"more likely it is the bureaucracy of the UN planning for every contingency, and establishing a hierarchy of who's in charge if something happens."
The story is bogus (as shown by the gaurdian link in TFS), the position only exists in the vivid imagination of The Australian's resident anti-science, anti-UN "journalist", Jonathan Leake.
Skimming the PDF shows they used lots of historical data, Oz has been in the worst drought on record for over a decade, the good rains have only been occuring for the last 6 months or so. The Northern edge of the Sahara has a lot of heavy industry that is no longer welcome in europe. Aussie deserts are more or less pollution free. Also check out the US, the pollution is not over the desert, it's on the east coast where you would expect it to be. At most I think dust accounts for one or two colour levels in desert areas and virtually nothing in non-desert areas.
Reporters and presenters giving their own opinions and judgements is what is wrong with Fox, CNN, et al. Opinions belong in editorials not news reports.
The three gorges dam project was threatened by silt run off from the loess plateau. Over the last 15yrs and for the paultry price of $500M they have transformed an area the size of France from a 1000yo man-made desert that was only fit for goat hearding into forests, orchards and terraced farms. The area is now one of the largest producers of apples in the world. The impact on the locals has been dramatic, they have become well fed peasant farmers who own their orchards and run their own markets as opposed to starving peasants living in caves and hearding goats on public land.
So yeah, China (and the world bank) do some increadibly evil shit but they also do some increadibly inspiring shit too.
Agreed. Dust may be a small part of it but definitely not all of it, look at the colours for Australia, it shows mild levels over the desert where one would expect zero pollution and low levels over the east coast where industry is located. Prevailing winds blow west to east in Oz so it's unlikely to be pollution that has moved westward.
"Also the aid is attached to an agreement that Israel will buy weapons from the US. This means that Israel develops tactics and strategies using the same weapons that US forces use. This information is shared with the US military and results in fewer casualties of American soldiers."
"Allah knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed – when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way, to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women." - OBL.
"The UN created the nation of Israel at the end of World War 2"
Not really, the UN/British "Partition Plan for Palestine" never came into force. The Zionist "Jewish agency" proclaimed independence the day before the Britsh mandate expired in 1948, this triggered the arab-isreali war. The UN did not recognise Isreal as a state until after the war was over in 1949.
"Furthermore, the labor "leaders" are in turn padding their expense accounts and becoming personally wealthy on the backs of the union members in a fashion that sometimes would make even a CEO blush."
That seems to be the general opionion of Americans, however if you care to look up the US dept. of labour figures you find that out of 1159 unions, one has more that $100M in reciepts, about a dozen or so have reciepts in the tens of millions and the other 1100+ unions all have recipts of less that $10M (most less than $1M). The average US CEO makes $8.5M which going by the link is considerably more money than the entire revenue of most unions.
"It seems pedantic, but proper scientific methodology works this way. There
can still be inconsistency in nuclear decay, just not in this test scenario. You cannot prove consistency"
To be uber-pedantic they are not claiming proof of consistency. They are claiming the same thing you are, ie: their test rules out nutrino flux as a possible cause for the observations.
"Reasonable" implies there is a reason to believe it, the only reason to believe anything is evidence. Neither old nor young earth creationists have any evidence for their claims therefore they are equally "reasonable". The fact that evidence exists to support a belief in an old Earth does not make either creationist claim more or less "reasonable", they are both based soley on blind faith.
"EARTH TO DUMB GUY" - your theory makes the unstated assumption that all the shops collude to keep prices artificially high. If shop A installs self checkouts then it may be able to make extra profit for a short time, (first mover advantage), until shops B, C and D all do the same thing and the competition in the indusrty returns to a level playing field. At this point shop A has lost it's first mover advantage and can no longer avoid competing on price by pasing on the savings unless all the other shops agree to do the same thing (ie: collusion / price fixing).
How is any of this is related to the concept of loss leaders which all shops employ to attract customers?
"A more reasonable belief would be that God set the initial parameters of the universe to make things happen the way they do"
Why is it more reasonable? - It has exactly the same amount of evidence going for it as young Earth creationists have for their blind faith. The only reasonable answer to the question is "I don't know".
A nuclear waste land or a concentrated minefield (Korean DMZ) may not be as safe and healthy as a pristine environment but it seems to me that the absence of humans is causing animals and plants to "thrive" in these areas ("thrive" in the sense that the overall poulation increases).
"Suddenly the infastructure that seems to work well for a single person in a single house won't pan out as well as you think."
A student in Adelaide would need to take a 6 hour international flight to find a household socket that was something other than the standard Aussie 3 pin, 240v. Many young Aussies would not even realise that other countries have something different.
That's some mighty evil prose you put in my mouth, but I suppose it's easier for you to attack your own strawman than it is to attack what my post actually said.
"I dare you to list one single reason why a modern society _needs_ to _hunt_ for _food_. There are none."
Depends what you mean by "hunt". Raising cattle on large stations in Australia is more like hunting than farming, Australia also exports large quantities of feral water buffallo meat to asia. If you strech the definition of hunting to fish then 20% of the world's population directly depends on it for survival.
Slashdot Mirror
So your claiming that censorship is defined as; any search engine interface that uses more than the absolute minimum number of keystrokes?
"The price of gold has gone up largely *because* Beck and friends have been pimping it."
You are giving Beck's chump change scam waaayyyy too much credit.
"more likely it is the bureaucracy of the UN planning for every contingency, and establishing a hierarchy of who's in charge if something happens."
The story is bogus (as shown by the gaurdian link in TFS), the position only exists in the vivid imagination of The Australian's resident anti-science, anti-UN "journalist", Jonathan Leake.
Skimming the PDF shows they used lots of historical data, Oz has been in the worst drought on record for over a decade, the good rains have only been occuring for the last 6 months or so. The Northern edge of the Sahara has a lot of heavy industry that is no longer welcome in europe. Aussie deserts are more or less pollution free. Also check out the US, the pollution is not over the desert, it's on the east coast where you would expect it to be. At most I think dust accounts for one or two colour levels in desert areas and virtually nothing in non-desert areas.
Reporters and presenters giving their own opinions and judgements is what is wrong with Fox, CNN, et al. Opinions belong in editorials not news reports.
The three gorges dam project was threatened by silt run off from the loess plateau. Over the last 15yrs and for the paultry price of $500M they have transformed an area the size of France from a 1000yo man-made desert that was only fit for goat hearding into forests, orchards and terraced farms. The area is now one of the largest producers of apples in the world. The impact on the locals has been dramatic, they have become well fed peasant farmers who own their orchards and run their own markets as opposed to starving peasants living in caves and hearding goats on public land.
So yeah, China (and the world bank) do some increadibly evil shit but they also do some increadibly inspiring shit too.
Agreed. Dust may be a small part of it but definitely not all of it, look at the colours for Australia, it shows mild levels over the desert where one would expect zero pollution and low levels over the east coast where industry is located. Prevailing winds blow west to east in Oz so it's unlikely to be pollution that has moved westward.
"Also the aid is attached to an agreement that Israel will buy weapons from the US. This means that Israel develops tactics and strategies using the same weapons that US forces use. This information is shared with the US military and results in fewer casualties of American soldiers."
"Allah knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed – when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way, to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women." - OBL.
"The UN created the nation of Israel at the end of World War 2"
Not really, the UN/British "Partition Plan for Palestine" never came into force. The Zionist "Jewish agency" proclaimed independence the day before the Britsh mandate expired in 1948, this triggered the arab-isreali war. The UN did not recognise Isreal as a state until after the war was over in 1949.
"Furthermore, the labor "leaders" are in turn padding their expense accounts and becoming personally wealthy on the backs of the union members in a fashion that sometimes would make even a CEO blush."
That seems to be the general opionion of Americans, however if you care to look up the US dept. of labour figures you find that out of 1159 unions, one has more that $100M in reciepts, about a dozen or so have reciepts in the tens of millions and the other 1100+ unions all have recipts of less that $10M (most less than $1M). The average US CEO makes $8.5M which going by the link is considerably more money than the entire revenue of most unions.
"It seems pedantic, but proper scientific methodology works this way. There can still be inconsistency in nuclear decay, just not in this test scenario. You cannot prove consistency"
To be uber-pedantic they are not claiming proof of consistency. They are claiming the same thing you are, ie: their test rules out nutrino flux as a possible cause for the observations.
This old fart does not enjoy getting up early.
"The US doesn't have a monopoly on smart people......Why do I get the feeling the IBM is setting themselves up to receive Government handouts."
Indeed, why did the US and IBM not starve to death when Japan was "eating their lunch for a couple of years?
If I wanted rare metals I would have ordered the sushi.
They're called "rare" for a reason."
You would think so but despite the name they are not rare.
I would expect a NASA toaster to have an IQ of 4000.
"Reasonable" implies there is a reason to believe it, the only reason to believe anything is evidence. Neither old nor young earth creationists have any evidence for their claims therefore they are equally "reasonable". The fact that evidence exists to support a belief in an old Earth does not make either creationist claim more or less "reasonable", they are both based soley on blind faith.
"EARTH TO DUMB GUY" - your theory makes the unstated assumption that all the shops collude to keep prices artificially high. If shop A installs self checkouts then it may be able to make extra profit for a short time, (first mover advantage), until shops B, C and D all do the same thing and the competition in the indusrty returns to a level playing field. At this point shop A has lost it's first mover advantage and can no longer avoid competing on price by pasing on the savings unless all the other shops agree to do the same thing (ie: collusion / price fixing).
How is any of this is related to the concept of loss leaders which all shops employ to attract customers?
"A more reasonable belief would be that God set the initial parameters of the universe to make things happen the way they do"
Why is it more reasonable? - It has exactly the same amount of evidence going for it as young Earth creationists have for their blind faith. The only reasonable answer to the question is "I don't know".
A nuclear waste land or a concentrated minefield (Korean DMZ) may not be as safe and healthy as a pristine environment but it seems to me that the absence of humans is causing animals and plants to "thrive" in these areas ("thrive" in the sense that the overall poulation increases).
"Demon Haunted Worlds" - I second that recommendation! In fact I think it should be compulsory reading for all HS students.
"Suddenly the infastructure that seems to work well for a single person in a single house won't pan out as well as you think."
A student in Adelaide would need to take a 6 hour international flight to find a household socket that was something other than the standard Aussie 3 pin, 240v. Many young Aussies would not even realise that other countries have something different.
That's some mighty evil prose you put in my mouth, but I suppose it's easier for you to attack your own strawman than it is to attack what my post actually said.
"That makes zero sense.I'll challenge anyone on this board to shoot at a cable, strung between poles, and actually hit it."
Pfft, did that repeatedly as a kid with a slingshot.
"I dare you to list one single reason why a modern society _needs_ to _hunt_ for _food_. There are none."
Depends what you mean by "hunt". Raising cattle on large stations in Australia is more like hunting than farming, Australia also exports large quantities of feral water buffallo meat to asia. If you strech the definition of hunting to fish then 20% of the world's population directly depends on it for survival.