This doesn't invalidate the long term warming trend and the science behind global warming, at all. You are correct. There has been a warming trend over past 20 years or so. What this data does is support the notion that worldwide temperatures change constantly. That means they are either going up (global warming), or going down. It always has and always will. The point is not to freak out and wreck worldwide economies and deprive people of their basic freedoms because of a few degrees change one way or the other.
I asked if you would believe raw data. You answered:
Not in the absence of competence to interpret it. Then you say:
Meanwhile both poles are melting faster than anyone feared. What TFA I linked says:
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. What the Goddard Space Flight Center shows:
While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to bring up the opposing argument (from 2003):
Australian scientists yesterday revealed new evidence of global warming, suggesting that sea ice around Antarctica had shrunk 20% in the past 50 years. So if decreasing sea ice proves global warming, wouldn't increasing sea ice DISprove global warming? I mean, I am not a climatologist and all, but I am a thinker.
I'm not saying that the climate didn't change or isn't changing. It is always changing. I'm saying that it is natural, not man made and that the "hockey stick" predictions of future climate models were dead wrong.
Of course. I always value the scientific opinion of the founder of The Weather Channel over the consensus of hundreds of climate scientists. Would believe raw data?
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. That's from HERE. They provide a nifty graph to go with it HERE
It appears to me that those who said that the SUN was causing global warming due to increased sunspot activity, that has recently subsided, were correct. And all those scientist that claimed it was solely man made were wrong.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
I'm not a US citizen and want to make it known that putting American lives before human rights is arrogant, outrageous and dangerous. I don't know what country you are from, but I know what country you WOULD be from from if The US, Russia and Britain had that attitude in the 1940's. I'm not saying you owe us or anything. I'm just saying that when you are at war, and we are, you can't really win when you consider the rights of the enemy over the lives of your soldiers and population.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should carpet bomb neighborhoods and rape and pillage, but there is a limit. Different rights have different weights. An enemy's assumed right to privacy is not as important as his right eat or feed his family for example. For that matter, an enemy's privacy is pretty much a privilege.
Still, if listening to a phone call can pinpoint a bad guy's location so that we only have to raid one house rather than 100, isn't that worth it? Isn't it better to do passive intelligence (listening) than it is to do active intelligence (kicking doors down and rummaging through stuff)?
Either everyone has inherent rights (not just US citizens), or noone has inherent rights (even US citizens). Not exactly. If everyone has inherent rights, that means they are worth fighting for (Iraq, Afghanistan for example). Why is your country's military not helping us liberate the good people of Iraq? Why is your country's military not liberating the good people of some other country whose population. You can't oppose the US in Iraq and then claim that every human has inherent rights. Part of the reason we are in Iraq is to grant those rights to the people of Iraq.
Finally, I believe that the 'they want to kill us, so we'll kill them first' attitude will only bring about more blood shed. It's not that they want to kill us. It is that they will and they HAVE killed us. They have shown without a shadow of a doubt that they are willing and able to kill American civilians by the thousands and would love nothing more than to reduce entire cities to smoldering rubble. Compared to their brutality, we have been extremely kind in our retaliation.
Thank you for listening to my words. Likewise.
Oh to live in a world where this is modded Insightful and not Funny.
Yeah, because as a former soldier, I want our troops in the field to be worried about things like, "Did we get a warrant to raid this cave?" before storming in.
Oh to live in a world where Americans consider the lives of their fellow countrymen to be more important than the "rights" of those in foreign countries who want to kill them.
But for some reason, they are desperate enough to ask for help in turning the towers off because they think it is how we are finding them. All they need to do is call a phone in the US. Then the Gov't can't track them without a warrant.
And since you seem so confused, the Constitution is all about inalienable human rights, not inalienable American rights. So does that make the CIA an illegal organization then? I mean, it's their job to spy on foreign countries.
If the Constitution applies to ALL people of the earth, shouldn't we be invading all these other countries and removing their current, illegal governments? Shouldn't these people be voting in elections and sending the winners to Washington to serve in Congress? Shouldn't we be taxing their populations? Shouldn't we be using our military to guarantee these rights to the peoples of the world?
Also, "inalienable human rights" was in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. Tell me how I'm the confused one again?
Gee, I don't know. Because non-Americans are *gasp* humans as well?
Everyone, not just Americans, deserve basic human rights. Oh, so you support our invasion of Iraq then? Are you pushing for us to invade Syria, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and so on? If you are going to say that the Constitution applies to all humans, not just Americans, than our government, and us as Americans, have a duty and obligation to guarantee the benefits that the Constitution provides us.
What if, say, Japan or France or some other foreign nation decided that we were a "terrorist threat," and decided to begin wire tapping conversations going from America to Japan or France? Or originating in those countries? Wouldn't that make sense that you would be outraged that your conversations were being wire tapped by another country? What if you were French or Japanese? Personally, I wouldn't care. My conversations are pretty boring. Besides, if I were calling someone in France, and persons in America had attacked France in the past, then I'd fully expect the French government to do whatever it deems necessary to protect its citizens. The government of France nor any other country but my own owes me rights.
I thought we busted the Japanese for water-boarding in WWII...or was that the Germans? Do you realize that Germans hugged their children too? The Japanese ate fish! We do both those things. I hugged my child just this morning right after sharing my shrimp fajitas with her. I guess that makes me a Tojo Nazi then?
Ah, yes. Waterboarding. Do you realize that we've spent less than five minutes total waterboarding since 9-11. We've waterboarded five terrorists... and yes, these were true 100% terrorists, for about an average of 45 seconds each. The Japanese nailed bamboo splints underneath fingernails. The Germans performed "experiments" on its prisoners. Both had forced labor camps. Tell me again how we are the same as the Axis powers of WWII? Tell me how waterboarding the guy that planned 9-11 for less than two minutes puts us in the same leagues as the Germans when they were committing the Holocaust?
My fiancee lives in a foreign country, and I call her every other day, you insensitive clod. Perhaps you missed the part where it's totally possible to monitor those phone conversations legally, with a warrant (at which point I would have no problem with it). Why the need for such secrecy, that the tap has to be without the approval of a judge, even 72 hours after the fact? Getting a warrant is great, if you know which phones to tap. Now, I ask you this, and this is the key, How do you know which phones to tap?
The phones we were tapping last year are no longer active. All the terrorists we capture are carrying "disposable", "Pay-As-You-Go" phones. Each week, they are carrying a new one. So, again, how do you know which phone to tap? unless you have a system in place that listens to a wide range of signals, sniffing for key words or patterns. Do you get warrants for all those calls that are "sniffed"? Do you get warrants for the thousands of hits out there that end up as false leads? Do you get a warrant to tap that safe-house that you are about to drop a pair of 500-lb bombs on? Or, do you just bother with the ones you plan on prosecuting in an actual court?
Beyond that, this isn't just about wiretapping phones. It sets a very dangerous precedent through which the executive branch can bypass the legislative branch's powers and act illegally with no fear of repercussions. No, right now, it's about tapping phones. When we hear about them tapping or spying on political opponents (like the previous administration did), then THAT'S abuse. Tapping foreign phone calls is not.
Seriously. Is it illegal to eavesdrop on overseas conversations? That is what we are talking about here. These calls we are tapping have at least one party overseas. Please, tell me: What law designed to protect non-Americans are we breaking? Someone want to explain how this is flamebait? Or was the mod not able answer the question?
...and just when I thought the administration couldn't be any more open about breaking the law and violating my civil liberties. Honestly, does this piss everybody else off as much as it does me? Yeah, it did until I realized that we are talking about conversations where one or both parties are NOT in America. Then I started wondering what made me, and evidently everyone else, start thinking that the Constitution was meant to protect everyone in the world. Why are we extending Constitutional rights to people in Pakistan, Germany, Indonesia and Burma when their own governments don't?
Then I realized. It was the rhetoric. "Illegal Wiretaps" sounds so much more unconstitutional than "foreign surveillance". Bush's illegal war in Iraq sounds so much worse than "Bush's Congressional approved liberation of a country that was riddled mass graves of women and children". It sounds so much more ominous when it has the right name.
It works the other way too. "Undocumented workers" instead of "illegal aliens"...
Even more than a rubber stamp, since the spook agencies are allowed to begin surveillance, *then* apply for the warrant (up to 72 hours later).
But the issue, I think, is the paperwork. For instance, each application must be personally approved by the Attorney General (can you imagine poor Mr. Gonzales having to review and sign hundreds or thousands of such applications at a time?).
The surveillance carried out in support of the "war on terror" is orders of magnitude greater than was contemplated when the FISA court was created. So Bush & Co. simply decided to ignore the problem and proceed without bothering to get warrants from the FISA court. You seem to know what you are talking about. Maybe you can tell me. Do you need a warrant to listen to calls overseas?
Which just goes to show you that they never had any intention to stop wiretapping, just to throw a big tantrum over it and then go back to spying on Americans the good old fashioned way, illegally. I hear words like "illegal" an awful lot when it comes to things that Bush does. Illegal wiretapping, Illegal war, Illegal interrogation. Why don't we just call it "undocumented"? Isn't that the new PC word for "illegal"
Seriously. Is it illegal to eavesdrop on overseas conversations? That is what we are talking about here. These calls we are tapping have at least one party overseas. Please, tell me: What law designed to protect non-Americans are we breaking?
Just need to reiterate: the danger from the hydrazine was essentially ZERO. Hydrazine is remarkably unstable. It would have been the first thing to be destroyed upon reentry, just as soon as the tank ruptured or a hose broke loose I don't think hydrazine was the primary reason for taking this satellite down. This was a relatively new spy satellite jam packed with the latest in US surveillance equipment. It had been estimated that pieces of this thing that were the size of a bus could survive reentry and impact the earth. That would be a treasure-trove of data yielding more data even the most active spy programs China or Russia could possibly muster.
THAT is why this thing was taken down. Hydrazine was just a convenient excuse, although probably true.
I'm sure the vast majority of Britons were unaffected by illegal search and seizure by British authorities, but the American founding fathers thought it was wrong to do to anyone under any circumstance. Are you calling our founding fathers terrorists, comrade? No. Our founding fathers didn't think that wiretapping was important enough to be included. Just like they didn't include any rights for citizens traveling via airplane.
Bender: [murmuring in his sleep] Kill all humans, kill all humans, must kill all... Fry: Bender, wake up! Bender: I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it.
I see this being a place where the US will always lag behind due to conservative Christianity and the whole "don't play God" thing. Can you show me a single reputable Christian that says we should NOT invest in nano-tech? I'm only asking because while visiting Second Baptist Church in Houston, they had a guest speaker who was a physicist who specialized in nano-technology. He didn't seem to have a problem with, nor did anyone at the church.
In other words, and not to be rude, you really don't know what you are talking about. Although it may be "cool" in certain circles to think that way, but Christianity is not the cause of all your woes.
Black absorbs sunlight. The satellite would overheat. That's why you launch it at night... duh!
Seriously, you only need to paint the side that faces the earth, since that's where all the eyes are and the sun is not. You can "paint" the other side whatever color you want since there's not going to be anyone on the far side looking for it (for now anyway).
but that's not a solution to "protect" children from porn. Yes, it is A solution to "protect" children from porn. It is not THE solution, but is A solution.
I just don't think it will prevent anything, and therefor has nothing to do with this article. The point of the article is not to prevent anything, but make it easier for search engines to filter their results, which is exactly what this will do. And saying something won't work is no reason not to try it. Sure, there are issues, and there will always be ways around it, but that's the case with anything (drunk driving, gun violence, you name it!). That doesn't mean that nothing is worth trying.
No, all we need to do is use common sense and not visit sites we don't want to see. Holly crap, what a unique idea. YES!!! That is a wonderful idea. Now all we need is a way for us to identify which sites contain content we don't want to see. If we only had something that would help us distinguish the content of a site just by looking at the address. Damn! I'm stumped!
Yeah, and then what do they do when all the "Think of the Children!!!one!!" crowd are protesting because little Timmy can just check the "Yes I'm 18 or older" box before doing his search for "Hot hardcore cheerleaders"? These people are never going to be happy because what they want is a physical impossibility. They want their kids to be completely 100% safe, docile, fit, happy, and innocent, and not have to lift a finger to do anything about it themselves. Oh, and they don't want to have to pay anyone or have increased taxes either. Also, they want everyone else to be just like them. I don't understand. What is the harm with a.xxx domain system. Hell, even a voluntary system is not a bad thing. It makes porn easier to filter, stops parents and teachers form accidentally stumbling across a porn site (whitehouse.com?), and makes it easier to find if it is what you are looking for. What is the downside?
And not all porn sites have the "Click here if over 18 box".
On a side note: did you know you have someone following you around modding +1 whenever and wherever you post? That is almost freaky. It may just be my Kama Bonus or Subscriber Bonus. I can check boxes to turn them off (I did for this post), but that's two more clicks than I'd normally have to do.
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You answered: Not in the absence of competence to interpret it. Then you say: Meanwhile both poles are melting faster than anyone feared. What TFA I linked says: Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. What the Goddard Space Flight Center shows: While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to bring up the opposing argument (from 2003): Australian scientists yesterday revealed new evidence of global warming, suggesting that sea ice around Antarctica had shrunk 20% in the past 50 years. So if decreasing sea ice proves global warming, wouldn't increasing sea ice DISprove global warming? I mean, I am not a climatologist and all, but I am a thinker.
I'm not saying that the climate didn't change or isn't changing. It is always changing. I'm saying that it is natural, not man made and that the "hockey stick" predictions of future climate models were dead wrong.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. That's from HERE. They provide a nifty graph to go with it HERE
It appears to me that those who said that the SUN was causing global warming due to increased sunspot activity, that has recently subsided, were correct. And all those scientist that claimed it was solely man made were wrong. Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should carpet bomb neighborhoods and rape and pillage, but there is a limit. Different rights have different weights. An enemy's assumed right to privacy is not as important as his right eat or feed his family for example. For that matter, an enemy's privacy is pretty much a privilege.
Still, if listening to a phone call can pinpoint a bad guy's location so that we only have to raid one house rather than 100, isn't that worth it? Isn't it better to do passive intelligence (listening) than it is to do active intelligence (kicking doors down and rummaging through stuff)? Either everyone has inherent rights (not just US citizens), or noone has inherent rights (even US citizens). Not exactly. If everyone has inherent rights, that means they are worth fighting for (Iraq, Afghanistan for example). Why is your country's military not helping us liberate the good people of Iraq? Why is your country's military not liberating the good people of some other country whose population. You can't oppose the US in Iraq and then claim that every human has inherent rights. Part of the reason we are in Iraq is to grant those rights to the people of Iraq. Finally, I believe that the 'they want to kill us, so we'll kill them first' attitude will only bring about more blood shed. It's not that they want to kill us. It is that they will and they HAVE killed us. They have shown without a shadow of a doubt that they are willing and able to kill American civilians by the thousands and would love nothing more than to reduce entire cities to smoldering rubble. Compared to their brutality, we have been extremely kind in our retaliation. Thank you for listening to my words. Likewise.
Oh to live in a world where this is modded Insightful and not Funny.
Yeah, because as a former soldier, I want our troops in the field to be worried about things like, "Did we get a warrant to raid this cave?" before storming in.
Oh to live in a world where Americans consider the lives of their fellow countrymen to be more important than the "rights" of those in foreign countries who want to kill them.
If the Constitution applies to ALL people of the earth, shouldn't we be invading all these other countries and removing their current, illegal governments? Shouldn't these people be voting in elections and sending the winners to Washington to serve in Congress? Shouldn't we be taxing their populations? Shouldn't we be using our military to guarantee these rights to the peoples of the world?
Also, "inalienable human rights" was in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. Tell me how I'm the confused one again?
Everyone, not just Americans, deserve basic human rights. Oh, so you support our invasion of Iraq then? Are you pushing for us to invade Syria, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and so on? If you are going to say that the Constitution applies to all humans, not just Americans, than our government, and us as Americans, have a duty and obligation to guarantee the benefits that the Constitution provides us. What if, say, Japan or France or some other foreign nation decided that we were a "terrorist threat," and decided to begin wire tapping conversations going from America to Japan or France? Or originating in those countries? Wouldn't that make sense that you would be outraged that your conversations were being wire tapped by another country? What if you were French or Japanese? Personally, I wouldn't care. My conversations are pretty boring. Besides, if I were calling someone in France, and persons in America had attacked France in the past, then I'd fully expect the French government to do whatever it deems necessary to protect its citizens. The government of France nor any other country but my own owes me rights. I thought we busted the Japanese for water-boarding in WWII...or was that the Germans? Do you realize that Germans hugged their children too? The Japanese ate fish! We do both those things. I hugged my child just this morning right after sharing my shrimp fajitas with her. I guess that makes me a Tojo Nazi then?
Ah, yes. Waterboarding. Do you realize that we've spent less than five minutes total waterboarding since 9-11. We've waterboarded five terrorists... and yes, these were true 100% terrorists, for about an average of 45 seconds each. The Japanese nailed bamboo splints underneath fingernails. The Germans performed "experiments" on its prisoners. Both had forced labor camps. Tell me again how we are the same as the Axis powers of WWII? Tell me how waterboarding the guy that planned 9-11 for less than two minutes puts us in the same leagues as the Germans when they were committing the Holocaust?
I think you need some perspective.
The phones we were tapping last year are no longer active. All the terrorists we capture are carrying "disposable", "Pay-As-You-Go" phones. Each week, they are carrying a new one. So, again, how do you know which phone to tap? unless you have a system in place that listens to a wide range of signals, sniffing for key words or patterns. Do you get warrants for all those calls that are "sniffed"? Do you get warrants for the thousands of hits out there that end up as false leads? Do you get a warrant to tap that safe-house that you are about to drop a pair of 500-lb bombs on? Or, do you just bother with the ones you plan on prosecuting in an actual court? Beyond that, this isn't just about wiretapping phones. It sets a very dangerous precedent through which the executive branch can bypass the legislative branch's powers and act illegally with no fear of repercussions. No, right now, it's about tapping phones. When we hear about them tapping or spying on political opponents (like the previous administration did), then THAT'S abuse. Tapping foreign phone calls is not.
...and just when I thought the administration couldn't be any more open about breaking the law and violating my civil liberties. Honestly, does this piss everybody else off as much as it does me? Yeah, it did until I realized that we are talking about conversations where one or both parties are NOT in America. Then I started wondering what made me, and evidently everyone else, start thinking that the Constitution was meant to protect everyone in the world. Why are we extending Constitutional rights to people in Pakistan, Germany, Indonesia and Burma when their own governments don't?Then I realized. It was the rhetoric. "Illegal Wiretaps" sounds so much more unconstitutional than "foreign surveillance". Bush's illegal war in Iraq sounds so much worse than "Bush's Congressional approved liberation of a country that was riddled mass graves of women and children". It sounds so much more ominous when it has the right name.
It works the other way too. "Undocumented workers" instead of "illegal aliens"...
But the issue, I think, is the paperwork. For instance, each application must be personally approved by the Attorney General (can you imagine poor Mr. Gonzales having to review and sign hundreds or thousands of such applications at a time?).
The surveillance carried out in support of the "war on terror" is orders of magnitude greater than was contemplated when the FISA court was created. So Bush & Co. simply decided to ignore the problem and proceed without bothering to get warrants from the FISA court. You seem to know what you are talking about. Maybe you can tell me. Do you need a warrant to listen to calls overseas?
Seriously. Is it illegal to eavesdrop on overseas conversations? That is what we are talking about here. These calls we are tapping have at least one party overseas. Please, tell me: What law designed to protect non-Americans are we breaking?
THAT is why this thing was taken down. Hydrazine was just a convenient excuse, although probably true.
Maybe that's where all that Dark Energy came from.
Bender: [murmuring in his sleep] Kill all humans, kill all humans, must kill all...
Fry: Bender, wake up!
Bender: I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it.
In other words, and not to be rude, you really don't know what you are talking about. Although it may be "cool" in certain circles to think that way, but Christianity is not the cause of all your woes.
Seriously, you only need to paint the side that faces the earth, since that's where all the eyes are and the sun is not. You can "paint" the other side whatever color you want since there's not going to be anyone on the far side looking for it (for now anyway).
And not all porn sites have the "Click here if over 18 box".