Probably stating the obvious here but that's the whole point of a food riot. Starving people don't have the energy to riot, a riot occurs when hungry people refuse to pay extortionist prices and choose to raid the hoarders instead.
Yes, Russia, the US, and Australia, (ie: the world's major grain belts) have all suffered from severe drought over the last decade, Australia and the US also suffered from severe floods. These "once in a 100yr" events are awfully common over the last 10yrs or so, which is about how long insurance companies have been working the effects of AGW into your bill. Corn for fuel is a very minor influenece in the price fluctiations seen for grain over the last decade, the price fluctuations follow the global harvests, unusually bad weather has caused a string of poor global harvests over the last 10yrs or so, particularly for wheat and corn.
but whether or not you believe he said it, a number of people do
I'm no Greenspan fan but what you linked to is called hearsay, not evidence. It's kinda silly to believe either person, it's a "he said, she said" argument, there is not enough evidence for a rational judgement of the claim. It's even possible that both of them are being honest since they could have simply misunderstood/misheard each other.
If you are fond of what roman_mir says and want more of it
Please don't insert words into my mouth, it belittles us both. I've verbally wrestled with roman and his socks about politics many times, and the posts you describe have a valid reason to be modded OT/troll. My point is that there is no valid reason to down mod the post in question, it's on topic and interesting. However given it's roman (and his reputation), the invalid down mod is almost certainly intended as a personal attack on him, not his post. I'm not sticking up for roman, I'm sticking up for the ideal that everyone (including roman) deserves a "fair go".
Unfortunately, with roman_mir, that statement is incorrect.
I reserve the word evil for very special people in history, other than that all men are afflicted with the same humanity, even Hitler loved his nieces and nephews. If you want a bit of insight into why he thinks the way he does, just ask him to describe where (and when) he grew up. He's actually unaware that he is doing exactly what he has spent his life trying to avoid - being a propaganda tool for the upper class.
I cannot help feeling a little sorry for someone who believes what feels good rather than what is true, for a start they must be in a constant state of confusion. I don't want roman to go away just because he's annoying, I want him to think about Pravda vs Fox, wake up to what's going on, and get angry at the people who are using him. I don't imagine it will happen any day soon, he's an old fart like me, telling him he's been "doing it wrong" all his life isn't going to work, he has to decide to direct that "passion" toward self-skepticisim, and figure it out himself. Being a "feels good" kind of decision maker that is very unlikely. I'm not a fan of lost causes so consequently I rarely reply to his posts these days, when I have mod points I know I can save a point by letting others knock him down to -1. This particular post caught my attention because I believe the moderation is vindictive rather than indicative, it grossly offended one of the very few principles I have, "the golden rule".
Anyway his sane post is now at +5 interesting and his insane ones are still in the toilet, maybe he will catch on with appropriate reward and punishment, who knows?
No, your 100 member example is flawed because there are two houses of parliament not one, the power to pass legislation is never just up to one individual because a single individual can't take a seat in both houses.
First past the post eliminates the fringe from the process.
You say that as if mob rule is a good thing? Also preferences only come into play if nobody can reach the post, if you get past the 50% post all by yourself then any preference dealing by your opponents is moot.
The reality is that independents can do jack shit by themselves, they have to choose between what the the two major parties/coalitions are offering. Sure some horse-trading occurs but the larger party definitely has the upper hand in negotiations, parliament is not at the mercy of a few nuts even though those nuts can throw a spanner in either parties plans by siding with their opponents, they cannot -do- anything by themselves except make a lot of noise while picking a side. It does however mean that some people you don't like will have a voice in government, I personally can't stand right wing Christian ideology, I see it as the antithesis of the golden rule, but they do represent about 2-5% of the population in Oz and therefore their opinions and concerns should be heard (and fought against) in parliament.
A prime example of how this works in practice is the proposed "great firewall of Oz" which at the time I predicted would end with a wimper (as it has). All that noise was an attempt by the labor party to woo a single right wing Christian senator who (occasionally) held the balance of power a few years back ("Mr 2%" was his nickname, I'll let you google why:). It worked quite well, he voted with Labor on most of their "big ticket" reforms during that term. Labor's "feasibility study" for the great firewall ended when the web site of the independent senator's main financial supporters (an anti-abortion group) turned up on the government's "leaked" blacklist as a propaganda site containing disturbing images.
So as you can see, in such a system a smart politician is willing to take a hit in the polls if it means he can neuter a nut case until he is thrown out in the next election, in fact both major parties see such an situation as undesirable and often appear to collude against independents in a "good cop, bad cop" kind of way. It may be a torturous route to enlightenment about the true meaning of the golden rule, but I think that the right wing Christians got a very valuable lesson in the dangers of state sponsored censorship when they saw their friends appear on a the blacklist they had demanded.
If you go back into the history of internet censorship in Oz the first thing you will notice is that it has been around for nearly 20years now (coincidentally about the same amount of time joe average has been downloading porn). Both major parties have vigorously supported and attacked the idea at various times that just happen to coincide with one nut job senator or another demanding "something must be done". Any sane Aussie that's being paying attention knows it's just political theater, they know from their track record that the 2 major parties strongly support free speech. This, more than apathy, is the reason most Aussie's don't seem to care about the "great firewall of Oz", we 'know' it's a political honey pot for politically naive senators, we "know" the inevitable outcome because we've seen it all before, and not just with this issue, we have the same theater around other issues such as "multiculturalism" (re:Howard and Hanson). It's almost SOP for a sitting government in Oz...
- cuddle up to the nutters to gain their vote.
- put up a half hearted bill that you know will be shot down in the senate.
- string them along for the rest of their (inevitably) single term with endless "feasibility studies" and reworking of the bill.
- just before the next election
If "government regulations" are the explaination for the poor performance of FB's IPO, then how do you explain the stellar performance of Google's IPO? - Seriously, can you explain that without resorting to conspiracy theories?.
You sound like someone who's invested a lot into an ideological argument without bothering to consider it's real value. - Anyone with half a brain knew FB were shares were overhyped, loosing money on that does not mean you are a "victim", the world does not owe you a living, you bought into the hype, you pay for it.
So do they both get a vote in congress or is the seat's vote split in half? If it's split wouldn't the two half votes just cancel each other out? If you want more variety in your political parties then implement preferential voting (re: Australian system). No single party has the numbers to form government right now in Oz. The current Oz government is a coalition between Labor, Greens and several independents, the opposition is a coalition between the Liberal and National parties. The independents were in an extremely powerful position after the last election, both sides were courting them heavily because neither side could form government without them.
The tie breaker is court, here in Australia we use similar manual counting methods, we often get close races but rarely do they go to court, they usually just recount several times until the loser does the honorable thing and gives up his claim. Most electorates are counted and decided on the day of the election, some linger on for weeks with recounts. There's a limit to the recounts that seems to be determined by the electoral commission's patience (?), at that point the loser can turn to the courts (similar to what Gore did in 2000) who will enforce the same counting rules as the electoral commission (similar to what the SC did in 2000). The courts in Oz do have the power to order a fresh election if a decision cannot be reached, the Queen can also order fresh national elections in the rare cases where nobody can form government, or the senate repeatedly blocks supply (a double dissolution).
Writing a quality encyclopedia article is hard work and harder than it looks. It can be a learned skill acquired by participating on Wikipedia and learning from "the school of hard knocks", but it does take time and effort.
Agreed, and any article of a biographical/religious/political nature is going to be particularly contentious. I've never written a WP article, but I do have the common decency to appreciate those who have. The fact that this issue was promptly sorted out with a simple letter should be a strong reason to respect WP, not pull it down.
How long will it take China to start taking their environment seriously?
China's environmental record is similar to the US in that it is full of contradictions. Look up the Loose (sic?) plateau in NW China, it's an area the size of France that 20yrs ago looked like an Afghan desert and today is one of the world's largest apple producing regions, goats are now fenced in, the hills now have trees and wild life, the land has stopped eroding away faster than anywhere else on earth, locals were given land to farm in exchange for caring for it in the prescribed manner, and the average income of the locals has quadrupled (after taking inflation into account). The entire thing cost $500M and was done with hand tools using local labor. However these were all secondary aims of the project, the primary aim of the project was to stop silt filling up the three gorges dam.;)
Probably his reputation. To some people mod points are a weapon to use on their "foes", I don't agree with roman_mir 99.9% of the time he opens his mouth about politics, but there is always a lot more to a person than their political opinions. Down modding his interesting and on-topic post above is just petty vindictiveness from someone he has offended in the past. Slashdot really isn't that much different to a village in the dark ages, some people get noticed more because of what they regularly talk about. If you're one of these people, (as roman is), and your opinions are unpopular with the wrong people, they will try and hound you out of "their" village. Meta-moderation is intended to smooth this out but it usually doesn't happen until after the post has gone cold.
My wife is a physical oceanographer and her first reaction when she heard about this is that it was some kind of phytoplankton bloom
That's what I was thinking, it's the right time of year and they are not uncommon in China (recall the massive bloom they were cleaning up around the time of the Olympics).
I remember altavista, I'm even old enough to have a kid who ran a BBS in the late 80's. I also remember that google had a superior search engine with superior results. Searching for code and tutorials is a snap compared to when I did my CS degree, just about every developer I know uses the net on a daily basis to answer obscure questions. In my long,long, experience I get two types of result list, the type of list you complain about is indicative of a question where nobody knows the answer (or a malware infection). The more common result list is a treasure trove of useful information. If you do this often enough you can become pretty adept at picking which results are useful (like a seagull learns to pick out edible bits at the tip).
I suspect what you are experiencing is nostalgia for the feeling of discovery that comes with youth. Doesn't have to be that way, my dad is an 80yo retired engineer and recently "discovered" python, it's kept him entertained for the last six months.
Tip: You can restrict domains in google with "site:", say if your interested in zombies and wanted to restrict results to Australian universities; zoblies site:.edu.au,...well...you'll probably be bitterly disappointed at the paucity of Aussie research into zombies, but you get the idea.
Some things in Physics are "magical", or "miraculous" if you prefer. The most obvious are the fundamental forces, space, and time. Currently Physics gives us a very useful description of how these things behave and interact, but it is more or less clueless as to why they exist in the first place.
The IPCC actually categorize their assertions with different confidence ratings, of the major influences on climate, aerosols, clouds, and ice disintegration are the least understood. For instance the heat absorbed by soot in the atmosphere usually ends up in the ocean when it falls out of suspension.
If we are talking since 1900, none of it according to the best models, if anything the globe would have very slightly cooled. The official IPCC position is more conservative and simply states that "most" of the observed warming is due to our activity (it's the second point in the much maligned 3 point scientific consensus)
rant/
A good place to start looking for more detailed answers on sun cycles and volcanos is here, and the youtube channel "climate crock of the week" is also a good place to visit for quality investigative journalism on the subject, (warning it includes strong British sarcasm). But for god's sake don't take my word for it, trusting a single source in the minefield of disinformation on climate science is quite likely to be fatal to your understanding of the issue. WP (or any other reputable encyclopedia) is also a good place to start, and it's hard to go past realclimate.org, it's run by Michael Mann (the hockey stick guy) and features articles and commentary by some of the world's leading climatologists. sourcewatch.org also has an extensive database of front groups, shills and lobbyists who publish climate misinformation, making it relatively simple for a genuine skeptic to work out who is bullshitting them and why. Make no mistake, if your interested in truth these "lobbyists" are your enemy, they will attempt to recruit you into the dwindling ranks of their army of useful idiots they have extensive propoganda experience that has been refined since the days the same people were paid to disrcedit medical science that said smoking causes cancer, somewhat surprisingly such expertise is cheap, (as well as fucking nasty).
/rant
Disclaimer: Unlike the so called "climate change skeptics" I want you to be skeptical of what I say and who I recommend. I've been following the science as an interested layman now for 30yrs, I want you to constructively attack the evidence I'm leaning on because (as a grandfather of three) the issue is way too important to allow the mediocrity you speak of in your sig to waste time and sow doubt amongst the uninformed.
A final bit of good faith advice (Aussie style) - Do you fucking homework mate, your ignorance.is your enemy's most effective weapon.
Yep, despite what the psuedo-skeptics would have you believe the IPCC is actually very conservative with it's claims. Which is precisely what you would expect when trying to get a large number of experts to agree on a statement. Another point to note is that not a single one of the 2-3,000 scientists get a dime for their work from the IPCC. The organization has $5-6 million budget which comes from donations by over 120 different nations representing ALL the colours of the political rainbow. Most of that is spent on airfares and conference rooms and the accounts are available for inspection on their web site.
The incredibly robust review process of the IPCC should be held up as an outstanding example of how science should inform policy. The partially successful assassination of it's character by Luddites in the coal industry should be held up as an outstanding example of how easy it is convince people to work against their own best interest with nothing more than cheap, transparent, propaganda.
If they remove content that was already there, that is censorship. You might believe it's perfectly acceptable for them to do, but it's still censorship.
No it's not! You have no more right to force others to publish what you like, than you have to stop others from publishing what you don't like. Censorship is something imposed by the authorities (ie: government, or in the case of a theocracy the church). Private entities can be said to "self-censor" but that is an entirely different thing, and yes, as a legal principle self-censorship is a perfectly acceptable concept because it keeps government out of the bussiness of policing what people choose to, (or choose not to), publish.
We've had UHC here in Oz since the 70's, I'm old enough to remeber the old system and the political arguments of the day. Over those 40 years it has become a bipartisan issue, political attacks on it still occur but they are usually about implementation, not so much about ideology. Basically it has become political suicide to fuck with the basic principles of our system, do it and it will cost you 80+% of voters.
Ideologically speaking it's a pretty good balance...
Capitalism: There are still plenty of millionaire doctors, successful drug and health insurance companies, world class hospitals both public and private, private clinics, research centers, etc, in Oz.
Socialism: My blue collar daughter (mother of three) is due to have surgery to remove scar tissue on her sciatic nerve by a world renown neurosurgeon in December, meanwhile they are monitoring her condition with regular MRI's and supplying her with effective pain management. She needs a specialist and she's got one of the best, not because of her wallet, because of her condition. No amount of money/insurance will (legally) allow her to move up the waiting list and her illness will not mortally wound their modest family budget.
Here in Australia a single breadwinner family of four earning $100K/yr pays a $1500/yr UHC levy, that's about 1/10th of what a US family pays for similar private cover to get inferior care (statistically: our hospitals would have to kill an extra 20k people a year to reach the US level of care). This is despite the fact that the US taxpayer is already "FORCED" to spend as much on health care as an Australian taxpayer. ie: the two governments have an almost identical per capita spend on public health. A separate scheme (PBS) been operating since the 1950's, it caps prescription drug costs to (IIRC) $1200/yr for a family. Our government actually wants people to use the cheaper generic brand drugs, they also want people to avoid become ill in the first place and spend a portion of the UHC budget on preventative measures such as public awareness campaigns and mass screenings.
A cheap, effective, and humane system for ALL is what you get when HEALTH is a bipartisan issue rather than a milk cow for politically well connected corporations. See the difference? Probably not, your head is buried in your ideological buttocks..
Slashdot Mirror
we can raid your basement for food
Probably stating the obvious here but that's the whole point of a food riot. Starving people don't have the energy to riot, a riot occurs when hungry people refuse to pay extortionist prices and choose to raid the hoarders instead.
then there's something else going on.
Yes, Russia, the US, and Australia, (ie: the world's major grain belts) have all suffered from severe drought over the last decade, Australia and the US also suffered from severe floods. These "once in a 100yr" events are awfully common over the last 10yrs or so, which is about how long insurance companies have been working the effects of AGW into your bill. Corn for fuel is a very minor influenece in the price fluctiations seen for grain over the last decade, the price fluctuations follow the global harvests, unusually bad weather has caused a string of poor global harvests over the last 10yrs or so, particularly for wheat and corn.
but whether or not you believe he said it, a number of people do
I'm no Greenspan fan but what you linked to is called hearsay, not evidence. It's kinda silly to believe either person, it's a "he said, she said" argument, there is not enough evidence for a rational judgement of the claim. It's even possible that both of them are being honest since they could have simply misunderstood/misheard each other.
If you are fond of what roman_mir says and want more of it
Please don't insert words into my mouth, it belittles us both. I've verbally wrestled with roman and his socks about politics many times, and the posts you describe have a valid reason to be modded OT/troll. My point is that there is no valid reason to down mod the post in question, it's on topic and interesting. However given it's roman (and his reputation), the invalid down mod is almost certainly intended as a personal attack on him, not his post. I'm not sticking up for roman, I'm sticking up for the ideal that everyone (including roman) deserves a "fair go".
Unfortunately, with roman_mir, that statement is incorrect.
I reserve the word evil for very special people in history, other than that all men are afflicted with the same humanity, even Hitler loved his nieces and nephews. If you want a bit of insight into why he thinks the way he does, just ask him to describe where (and when) he grew up. He's actually unaware that he is doing exactly what he has spent his life trying to avoid - being a propaganda tool for the upper class.
I cannot help feeling a little sorry for someone who believes what feels good rather than what is true, for a start they must be in a constant state of confusion. I don't want roman to go away just because he's annoying, I want him to think about Pravda vs Fox, wake up to what's going on, and get angry at the people who are using him. I don't imagine it will happen any day soon, he's an old fart like me, telling him he's been "doing it wrong" all his life isn't going to work, he has to decide to direct that "passion" toward self-skepticisim, and figure it out himself. Being a "feels good" kind of decision maker that is very unlikely. I'm not a fan of lost causes so consequently I rarely reply to his posts these days, when I have mod points I know I can save a point by letting others knock him down to -1. This particular post caught my attention because I believe the moderation is vindictive rather than indicative, it grossly offended one of the very few principles I have, "the golden rule".
Anyway his sane post is now at +5 interesting and his insane ones are still in the toilet, maybe he will catch on with appropriate reward and punishment, who knows?
they can pass whatever they want either way
No, your 100 member example is flawed because there are two houses of parliament not one, the power to pass legislation is never just up to one individual because a single individual can't take a seat in both houses.
First past the post eliminates the fringe from the process.
You say that as if mob rule is a good thing? Also preferences only come into play if nobody can reach the post, if you get past the 50% post all by yourself then any preference dealing by your opponents is moot.
:). It worked quite well, he voted with Labor on most of their "big ticket" reforms during that term. Labor's "feasibility study" for the great firewall ended when the web site of the independent senator's main financial supporters (an anti-abortion group) turned up on the government's "leaked" blacklist as a propaganda site containing disturbing images.
The reality is that independents can do jack shit by themselves, they have to choose between what the the two major parties/coalitions are offering. Sure some horse-trading occurs but the larger party definitely has the upper hand in negotiations, parliament is not at the mercy of a few nuts even though those nuts can throw a spanner in either parties plans by siding with their opponents, they cannot -do- anything by themselves except make a lot of noise while picking a side. It does however mean that some people you don't like will have a voice in government, I personally can't stand right wing Christian ideology, I see it as the antithesis of the golden rule, but they do represent about 2-5% of the population in Oz and therefore their opinions and concerns should be heard (and fought against) in parliament.
A prime example of how this works in practice is the proposed "great firewall of Oz" which at the time I predicted would end with a wimper (as it has). All that noise was an attempt by the labor party to woo a single right wing Christian senator who (occasionally) held the balance of power a few years back ("Mr 2%" was his nickname, I'll let you google why
So as you can see, in such a system a smart politician is willing to take a hit in the polls if it means he can neuter a nut case until he is thrown out in the next election, in fact both major parties see such an situation as undesirable and often appear to collude against independents in a "good cop, bad cop" kind of way. It may be a torturous route to enlightenment about the true meaning of the golden rule, but I think that the right wing Christians got a very valuable lesson in the dangers of state sponsored censorship when they saw their friends appear on a the blacklist they had demanded.
If you go back into the history of internet censorship in Oz the first thing you will notice is that it has been around for nearly 20years now (coincidentally about the same amount of time joe average has been downloading porn). Both major parties have vigorously supported and attacked the idea at various times that just happen to coincide with one nut job senator or another demanding "something must be done". Any sane Aussie that's being paying attention knows it's just political theater, they know from their track record that the 2 major parties strongly support free speech. This, more than apathy, is the reason most Aussie's don't seem to care about the "great firewall of Oz", we 'know' it's a political honey pot for politically naive senators, we "know" the inevitable outcome because we've seen it all before, and not just with this issue, we have the same theater around other issues such as "multiculturalism" (re:Howard and Hanson). It's almost SOP for a sitting government in Oz...
- cuddle up to the nutters to gain their vote. - put up a half hearted bill that you know will be shot down in the senate. - string them along for the rest of their (inevitably) single term with endless "feasibility studies" and reworking of the bill. - just before the next election
If "government regulations" are the explaination for the poor performance of FB's IPO, then how do you explain the stellar performance of Google's IPO? - Seriously, can you explain that without resorting to conspiracy theories?.
You sound like someone who's invested a lot into an ideological argument without bothering to consider it's real value. - Anyone with half a brain knew FB were shares were overhyped, loosing money on that does not mean you are a "victim", the world does not owe you a living, you bought into the hype, you pay for it.
So do they both get a vote in congress or is the seat's vote split in half? If it's split wouldn't the two half votes just cancel each other out? If you want more variety in your political parties then implement preferential voting (re: Australian system). No single party has the numbers to form government right now in Oz. The current Oz government is a coalition between Labor, Greens and several independents, the opposition is a coalition between the Liberal and National parties. The independents were in an extremely powerful position after the last election, both sides were courting them heavily because neither side could form government without them.
The tie breaker is court, here in Australia we use similar manual counting methods, we often get close races but rarely do they go to court, they usually just recount several times until the loser does the honorable thing and gives up his claim. Most electorates are counted and decided on the day of the election, some linger on for weeks with recounts. There's a limit to the recounts that seems to be determined by the electoral commission's patience (?), at that point the loser can turn to the courts (similar to what Gore did in 2000) who will enforce the same counting rules as the electoral commission (similar to what the SC did in 2000). The courts in Oz do have the power to order a fresh election if a decision cannot be reached, the Queen can also order fresh national elections in the rare cases where nobody can form government, or the senate repeatedly blocks supply (a double dissolution).
Writing a quality encyclopedia article is hard work and harder than it looks. It can be a learned skill acquired by participating on Wikipedia and learning from "the school of hard knocks", but it does take time and effort.
Agreed, and any article of a biographical/religious/political nature is going to be particularly contentious. I've never written a WP article, but I do have the common decency to appreciate those who have. The fact that this issue was promptly sorted out with a simple letter should be a strong reason to respect WP, not pull it down.
In a sane world a Judge would realize it's impossible to defame Beck, the guy is already internationally infamous.
How long will it take China to start taking their environment seriously?
China's environmental record is similar to the US in that it is full of contradictions. Look up the Loose (sic?) plateau in NW China, it's an area the size of France that 20yrs ago looked like an Afghan desert and today is one of the world's largest apple producing regions, goats are now fenced in, the hills now have trees and wild life, the land has stopped eroding away faster than anywhere else on earth, locals were given land to farm in exchange for caring for it in the prescribed manner, and the average income of the locals has quadrupled (after taking inflation into account). The entire thing cost $500M and was done with hand tools using local labor. However these were all secondary aims of the project, the primary aim of the project was to stop silt filling up the three gorges dam. ;)
Is there a reason Roman is getting trounced?
Probably his reputation. To some people mod points are a weapon to use on their "foes", I don't agree with roman_mir 99.9% of the time he opens his mouth about politics, but there is always a lot more to a person than their political opinions. Down modding his interesting and on-topic post above is just petty vindictiveness from someone he has offended in the past. Slashdot really isn't that much different to a village in the dark ages, some people get noticed more because of what they regularly talk about. If you're one of these people, (as roman is), and your opinions are unpopular with the wrong people, they will try and hound you out of "their" village. Meta-moderation is intended to smooth this out but it usually doesn't happen until after the post has gone cold.
My wife is a physical oceanographer and her first reaction when she heard about this is that it was some kind of phytoplankton bloom
That's what I was thinking, it's the right time of year and they are not uncommon in China (recall the massive bloom they were cleaning up around the time of the Olympics).
I drove a taxi for three years, you are full of shit.
I remember altavista, I'm even old enough to have a kid who ran a BBS in the late 80's. I also remember that google had a superior search engine with superior results. Searching for code and tutorials is a snap compared to when I did my CS degree, just about every developer I know uses the net on a daily basis to answer obscure questions. In my long,long, experience I get two types of result list, the type of list you complain about is indicative of a question where nobody knows the answer (or a malware infection). The more common result list is a treasure trove of useful information. If you do this often enough you can become pretty adept at picking which results are useful (like a seagull learns to pick out edible bits at the tip).
...well...you'll probably be bitterly disappointed at the paucity of Aussie research into zombies, but you get the idea.
I suspect what you are experiencing is nostalgia for the feeling of discovery that comes with youth. Doesn't have to be that way, my dad is an 80yo retired engineer and recently "discovered" python, it's kept him entertained for the last six months.
Tip: You can restrict domains in google with "site:", say if your interested in zombies and wanted to restrict results to Australian universities; zoblies site:.edu.au,
Some things in Physics are "magical", or "miraculous" if you prefer. The most obvious are the fundamental forces, space, and time. Currently Physics gives us a very useful description of how these things behave and interact, but it is more or less clueless as to why they exist in the first place.
"Cupertino is a town 45 miles from San Francisco" - thanks, as an Aussie I had no idea where it was. ;)
The IPCC actually categorize their assertions with different confidence ratings, of the major influences on climate, aerosols, clouds, and ice disintegration are the least understood. For instance the heat absorbed by soot in the atmosphere usually ends up in the ocean when it falls out of suspension.
How much of it would have happened anyway?
If we are talking since 1900, none of it according to the best models, if anything the globe would have very slightly cooled. The official IPCC position is more conservative and simply states that "most" of the observed warming is due to our activity (it's the second point in the much maligned 3 point scientific consensus)
rant/
A good place to start looking for more detailed answers on sun cycles and volcanos is here, and the youtube channel "climate crock of the week" is also a good place to visit for quality investigative journalism on the subject, (warning it includes strong British sarcasm). But for god's sake don't take my word for it, trusting a single source in the minefield of disinformation on climate science is quite likely to be fatal to your understanding of the issue. WP (or any other reputable encyclopedia) is also a good place to start, and it's hard to go past realclimate.org, it's run by Michael Mann (the hockey stick guy) and features articles and commentary by some of the world's leading climatologists. sourcewatch.org also has an extensive database of front groups, shills and lobbyists who publish climate misinformation, making it relatively simple for a genuine skeptic to work out who is bullshitting them and why. Make no mistake, if your interested in truth these "lobbyists" are your enemy, they will attempt to recruit you into the dwindling ranks of their army of useful idiots they have extensive propoganda experience that has been refined since the days the same people were paid to disrcedit medical science that said smoking causes cancer, somewhat surprisingly such expertise is cheap, (as well as fucking nasty).
/rant
Disclaimer: Unlike the so called "climate change skeptics" I want you to be skeptical of what I say and who I recommend. I've been following the science as an interested layman now for 30yrs, I want you to constructively attack the evidence I'm leaning on because (as a grandfather of three) the issue is way too important to allow the mediocrity you speak of in your sig to waste time and sow doubt amongst the uninformed.
A final bit of good faith advice (Aussie style) - Do you fucking homework mate, your ignorance.is your enemy's most effective weapon.
Yep, despite what the psuedo-skeptics would have you believe the IPCC is actually very conservative with it's claims. Which is precisely what you would expect when trying to get a large number of experts to agree on a statement. Another point to note is that not a single one of the 2-3,000 scientists get a dime for their work from the IPCC. The organization has $5-6 million budget which comes from donations by over 120 different nations representing ALL the colours of the political rainbow. Most of that is spent on airfares and conference rooms and the accounts are available for inspection on their web site.
The incredibly robust review process of the IPCC should be held up as an outstanding example of how science should inform policy. The partially successful assassination of it's character by Luddites in the coal industry should be held up as an outstanding example of how easy it is convince people to work against their own best interest with nothing more than cheap, transparent, propaganda.
Ultimately it's the people's fault, IIRC the only thing that they were concerned about at the time was the presidential penis.
If they remove content that was already there, that is censorship. You might believe it's perfectly acceptable for them to do, but it's still censorship.
No it's not! You have no more right to force others to publish what you like, than you have to stop others from publishing what you don't like. Censorship is something imposed by the authorities (ie: government, or in the case of a theocracy the church). Private entities can be said to "self-censor" but that is an entirely different thing, and yes, as a legal principle self-censorship is a perfectly acceptable concept because it keeps government out of the bussiness of policing what people choose to, (or choose not to), publish.
You managed to land a car on mars ffs.
Good point, landing a hot dog stand can't be that much harder.
We've had UHC here in Oz since the 70's, I'm old enough to remeber the old system and the political arguments of the day. Over those 40 years it has become a bipartisan issue, political attacks on it still occur but they are usually about implementation, not so much about ideology. Basically it has become political suicide to fuck with the basic principles of our system, do it and it will cost you 80+% of voters.
Ideologically speaking it's a pretty good balance...
Capitalism: There are still plenty of millionaire doctors, successful drug and health insurance companies, world class hospitals both public and private, private clinics, research centers, etc, in Oz.
Socialism: My blue collar daughter (mother of three) is due to have surgery to remove scar tissue on her sciatic nerve by a world renown neurosurgeon in December, meanwhile they are monitoring her condition with regular MRI's and supplying her with effective pain management. She needs a specialist and she's got one of the best, not because of her wallet, because of her condition. No amount of money/insurance will (legally) allow her to move up the waiting list and her illness will not mortally wound their modest family budget.
Here in Australia a single breadwinner family of four earning $100K/yr pays a $1500/yr UHC levy, that's about 1/10th of what a US family pays for similar private cover to get inferior care (statistically: our hospitals would have to kill an extra 20k people a year to reach the US level of care). This is despite the fact that the US taxpayer is already "FORCED" to spend as much on health care as an Australian taxpayer. ie: the two governments have an almost identical per capita spend on public health. A separate scheme (PBS) been operating since the 1950's, it caps prescription drug costs to (IIRC) $1200/yr for a family. Our government actually wants people to use the cheaper generic brand drugs, they also want people to avoid become ill in the first place and spend a portion of the UHC budget on preventative measures such as public awareness campaigns and mass screenings.
A cheap, effective, and humane system for ALL is what you get when HEALTH is a bipartisan issue rather than a milk cow for politically well connected corporations. See the difference? Probably not, your head is buried in your ideological buttocks..