, and good God why not, throw in some blasphemy!
Meh, those are private establishments that have their own rules. If you don't like it, don't give them money when you're the age they will accept money from you.
Of course, by the time you're old enough to be able to rent it you don't want loads of screaming kids partying all night and keeping you awake so it's an ideal place!
Bah Humbug!
Unfortunately, almost all our political systems are based around far too short a time-frame for anything in the 15 to 40 year planning range to be considered good busines.
I have it on good authority that back in the day the political elite were in it for the common good (because they tended to be the already well off and didn't otherwise need regular income from their political lives). This is no longer the case for the most of us, which is good in many many ways, but now it would seem that the overriding driver for our political masters (notice, elite is now masters, and who could have seen that coming with all the social reform eh!) is to do whatever it takes to get re-elected to the gravy train.
Now which grasping 4 year politico is going to sign their own death warrant by raising taxes, etc, to fix something that's only going to start being a real problem for their successors!
Honestly, we're doomed! DOOMED I TELLS YA, DOOOOOOMED!
"... people always keep claiming 'there is no doubt about it' right after someone expresses doubt about it
That's why I posted the "... likely cause
FWIW, I'm pretty happy with the concept that the world is warming. I don't even discount the idea that it's the Human Plague that's (at least partially) involved. What I do find annoying is scientists saying they "know" (ie for sure) when, as I understand it, they can't know they can only guess within a certain probability. ...
I'd have far more respect for the claims if they were honest - eg we're 95% confident that CO2 levels are raising the temperature, we're 70% sure that humans are a contributory factor in the CO2 rise
FWIW, I'm also pretty happy with the idea that humans should be looking into ways of combating climate change whether it's because of us or not!
If you're on a boat that's sinking do you argue dusk 'till dawn about whether it's filling up with rain or leaking, or do you just bail? You start bailing, and look for the cause.
I'd say we're still looking for the cause w.r.t. GW, and we haven't really started bailing yet!
There's no point putting up a tarpaulin if the boat is leaking, or patching the hull if it's raining, and if we're still arguing the toss over rain vs leak when the boat sinks we're going to be the laughing stock of the Universe - "Earth(Sol3) nominated for Darwin Award Gold Star".
IMHO It makes sense to start bailing as soon as you see the first water in the boat, then look about to see what the cause is. And remember we don't have the option of 'swimming' if the boat goes under!
How Can I Be Sure: Aren’t all these changes down to the Sun and natural factors?
Where they say "We now know that man-made CO2 is the likely cause of most of the warming over the last 50 years." (my emphasis).
Surely you either know it IS the cause, or you're some percentage or other sure it's the likely cause.
Still, as long as we _know_ it's probably the cause eh!
I don't want to be more cynical than necessary but stories like this are simply deliberate leaks from Congress to stimulate contributions from both sides of an issue. ...
I can understand people lobbying to make it legal but who the hell is throwing money at Congress trying to keep it illegal, and why? ... what do they gain? What's in it for them? ... No Thanks! ... No Thank You Very Much!!
The pro-internet gambling side have an obvious 'side' here. If it becomes legal they are likely to make more money. Simples.
The anti-internet gambling folks though
Are they also making money out of it, 'cos that then sounds like some sort of Congress sponsored protection racket
Are they agin it for some other reason? Morally opposed perhaps, 'cos that's none of your damn business
So, who's funding the anti-internet gambling side and WHY?
It's similar to saying that every person would be able to control what they're eating, if everything were printed on the label. However, as we already see today, you can put processed crap into food, put it on the label, and people will still buy and eat it, if it's cheap.
So why don't the Gov ban unhealthy foods then? Could it be that there's no money in it for them? If they were serious about trying to protect the population from their own stupidity they'd do it. And make tobacco illegal. etc.
All the (US) Gov has to do is specify a bunch of rules for any US citizen signing up to some online gambling site: A welcome page that explains the rules and shows the percentages (eg for slot/fruit machines, black jack, etc) and perhaps even a cooling off period - you'll get your login info in 24 hrs which will allow you to watch games, then a further 24hrs before you can actually play, but with some limit to bets that could maybe increase as you remain a member.
Really, after that if you still gamble away your house it's your own fault!
Actually, what's the likelihood of a numb-nuts like that having a damn house in the first place?
Really, it's all about money. Money money money. All that's required is some way to guarantee the US Gov a slice of the action ...
One of the problems with overseas casinos is lack of oversight. With no oversight, there's a very good chance that the casino you are logged into will cheat ...
LOL, yer that's right. The only way casinos can make money is by cheating ... er, have you ever been to Vegas?
lmfao!