Clouds cool the planet by the exact same amount as it's being warmed?

How extraordinary. Almost... implausibly extraordinary, one might say.

Also, quibble time, warming produces water vapour in the air, water vapour absorbs and re-emits infra-red radiation thus further contributing to warming, and water vapour also forms clouds that reflect infra-red radiation, thus mitigating some warming effects. The uncertainty in how much water vapour contributes to warming, and how much to the prevention of warming, is why the IPCC report has such a large range of possible temperature changes. I'm pretty sure that *is* science.

On what planet? I'm an environmentalist and I'm all in favor of nuclear power. When located appropriately (ie, a not-seismically active region) and designed and maintained properly (ie, not Soviet) they're quite safe and reliable.

Though, nuclear isn't a great option in the Pacific Northwest thanks to being covered in fault lines. What happens when you build a nuclear plant on a faultline? Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, the inspiration for Groening's Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Despite what his publicist said, Groening drew a map of Portland with landmarks from The Simpsons... guess what represented Trojan...

Well according to that last round of climate data falsification there has already been a digital dark age. The claim is the original source data has already been digitally lost. So no one can prove their numbers wrong, we just have to take their word for it, even though these same people have been caught fudging data that can be proven and not victim of digital dark age. I wonder if the tax man will believe me if I said it was a digital dark age so please take my word for those huge tax deductible donations I made.

Google has no way to know what you want. Instead, they focus on making you want what they give you.

Seems to work well enough.

In that same tour, the French favorite was also beaten by two Spaniards, a German, an Australian and a Russian, a pattern similar to that of the past 25 years or so.

False positives, laboratory fuckups and actual cheating are all much more likely than a French conspiracy against Landis on the basis of him being an American.

I think you're confusing verification ("you did what you claimed you did") with reproduction ("I tried my own experiment and got similar results").

Put it another way, if I write a paper saying, "I have solved this [very difficult experimental problem]. The answer is seven." You have every right to ask me to show my working. If you can find an error in that then you know you don't have to move on to the much harder task of independently reproducing my result. Of course, the answer could still be seven, but not on the basis of my faulty reasoning.

If, on the other hand, I refuse to show you my working, you have to take it on faith that seven really is the answer I got. Even if you try your own experiment and also get seven, that isn't really reproduction.

at best you're just cotton-headed naive, at worst your in danger of ethnocentric and prejudicial thinking

in the revolutionary war, quakers forbid military activities, even though many quakers assisted the revolution through furnishing many needed supplies. they were not able to actually fight and still remain in their religion. the society of friends valued strong education much more than any other people in the colonial days, and still does to this day. if a member of the society of friends took up arms they were immediately cast out of the quaker groups in any colony, state, or country

one such man, who was cast out of the religion he was born into, was nathanael greene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathanael_Greene

why? because he became one of the greatest american generals to ever live, an extremely effective man of war. he studied voraciously tracts of war on his own initiative and self-educated himself on the methods of killing other men en masse to the point that it was his brilliant tactics and strategy that defeated the british in the south, and led directly to the conditions that resulted in cornwallis's stunning surrender, and the end of the revolutionary war

how is this possible given his upbringing? because his cultural upbringing is inconsequential, as is mine, as is yours, as is anyone's, on questions of basic human psychological potential for ANY human endeavour, violent or nonviolent, moral or immoral, just or injust

human psychology is human psychology is human psychology. the only voyage that matters is your voyage as an individual in this world, and it is the only morally and logically cohesive framework in which you can judge a person: as an individual

are you american? well, all americans are warlike monsters. are you muslim? well all muslims are unthinkingly obedient fools. are any of those statements fair? absolutely not, they are prejudicial. but this kind of thinking is a direct result of YOUR way of thinking, in which you hold arbitrary, minor and utterly inconsequential tribal boundaries as the master's of destiny

the truth: human psychology is a constant across time and space, and culture is but a tiny inconsequential tweak of it. there is nothing of the amish, of the canadian, of the brazilian, of the sikh, of the polish, of whatever, that is somehow unique only to that culture, society, or people and somehow determines their fate in such a way that it overrides basic human psychology

"The article fails to address other factors like: What about the bully kid? Why does he/she does that? How some bullies are able to form mobs? Why not all kids behave like bullies when in contact with such child?"

But, that would involve surveying and talking to the bullies, and come on, those guys are scary. Our researchers have been found to much prefer doing studies on the submissive compliant kids, for some reason.

No it wouldn't. A small hole (like in a window) will not cause explosive decompression. For that to occur requires a large part of the fuselage be removed (such as by an explosion), or for the plane to have structural defects. In a recent incident a football sized hole opened in the side of a plane at 34000 feet, but only rapid decompression occurred, not explosive decompression.

Your kids would? Even Kim Jong-Il got some.

As well, there are no absolute dictatorships out there. They may have very strict hierarchies, but they will still inevitably collapse in the face of armageddon. If, say, Kim decides to launch tomorrow, he can give an order, sure - but I very much doubt it'd be carried out even by his most trusted aides. They don't want to die, either.

The reason why terrorists can get away with it is because their organizations don't care about any reprisals, on both individual and collective level, from top to bottom. And that, in turn, is only possible because of their small size and decentralized nature. As soon as the hierarchy is exposed and cemented - which is what happens when it forms a state (see Taliban for an example) - the organization as a whole inevitably becomes much less radical and more focused on survival.

The only exception is when you truly corner such state to the point where it has nothing to lose - then, yes, they will launch. Which is largely why we don't have NATO or UN troops in North Korea yet. But I don't see how anything can be done about that. Even with the best missile interceptors today, the rate of success is too low for risk to be anywhere near acceptable, so stand-off remains the only viable option, even when it's unfortunate (which, in case of NK, it is).

Why don't we require a license to drive a bicycle on shared roads, with mandatory teaching of those principles?

We could also use some more stringent standards for getting a car driver's license as well, while we're at it.

Punish crimes in your own manor. I am happy to live in a squalid den of sin!