Comment Re: Semantics (Score 1) 571
let me start wearing v neck pants to work so my balls can get some fresh air.
It's called a kilt...
let me start wearing v neck pants to work so my balls can get some fresh air.
It's called a kilt...
As I remember one of the guys lost his job, the other was reprimanded but not fired, and the complainer also lost her job.
There's a lesson there, I think.
Why wouldn't it work in practice? It would be easy enough to shut down all mosques, ban the Koran, ban Muslim symbols, etc. It would be easy enough to hamper travel to Muslim countries, and in particular ban the Hajj.
Because laws like that so very successful in wiping out Judaism and Christianity, that only know of them through ancient historical texts, right?
Not true. It's okay to ban organizations in a democracy, which is why the Nazis have been banned in Germany for some time. The US made membership of the KKK illegal (note: membership, not engaging in crimes).
First, the Nazis are banned in Germany because it was a political movement that usurped the Nazis murdered 11 million people (and killed another 6 million through warfare), they assassinated their political opponents and allies they didn't trust. You could say that Germany considers it a criminal organization, but that would be an understatement.
Secondly, it was not illegal to be a member of the Klu Klux Klan in July. Although several Florida police officers were fired for being members.
Although the KKK is considered a hate group by the U.S. government, it is not illegal to be a member of the group, and most police departments do not screen for such membership
If something has changed since then, I have not hear anything about it.
France (a Western democracy) has gone down that path long ago, where they started placing restrictions on *display* of religion.
As far as I understand that restriction was on "display" of religious symbols and icons in public schools by teachers (and other staff) as part of their separation of church and state laws. If there is a broader law that you wish to cite, you may need to provide a link to the law.
That's not what the police said when it was being debated. I suspect they might have some authority on the subject of what is useful in criminal investigations.
Do you have any evidence to support your assertions?
That's bullshit. Words do nothing. And I don't care if a story sounds *plausible* to the believer, he would still be the moron to chase down.
So, it's perfectly ok for me to promise to pay money to the first person to murder your "child-raping" ass? Only the person who actually murders you should face any kind of criminal charges?
It's not the pen, it's the man's conscious that decides what happens with the sword.
I don't think anyone is saying that the person who commits the crime should be absolved of the blame because someone else told him to do it. They saying the guy who order other people murdered should not be allowed to walk free while his flunkies go to jail for the crimes he ordered. It's like you too ignorant to have ever heard of the mafia and organized crime.
You're only trying to pass blame, you are saying "the devil made me do it" is a valid excuse, and fuck that.
Actually it's opposite of that, they're saying we should lock up both the "pawn" and "the devil".
If you really care about journalistic ethics, you will want to distance yourself from #gamergate because the prominent people supporting it have none. They've published lies, been caught, and then refused to retract them after they were proven to be lies. Frankly, it seems like there are some very unethical people deliberately pouring gasoline on this fire to see how many people they can burn.
So those "AAA" titles (which cost the most to produce) actually don't appeal to the majority of players? It makes you wonder why they spend so much time and money pursuing an ever-shrinking fraction of the marketplace...
So we have: sea ice that might be just a little lower than normal in certain parts of Alaska, but pretty normal overall.
I suppose that depends on your definition of normal, for example it's about 2 million square kilometers below the average for 1980-2010, which hardly seems to qualify as normal. I can a reason see why you would choose an average of the lowest years on record for comparison, but it's not a very flattering reason.
Really? Nothing to do with the fact we're coming out of an ice age
Yes, because we are not "coming out a [glacial period]", we are headed into one. With out anthropogenic caarbon emissions, we would actually be on the long slow decline (-0.2 C per 1000y) into another glacial period. So, by definition, it can not have anything to do with "a fact" which is not true.
and that we're still lower than the interglacial temperatures prior to the last ice age?
I don't know what source you're using for this claim, but you appear to be mixing up the terminology. An Ice Age is the period during which there are glaciers at the polls and it is made up of glacial and inter-glacial periods. If you're talking about the world being colder than before there were glaciars at the polls, then obviously, yes the world probably is colder than it was 2.58 million years ago, before the polar ice caps formed. Pretty much by definition any non-ice age period should be warmer than any ice-age period. If you mean temperatures "prior to the last [glacial period]" it also probably correct that the temperature is below the maximum from the previous interglacial which ice core records indicate was about +3 degrees above 1950. However, it should be noted that this interglacial has never been that warm. The normal trend is for a very warm beginning to an interglacial period and then a long term trend of declining temperatures, so, it doesn't make sense to say "still lower" unless you are counting on the anthropogenic forcing to exceed +3 degrees C.
We're seeing these things because of fossil fuels, not for any other reason?
To the best of your knowledge, yes. The combined effect of all of the natural forcings that we know about and can measure have had a combined negative impact on global temperatures over the last decade and a half, and the termperature has continued to rise, although at a slower pace than previously. There are a few other anthropogenic climate forcings that account for a small part of the warming (land use changes and albedo change effects, for example) but the biggest factor is the increase in greenhouse gases and the feedback effects that that increase triggers. It should be noted that not all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuels. Concrete, for example, actually emits a fair amount of CO2 as well, but the grandparent is essentially correct.
Funny, I always thought "experiment" was in there somewhere.
Apparently, you should be at your most scientific (and smug) when you don't do experiments.
Sigh. Experiments would be part of "observation", as in you conduct an experiment and observe the results.
If you weren't so busy being a cynical jackass, you might actually have time to learn things.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, however,
Obviously, you don't understand how science works:
Record hot summer = Evidence of global warming
As part of a trend of record hot summers, for sure. Individually? Not unless the record heat is so extraordinary that it falls outside of what would be possible without global warming.
Record cold winter = Well, that's just weather, pay it no mind.
A record cold winter would be evidence against global warming if it was part of trend, or it was so cold that it fell out of what should be possible with global warming. Having said that, globally this past winter had the 3rd warmest december, the 4th warmest January and the 21st warmest February, none of which exactly qualify as "record cold" on the global scale.
Extreme weather events = Evidence of global warming
Again it's the trends in extreme weather events more than the individual events that matter with certain exceptions where the events themselves fall out of what would be possible without global warming.
Lack of extreme weather events = Well, that's just weather, pay it no mind.
Again, it the trends, not individual weather on any specific year that matters
Ice melting in Antarctica = Evidence of global warming
Record ice in arctic = Well, that's just weather, pay it no mind.
I think you might have your north and south mixed up. We're near the record low for Arctic ice extent, and at record highs in Antarctic ice extent. Both of which are expected as part of global warming.
IT'S SCIENCE, PEOPLE!
It actually is, whether or not you resort to derision and mockery.
Once all the hospitals and other facilities are government, you have no place to turn except for the government.
Interesting note: There are countries that provide universal health care where the government owns all the hospitals and clinics and there are countries where it doesn't. Universal health care doesn't require that the government own the health care infrastructure. The government only needs to take over the primary health care insurance market.
Another interesting note: Many of the countries with universal health care still have for-profit supplemental health care coverage for the things that are not covered by the universal system.
But 3 consecutive years of expansion would be....
Good news?
It's not happening, though. This year is really, really close to last year so it's more like a 2 year rebound from a new record low. If we're really lucky, 2012's minimum extent record will stand for a decade or longer. That would be good news for us, but I don't expect it to.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov