I hope that you meant that as a joke because right now as we speak money is being wasted into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate that makes capitalist pigs the world over weep in pain.
Bite your tongue. The current disaster is a triumph of capitalism's frugality. BP and the other oil companies spent millions buying congressmen and putting their champions in the White House in 2000. In exchange they got a ridiculously low damages cap and no requirement to install a $500,000 shutoff valve on offshore rigs. Not only is that a shining example of captialism, they are going to teach this case in business school for decades to come.
Yes, your anger is clearly all about your respect for and command of science, and not at all about your particular political philosophy. Just a helpful hint, from a published scientist to a self-professed connoisseur of the art: perhaps you shouldn't rely on the words of (non-scientist) journalist Thomas "Six-Months-Until-Victory-In-Iraq" Friedman. (Another helpful hint: his Pulitzer was not awarded for his dominance in the field of organic chemistry.) I could recommend some actual practitioners of the scientific method for you to read, but alas they all have doctorates of philosophy, and thus somehow don't meet with your enormous respect for the profession.
Still, congratulations on your mastery of the shift key. Bag of douche.
I have a special request, however. All global warming and card-carrying Greenpeace members should be placed on a boat immediately above the device if this is going to happen.
Yes, by all means, let's punish the people who were *right*.
Someone who feels that freedom of speech is overrated - spare me the "fire! in a theater" exceptions we already know about - is not someone who I want deciding freedom of speech cases.
Given that the current court gave freedom of speech rights to *corporations*, I'm willing to gamble on someone with a less sanguine outlook on it.
The cries to subsidize installation -- and possibly operational -- costs will start almost immediately.
It's only fair, since we so heavily subsidize the oil industry.
Or are you one of those people who believe that the cleanup and economic disruption in the Gulf will be eventually paid in full by BP? If so, I have some beachfront property in Prince William Sound I'd like to sell you.
Your *raw* data? Bullshit. None of my astronomy papers has raw data in it; for one, I have to do minimal processing just to get something *I* understand. Nor do I doubt that you publish your method — you certainly have to describe it, but no one wants to see your crappy code in the pages of the Astronomical Journal.
Mind you, the raw Hubble data *is* publicly available (after a one-year embargo). And what do you know, so is most of the climate data.
The same could be said of ultra-slow motion movies of physical processes, electron microscopy, or even Gram staining. One of the driving forces of science is to overcome our physical human limitations in its pursuit. (And thanks to HST, I overcame mine and got my doctorate, so don't you sass off about it.)
The fact that Hubble produces poster-ready photographs (real color or not) you can stare at pleasantly in a bong-fueled haze is ancillary, but still goddam cool.
Well let's see: There's the fact that the Black Death wiped out 100 million people, one-fifth of humanity. So, you were not only wrong in thinking that the deaths of one-tenth of one-twentieth of the world's population has more of an impact than one-fifth, but even your raw number is off by a factor of five.
Oh, and then there's also the fact that humanity surpassed a population of ten million in 7000 B.C. or so. You know, just after the Pleistocene Epoch, known for its (ahem) glaciation.
Also, there's the fact that Stalin sent his 20 million victims to the Gulag via fossil-fuel vehicles, or ran them over in petrol-fueled tanks. SO there's some carbon offsets for you.
I guess what I'm saying is, basically, that's one dumb post of yours.
a)The Medieval Warm Period is based on European records; it thus could be a local phenomenon, rather than a global one.
b) It has been hypothesized by William Ruddiman that the depopulation caused by the Black Death led to lower anthropogenic CO2; the Little Ice Age would thus be a short-term reversal of global warming, which would in fact reinforce the AGW theory. It is necessary to emphasize that this is only a hypothesis.
The fact that none of the authorsof the four Gospels were contemporaries of Jesus hasn't stopped fundamentalist Christian from accepting it as the unerrant word of God.
They didn't go out to hang Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims; they set out specifically to kill BLACKS.
I'm sure it greatly comforts the families of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner that when they were killed the Klan was SPECIFICALLY murdering James Chaney. And then I'm sure that the Klan did not burn a cross that night, in deference to REAL Christians unlike themselves.
for every one of your dozen Christian terrorist attacks, I can point to a hundred that were conducted by Muslims.
I doubt that, especially as I include (without fear of contradiction) the Klan as Christian terrorists. The bombed, burnt, hung, and shot Americans who were doing nothing but attempting to exercise their rights as citizens, all while dancing around a flaming symbol of their dear Savior Christ in their long robes. I'll take the empty threats of Internet punks over the very real danger of Voting While Black in the South before the end of the 1960s; that is to say, in my lifetime.
Oh, but there is one major difference between the Christian terrorists of that age and the Muslim terrorists today: some of those Christian terrorists had their hands firmly on the levers of power in America. Even today former members of the Klan sit in the Congress, albeit after varying degrees of penance.
At least today I have the advantage of reporting threats of Christian or Muslim terrorism to the authorities and expect reasonable equivalence in response, if not equal in rhetoric.
Can you send me the relevant quotes. I know quite a few Xians who aren't so good on the humility. But they sure know where to find all of those anti-gay provisions!
There are many more words, but just assume I can rattle off at a dozen Christian terrorist attacks against abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices without resorting to Wikipedia.
And just to save myself a round of back and forth with an apologist for these acts of Christian terrorism, let me pre-emptively give my likely response: the Ku Klux Klan. They don't exactly burn those crosses for warmth, you know...
Someday Slashdot will have an option to allow the user to control what story sections he or she sees and doesn't see on the front page.
Wait, what?
Someday sammyF70 will discover that Slashdot has an option to allow him to control what story sections he or she sees and doesn't see on the front page. I wonder how many of us will live to see that day.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't discount the entertainment value of that for us end-users.
Bite your tongue. The current disaster is a triumph of capitalism's frugality. BP and the other oil companies spent millions buying congressmen and putting their champions in the White House in 2000. In exchange they got a ridiculously low damages cap and no requirement to install a $500,000 shutoff valve on offshore rigs. Not only is that a shining example of captialism, they are going to teach this case in business school for decades to come.
Yes, your anger is clearly all about your respect for and command of science, and not at all about your particular political philosophy. Just a helpful hint, from a published scientist to a self-professed connoisseur of the art: perhaps you shouldn't rely on the words of (non-scientist) journalist Thomas "Six-Months-Until-Victory-In-Iraq" Friedman. (Another helpful hint: his Pulitzer was not awarded for his dominance in the field of organic chemistry.) I could recommend some actual practitioners of the scientific method for you to read, but alas they all have doctorates of philosophy, and thus somehow don't meet with your enormous respect for the profession.
Still, congratulations on your mastery of the shift key. Bag of douche.
Yes, by all means, let's punish the people who were *right*.
Douchebag.
Given that the current court gave freedom of speech rights to *corporations*, I'm willing to gamble on someone with a less sanguine outlook on it.
It's only fair, since we so heavily subsidize the oil industry.
Or are you one of those people who believe that the cleanup and economic disruption in the Gulf will be eventually paid in full by BP? If so, I have some beachfront property in Prince William Sound I'd like to sell you.
Heating in the upper part of the oceans due to global warming is already producing this, as evidenced by their growing dead zones.
Your *raw* data? Bullshit. None of my astronomy papers has raw data in it; for one, I have to do minimal processing just to get something *I* understand. Nor do I doubt that you publish your method — you certainly have to describe it, but no one wants to see your crappy code in the pages of the Astronomical Journal.
Mind you, the raw Hubble data *is* publicly available (after a one-year embargo). And what do you know, so is most of the climate data.
They won't have to — under the current rate of ignoring the problem, Earth will take care of the mass extinction on its own.
The same could be said of ultra-slow motion movies of physical processes, electron microscopy, or even Gram staining. One of the driving forces of science is to overcome our physical human limitations in its pursuit. (And thanks to HST, I overcame mine and got my doctorate, so don't you sass off about it.)
The fact that Hubble produces poster-ready photographs (real color or not) you can stare at pleasantly in a bong-fueled haze is ancillary, but still goddam cool.
Well let's see: There's the fact that the Black Death wiped out 100 million people, one-fifth of humanity. So, you were not only wrong in thinking that the deaths of one-tenth of one-twentieth of the world's population has more of an impact than one-fifth, but even your raw number is off by a factor of five.
Oh, and then there's also the fact that humanity surpassed a population of ten million in 7000 B.C. or so. You know, just after the Pleistocene Epoch, known for its (ahem) glaciation.
Also, there's the fact that Stalin sent his 20 million victims to the Gulag via fossil-fuel vehicles, or ran them over in petrol-fueled tanks. SO there's some carbon offsets for you.
I guess what I'm saying is, basically, that's one dumb post of yours.
a)The Medieval Warm Period is based on European records; it thus could be a local phenomenon, rather than a global one.
b) It has been hypothesized by William Ruddiman that the depopulation caused by the Black Death led to lower anthropogenic CO2; the Little Ice Age would thus be a short-term reversal of global warming, which would in fact reinforce the AGW theory. It is necessary to emphasize that this is only a hypothesis.
So, in a church it's called "the word of God Almighty"; in a court of law it's called "hearsay".
I see you haven't spent much time in the American South.
The fact that none of the authorsof the four Gospels were contemporaries of Jesus hasn't stopped fundamentalist Christian from accepting it as the unerrant word of God.
Sounds like Islam is a lot like fundamental Christianity.
Another religious Southern white dude ruins America. Shocker. At least this one isn't president.
I'm sure it greatly comforts the families of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner that when they were killed the Klan was SPECIFICALLY murdering James Chaney. And then I'm sure that the Klan did not burn a cross that night, in deference to REAL Christians unlike themselves.
I doubt that, especially as I include (without fear of contradiction) the Klan as Christian terrorists. The bombed, burnt, hung, and shot Americans who were doing nothing but attempting to exercise their rights as citizens, all while dancing around a flaming symbol of their dear Savior Christ in their long robes. I'll take the empty threats of Internet punks over the very real danger of Voting While Black in the South before the end of the 1960s; that is to say, in my lifetime.
Oh, but there is one major difference between the Christian terrorists of that age and the Muslim terrorists today: some of those Christian terrorists had their hands firmly on the levers of power in America. Even today former members of the Klan sit in the Congress, albeit after varying degrees of penance. At least today I have the advantage of reporting threats of Christian or Muslim terrorism to the authorities and expect reasonable equivalence in response, if not equal in rhetoric.
Can you send me the relevant quotes. I know quite a few Xians who aren't so good on the humility. But they sure know where to find all of those anti-gay provisions!
Two more words...
George Tiller.
There are many more words, but just assume I can rattle off at a dozen Christian terrorist attacks against abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices without resorting to Wikipedia.
And just to save myself a round of back and forth with an apologist for these acts of Christian terrorism, let me pre-emptively give my likely response: the Ku Klux Klan. They don't exactly burn those crosses for warmth, you know...
Someday Slashdot will have an option to allow the user to control what story sections he or she sees and doesn't see on the front page.
Wait, what?
Someday sammyF70 will discover that Slashdot has an option to allow him to control what story sections he or she sees and doesn't see on the front page. I wonder how many of us will live to see that day.
We had to do it — they had Weapons of Mars Destruction. And the residents will Deimos as liberators!
There's always another choice...
...surface-to-air missiles. There's still a lot of douchebags out there.