Yes, because it is perfectly acceptable to persecute people as long as they are part of the majority
No, obviously I'm not arguing that.
or alternatively it is impossible to persecute a member of the majority so if you think this happened then you must have imagined it.
Not impossible, but very, very difficult. If you think it's happened in this particular case, it's likely partly because you're imagining it and partly because you're susceptible to manipulation—just like some people are easier to hypnotize than others, some people are easy to manipulate into seeing what's not there than others.
Don't you dare try to use their suffering to perpetuate your persecution complex in this country.
Which country is that? The only one that matters?
In normal conversation, "this X" almost always refers to the "X" near to the person. I would have thought from the Bush reference that it was clear I'm from the United States. Since this is also the country that halbeard appears to be from (judging from previous comments in other threads), I assumed that any semi-literate person would understand this. In fact, I'll make another assumption and assume that you understood this, but thought it'd be funny to pretend like you didn't. Actually, I'll admit it—it was a little funny.:P
I'm not sure exactly which special case you're referring to, but I agree whole-heartedly that Democratic politicians are typically more politician than Democrat. The same holds for Republican politicians as well, of course. Well, obviously they're more politician than Democrat. I mean they're also more politician than Republican. Now stop being so silly.;)
First of all, are you referring to that liberal democratic state that elected Schwarzenegger to be governor? The same state that gave us Ronald Reagan? (Just checking.) That said, gun control is admittedly an issue of the left, so your primary point is valid. Still, the left is anti-pornography?!? More so than the right?!? (This was the claim that surprised me the most.)
It's not just the right you need be concerned with, the left is equally likely to purge "inappropriate content", they just make up different reasons for it. It espouses racism (Huckleberry Finn), it's pornographic (The Scarlet Letter), it's dangerous (The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments).
OK, so you have a point with Huckleberry Finn (although I'd argue there are far fewer on the left trying to censor Huck Finn than on the right trying to censor Harry Potter). However, in what world is the "left" the ones censoring pornography and "dangerous" material? Sure, there are parents who are overprotective despite being leftists, but that's far more the exception than the rule.
It isn't that difficult to posit a future in which the Bible could be banned as "hate speech" and Christians jailed, denied employment, or are otherwise discriminated against because of their beliefs.
Yeah, conspiracy theories are usually quite easy to posit. That doesn't mean they have a bit of merit. Get over yourself—you're the majority, and you're not being persecuted in this country. (Yes, there are Christians being persecuted in countries where they're not the majority, and it is genuinely a travesty. Don't you dare try to use their suffering to perpetuate your persecution complex in this country.) That future you posit is actually less likely than Bush masterminding 9/11 (which he didn't).
So, really, it's mainly the United States and Central America that need to worry (and occasionally Europe). It didn't say that the technology would work on typhoons or tropical cyclones, after all...
Politicians who raise taxes tend to get voted out of office.
But presidents would still have 4 years to get very rich, and senators would have 6. Of course, there's always the impeachment thing if it got too obvious.
Unless that changes, they're going to continue to do so until this country is bankrupt and some other country takes us over in a hostile economic coup.
Let's be honest: before that happened, we'd just default on our loans. Not a good solution, but a better one than being taken over.
It wouldn't take many 'none of the above' elections to run through the typical dumbass candidates and end up with some that actually take a stand...
Actually, I'd say it wouldn't take many 'none of the above' elections to run through the candidates who are genuinely interested in our country (if we have any to begin with) and end up with some that have a lot of money to blow...
You had me up to the surplus bit
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I can just imagine the taxes that could get initiated in order to (legally) increase the personal coffers of future politicians. As for the consequences of running a deficit, I whole-heartedly agree—in theory. In practice, however, which politicians would you penalize? All members of Congress and the President? Once you start dividing it up into specific bills and votes it gets a whole lot more complicated.
You seem appropriately skeptical. I'd agree that (depending on what you mean by "analysis") the RealClimate site also demonstrates a fair degree of bias beyond just what the facts dictate. Most recently, their analysis of the judge's ruling of An Inconvenient Truth bear that out. I trust their facts completely, but not always their interpretation of those facts. Or rather, I see the spin that resides in their interpretation. ClimateAudit, on the other hand, I don't always trust with even the facts.
You're right that we can't compare apples with apples on the Northwest Passage beyond 1979. However, if this trend continues (as most climatologists believe it will), it will be very hard to deny the unique nature of the modern climate in another 10-20 years. What I mean by that is that, from 1979 to 2006, the Arctic sea-ice extent has dropped by an average of 100,000 sq km per year. That's averaged over the entire 27 year period. In 2007, it dropped by 1,200,000 sq km, or 12 times the average rate. (If you include this new melt into the total melt since 1979, by my calculations the new average melt is 140,000 sq km per year. Of course, this also highlights the newness of satellite data.) Now, everyone is saying that's an anomaly, but it still seems logical (to me, at least) to expect that the rate of melt has sped up. If we split the difference between 2005 and 2007's record minima (to get 4,730,000 sq km) and assume that the melting now is 200,000 sq km (all of these assumptions made up by me), then in 24 years (2031) the Arctic will be completely* free of sea ice in the summer. Of course, the longer we wait to act, the more expensive it will be to act.
*I need to qualify "completely". A location is considered to be ice-free if there is less than 15% ice in that location. Per NSIDC: "In the calculation of ice extent, we simply sum up the area of grid cells that have an ice concentration of at least 15%." Note, this is the same measure being used from 1979 up to the present. Also, in looking further at the data, my assumption about 200,000 sq km per year is arguably unjustified, although at least one climatologist has stated he would no longer be surprised if the Arctic ocean were completely ice free by 2030. (Naturally, saying "not surprised if" and "expecting it" are two different things.)
Humans are social creatures. I do not doubt that they found ways to communicate with each other from the very beginning. If nothing else, communication would have been used and honed over those 160,000 years, and oral traditions are very strong in "primitive" cultures today. Information sharing did exist.
From the very beginning they would have found ways to communicate, but they would not necessarily have had the advanced language skills to preserve a robust set of technologies. It's possible that of those 160,000 years, 100,000 of them passed before such a skill was sufficiently developed to begin maintaining a larger set of technologies, including the ability to pass them from one culture to another. Also keep in mind that many ancient humans died before being able to pass many skills on to their offspring! There's no doubt that by 60,000 years ago we were already beginning to accumulate technologies, and it's not that hard to imagine that it took another 50,000 years before those technologies has accumulated enough to leave an indelible mark that we could easily witness today! (Not including the odd cave painting and primitive tools that we've recovered from much further back in time.)
Keep in mind that I'm extremely ignorant in this particular field and am arguing completely extemporaneously!
While the growth rate may have been slower at the beginning, it would have to be virtually non-existent for twenty five times longer than our current technological growth rate.
Without advanced language skills, any "technological" progress (including improved language skills) would have been easily lost during times of plague or famine. By "advanced", I mean something that we today would recognize as a legitimate language—something significantly more complex than the language skills demonstrated by chimpanzees, for example.
I haven't heard yet of a model taking data from the 1960's/1970's that accurately matches to todays climate.
It's from 1990, not the 60s or 70s, but here's one such evaluation. (If you're unable to access that on-line, it's from the 2007 February issue of Science, and titled "Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections".)
With regards to point #2, I don't know enough about the actual data to know what is the best way to include the data. I am familiar with the need to do weighted analysis when some areas are more sparsely covered than others. I'm also familiar enough with climate audit's site to take anything they say with a grain of salt.
As for point #3, you'll note that I stipulated without using overground routes (as Amundson did) or ice-breakers. I suppose St. Roch's trip meets those criteria, but you'll note that the Northwest Passage was never completely open during that time period. Each year a slightly different region would melt which is why it took him 3 summers to make the trip! This year, the trip was made in a single summer without the use of icebreakers. (It's been made in a single summer in the past, too, but that was with icebreakers.)
Your last bit is extremely interesting. I'm still fairly certain that we're at record lows (after all, didn't they explore that region after the letter, and if so, wouldn't they have reported back that the Northwest Passage was open if it was?), but I'll admit you've introduced reasonable doubt.
Kurzweil addresses an idea similar to this by taking Moore's law backwards. Basically, once you have some form of technology, it becomes easier to develop better forms of technology. This leads to an acceleration of growth in technology and not just a linear trend. The same logic can be applied to ideas and language, as well (up to a point).
As for population growth, plagues have often drastically reduced the number of humans on the planet at any one time. Without the previously mentioned technology/knowledge, the environment would only support so many humans.
Also, less evolved. Look at the typical hockey game for evidence of that! (I know, I know, at least they didn't elect someone like [name removed in an attempt not to be flamebait]...)
The GP said it's "widely accepted", which might be true in the sense of breadth (atheists can be found in ever corner of the world), but not in depth. Also, I'd argue that although the percentage of atheists increase in proportion to education level, there's no objective education level where they form a majority. Sure, if you want to look at subgroups (e.g., members of the US National Academy of Sciences), you'll find majorities that are atheists, but it's hard to argue that it's "widely accepted".
Your user ID suggests that you're not new to Slashdot, so surely you've seen all of this refuted before. Perhaps you haven't followed this issue very carefully?
Your memory is flawed. A few magazines (Time and Newsweek) made a big deal about it, the same way they do about the "Summer of the Shark". That does not make it accepted science. Look to the journals themselves if you doubt me. (I hope you appreciate that it's difficult for me to "prove the negative" here—i.e., the absence of journal articles dealing with the topic.)
Here is one site that says 2005 tied with 1998. Here is one that says 2005 is the hottest. Here is NASA's site. The fact that you think it was "during the early 1900's, around the depression era" suggests you've either been (a) reading sites that spread disinformation, or (b) didn't understand that they were talking about US temperatures and not global temperatures. (The US record year happened during the dust bowl—not a coincidence, I'd guess. We've currently come within a couple hundredths of a degree of passing that record.)
The land bridge has to do with sea levels, not sea ice. As for the 20% figure, since you seem to doubt it, here's a site for that, as well. As for why the sea levels wouldn't have risen due to significant sea-ice melt, maybe it's because the ice was in the sea already? When an ice cube melts in a glass of water, it does not (significantly) raise the level of water in that glass. You're thinking of the ice melting off of land—e.g., Greenland or Antarctica.
It's a lot easier to prove a positive than a negative. In fact, the negative that you're asking me to prove cannot possibly be proven. Where in the world did you come up with your 100% positive evidence? That's not science, that's equivocating. Nothing is ever 100% positive in science. However, the preponderance of evidence suggests that no one was able to accomplish this feat in the last several hundred years. (If they did, it seems logical to assume that it would have been written about and that we'd still have those records. Sorry, no 100% certainty in that.)
On the other hand, if you're actually interested in science (and I'm skeptical that you are), there is a new method that has been developed to evaluate how much Arctic sea ice has been around in prehistoric eras. (By prehistoric, I mean in the literal sense - prior to written history in the region. I don't necessarily mean thousands of years ago.)
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I'm not sure exactly which special case you're referring to, but I agree whole-heartedly that Democratic politicians are typically more politician than Democrat. The same holds for Republican politicians as well, of course. Well, obviously they're more politician than Democrat. I mean they're also more politician than Republican. Now stop being so silly. ;)
First of all, are you referring to that liberal democratic state that elected Schwarzenegger to be governor? The same state that gave us Ronald Reagan? (Just checking.) That said, gun control is admittedly an issue of the left, so your primary point is valid. Still, the left is anti-pornography?!? More so than the right?!? (This was the claim that surprised me the most.)
Yeah, conspiracy theories are usually quite easy to posit. That doesn't mean they have a bit of merit. Get over yourself—you're the majority, and you're not being persecuted in this country. (Yes, there are Christians being persecuted in countries where they're not the majority, and it is genuinely a travesty. Don't you dare try to use their suffering to perpetuate your persecution complex in this country.) That future you posit is actually less likely than Bush masterminding 9/11 (which he didn't).
It was a joke that was assuming the readers already knew that...
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
(I couldn't bear to leave you hanging.)
So, really, it's mainly the United States and Central America that need to worry (and occasionally Europe). It didn't say that the technology would work on typhoons or tropical cyclones, after all...
I can just imagine the taxes that could get initiated in order to (legally) increase the personal coffers of future politicians. As for the consequences of running a deficit, I whole-heartedly agree—in theory. In practice, however, which politicians would you penalize? All members of Congress and the President? Once you start dividing it up into specific bills and votes it gets a whole lot more complicated.
You seem appropriately skeptical. I'd agree that (depending on what you mean by "analysis") the RealClimate site also demonstrates a fair degree of bias beyond just what the facts dictate. Most recently, their analysis of the judge's ruling of An Inconvenient Truth bear that out. I trust their facts completely, but not always their interpretation of those facts. Or rather, I see the spin that resides in their interpretation. ClimateAudit, on the other hand, I don't always trust with even the facts.
You're right that we can't compare apples with apples on the Northwest Passage beyond 1979. However, if this trend continues (as most climatologists believe it will), it will be very hard to deny the unique nature of the modern climate in another 10-20 years. What I mean by that is that, from 1979 to 2006, the Arctic sea-ice extent has dropped by an average of 100,000 sq km per year. That's averaged over the entire 27 year period. In 2007, it dropped by 1,200,000 sq km, or 12 times the average rate. (If you include this new melt into the total melt since 1979, by my calculations the new average melt is 140,000 sq km per year. Of course, this also highlights the newness of satellite data.) Now, everyone is saying that's an anomaly, but it still seems logical (to me, at least) to expect that the rate of melt has sped up. If we split the difference between 2005 and 2007's record minima (to get 4,730,000 sq km) and assume that the melting now is 200,000 sq km (all of these assumptions made up by me), then in 24 years (2031) the Arctic will be completely* free of sea ice in the summer. Of course, the longer we wait to act, the more expensive it will be to act.
*I need to qualify "completely". A location is considered to be ice-free if there is less than 15% ice in that location. Per NSIDC: "In the calculation of ice extent, we simply sum up the area of grid cells that have an ice concentration of at least 15%." Note, this is the same measure being used from 1979 up to the present. Also, in looking further at the data, my assumption about 200,000 sq km per year is arguably unjustified, although at least one climatologist has stated he would no longer be surprised if the Arctic ocean were completely ice free by 2030. (Naturally, saying "not surprised if" and "expecting it" are two different things.)
I'm guessing you don't want to stand in one place for too long?
From the very beginning they would have found ways to communicate, but they would not necessarily have had the advanced language skills to preserve a robust set of technologies. It's possible that of those 160,000 years, 100,000 of them passed before such a skill was sufficiently developed to begin maintaining a larger set of technologies, including the ability to pass them from one culture to another. Also keep in mind that many ancient humans died before being able to pass many skills on to their offspring! There's no doubt that by 60,000 years ago we were already beginning to accumulate technologies, and it's not that hard to imagine that it took another 50,000 years before those technologies has accumulated enough to leave an indelible mark that we could easily witness today! (Not including the odd cave painting and primitive tools that we've recovered from much further back in time.)
Keep in mind that I'm extremely ignorant in this particular field and am arguing completely extemporaneously!
It's from 1990, not the 60s or 70s, but here's one such evaluation. (If you're unable to access that on-line, it's from the 2007 February issue of Science, and titled "Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections".)
With regards to point #2, I don't know enough about the actual data to know what is the best way to include the data. I am familiar with the need to do weighted analysis when some areas are more sparsely covered than others. I'm also familiar enough with climate audit's site to take anything they say with a grain of salt.
As for point #3, you'll note that I stipulated without using overground routes (as Amundson did) or ice-breakers. I suppose St. Roch's trip meets those criteria, but you'll note that the Northwest Passage was never completely open during that time period. Each year a slightly different region would melt which is why it took him 3 summers to make the trip! This year, the trip was made in a single summer without the use of icebreakers. (It's been made in a single summer in the past, too, but that was with icebreakers.)
Your last bit is extremely interesting. I'm still fairly certain that we're at record lows (after all, didn't they explore that region after the letter, and if so, wouldn't they have reported back that the Northwest Passage was open if it was?), but I'll admit you've introduced reasonable doubt.
I'll not address your other silliness, but as for your sig, I'd rather see Walter Koenig be president than that William fellow.
Kurzweil addresses an idea similar to this by taking Moore's law backwards. Basically, once you have some form of technology, it becomes easier to develop better forms of technology. This leads to an acceleration of growth in technology and not just a linear trend. The same logic can be applied to ideas and language, as well (up to a point).
As for population growth, plagues have often drastically reduced the number of humans on the planet at any one time. Without the previously mentioned technology/knowledge, the environment would only support so many humans.
Also, less evolved. Look at the typical hockey game for evidence of that! (I know, I know, at least they didn't elect someone like [name removed in an attempt not to be flamebait]...)
The GP said it's "widely accepted", which might be true in the sense of breadth (atheists can be found in ever corner of the world), but not in depth. Also, I'd argue that although the percentage of atheists increase in proportion to education level, there's no objective education level where they form a majority. Sure, if you want to look at subgroups (e.g., members of the US National Academy of Sciences), you'll find majorities that are atheists, but it's hard to argue that it's "widely accepted".
It took me a while to figure out what y'all were talking about, but luckily, Wikipedia knew.
It's a lot easier to prove a positive than a negative. In fact, the negative that you're asking me to prove cannot possibly be proven. Where in the world did you come up with your 100% positive evidence? That's not science, that's equivocating. Nothing is ever 100% positive in science. However, the preponderance of evidence suggests that no one was able to accomplish this feat in the last several hundred years. (If they did, it seems logical to assume that it would have been written about and that we'd still have those records. Sorry, no 100% certainty in that.)
On the other hand, if you're actually interested in science (and I'm skeptical that you are), there is a new method that has been developed to evaluate how much Arctic sea ice has been around in prehistoric eras. (By prehistoric, I mean in the literal sense - prior to written history in the region. I don't necessarily mean thousands of years ago.)