Institutions are remunerated for their support. It's called "Indirect Costs" and Universities get a percentage of the grant. Universities compete for researchers and are *not* losing money on research. There may be an exception here or there with an influential researcher, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Your statement is wanton dissembling.

Wow. That's an outrageous statement. People who want to keep their own money and don't believe in that the climate is going to bake us all have a conflict of interest?

Generalize much? I submit that the "average Joe" has a million different things he'd rather do than that are probably more sensible than sending money to a bunch of bureaucrats who jet around to climate conferences, or "scientists" who seem to know nothing of the scientific method, or that behemoth of hypocrite's Al Gore.

Nonsense. They aren't just arguing for an interpretation, they're manipulating data in unknown ways (admittedly you have to do so in order to aggregate it as they have to), blocking rival research from peer-reviewed journals, refusing to reveal their data, methods, and programs, and generally acting in a way that doesn't allow others to second guess their work. My view is that at this point, if we go the route of some sort of game where the science doesn't matter, then it's everyone for themselves.

I used to have color inkjets, and on the rare occasion I need something printed in color, I'm happy to pay per page. The cost of keeping an inkjet's carts in working order for as little as I (and several others I know) has long since outstripped the per-page cost at print shops.

I print a few pages in B&W (I have a monochrome network laser) and I love being able to run off copies of my resume or whatnot when I need to... but Kinko's is open 24hrs, and the two times a year I need color printed, I can go the 1.5 miles.

Of course, YMMV. But personally, I don't really see the need anymore.

Usually development follows demand. Since the numbers of people wanting to use multiple monitors with the options is quite small it is no shock that little work is done in that area. If it were for a commercial OS such as Windows think of how much each buyer might be asked to pay for such a program.

It doesn't actually work that way - not in practice, at any rate. That's economics theory over-applied.

Let's suppose child porn didn't exist - a hypothetical situation, but also an admitted impossibility. If child porn didn't exist, why would anyone know to make it? How is this "demand" being demonstrated? If some guy says "I want naked pictures" you are not necessarily going to oblige him unless your intent is to do so anyway, correct?

The whole "you create demand for the creator's work" argument is a bit fallacious, I think.

Now, distribution, on the other hand... yeah, that should carry heavy penalties. And the creators should be publicly executed.

Even if zero people were actually viewing the images, the victim would still suffer with the belief that people are. Making child pornography illegal has no effect whatsoever on the victims of the crime, and jailing someone for 20 years for possession is no more productive.

Really? When you're objectively trying to find something such as a temperature signal it's common to fudge this way and that? BTW, the decline is *still* in that tree ring data, but is not being shown because when tree ring data supports a fudged temperature set, it's worth reporting to the IPCC. When it doesn't, there is some unknown force burying the AGW signal. Who are the denialists again?

Wrong. It was calibrated, but trended *down*. Trees don't make good thermometers. Your comments about other indicators of "Global Warming" are *not* evidence. They are anecdotes. What people are in a fuss about is whether warming is natural vs. "we're all going to die in the next 100 years.". Try to speak to the *evidence* for catastrophic global warming and not muddy the issue.

How would you propose this power outage occur? What would prevent people from "fixing" it? Also, what exactly are you proposing that would stop our current agricultural system? Your comment is missing some realism IMO.

Remarkably negative thought process. IMO, We are more stable than ever. Think about your statement of 100 years ago. You'd really like to go back to life w/o antibiotics, modern vaccines, modern power grid, modern agriculture, FDA, etc. etc. ?? What's your plan for destroying civilization?

Actually, Grant's are *not* rewarded based on who's been published in the "peer reviewed literature". Grant's are (or should be) rewarded on how well a scientist understands the current science and how good his/her plan will expand current knowledge. Talking about the "Peer reviewed literature" like it's the only path to truth is bizarre. Or maybe I'm just to old. Have HS science books changed the Scientific method to...
Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Pray for publication in the "peer revied literature".

Last time I checked, Steve and Anthony weren't trying to shake down the planet.

Agreed. As a user of software, I'm always in favor of something that expands my rights as a user when it comes to software licenses. To say that you can't have the freedom to do whatever you want with the software after it is purchased seems ridiculous to me. PJ's got a completely anti-consumer stance on this one, and her zealousness about it and others opinions are very off-putting.