That's before you get to the fact that the Supreme Court is in no way forced to hear the case even if there is standing.

If they don't hear the case, the lower court ruling stands. The lower court ruling does not favor the NSA, so it cannot stand. Therefore SCOTUS *will* hear the appeal, the only question is on what grounds will they let the NSA win.

Standing is just one possible issue. It's entirely possible that they hear the appeal, but rule in the narrowest possible sense so that their ruling does not apply to any other case.

Everybody.

Oh aren't you adorable. Since when has even a significant percentage of "everybody" cared about adherence to the Constitution? The reality, if you actually talk to people, is that the vast majority of Americans would applaud SCOTUS for helping keep us safe from terrorists.

Look... SCOTUS is a branch of the Federal government, just like the other two. It is not immune from image problems (especially in recent years, when it has demonstrably failed to do its job again and again and again).

Image problems, no. If a SCOTUS justice embarassed the government, say by pulling a Rob Ford, he'd be impeached no problem. But no SCOTUS justice will ever be impeached for rubberstamping policies approved by both other branches of the government, even if they are blatantly unconstitutional.

They just could not get away with that ruling, because everybody knows that it would be a lie.

Both the President and Congress are perfectly happy living with that lie. The American people are too divided by party politics to even notice that they are being conspired against by both parties. SCOTUS would absolutely get away with that ruling.

And just in case you hadn't read your Constitution lately: SCOTUS judges are not "appointed for life." They are appointed during "good behavior". If they exhibit something that is not "good behavior" (as such a ruling would be), they CAN be removed from office.

And who is going to do that? The same Congress that has failed to censure James Clapper for perjury?

No. There is no "lack of standing" excuse anymore.

And who is going to correct SCOTUS if they choose to pretend that there is?

We now have proof beyond doubt -- many times over

We also have a SCOTUS that has been stuffed with authoritarian sycophants.

Off to the Supreme Court it goes.

To get rejected for lack of standing, or some other legalistic mumbo jumbo.

It's true that hypercholesterolemia may be a consequence and not a cause of cardiovascular disease. But that doesn't mean that ingesting substances that disrupt cholesterol homeostasis are safe.

Look at it this way. Assume that cholesterol is a consequence of cardiovascular disease. Cholesterol is then not a cause, but a warning sign that something bad may be happening. CVD increases serum cholesterol. Cafestol increases serum cholesterol. Could cafestol be a CVD mimetic drug? It's quite possible, and not something I'm willing to risk with my family history.

Indeed, the hygiene hypothesis has been getting a lot of attention lately.

And it only took 14 years since George Carlin introduced it. Personally, it seems to me that if children emerge from the womb with an instinctual urge to put everything they can get their hands on in their mouth, there must be some evolutionary benefit to that.

Even if they do kill some bacteria, the important thing is whether they have efficacy in preventing disease. For that matter, killing too many bacteria could even encourage disease, by reducing the effectiveness of our immune systems.

I love french press coffee, but drink paper filtered drip because cafestol present in coffee oils increases blood cholesterol. Unfortunately, those coffee oils are delicous so I lose a lot of the flavor as well.

I see the Aeropress is a french press like device, but uses paper filters. Doesn't using a paper filter remove most of the flavorful coffee oils you'd get from using a french press? If the Aeropress lets more of those oils through, does it also let more cafestol through?

Graphs with scales labeled in the appropriate units and measures of uncertainty(error bars) would be highly appreciated.

IRC.

the surveillance agencies need to be able to state their position.

Surveillance agencies should not even have an opinion. Their job is to do what The People tell them to do. Their job is not to advocate for any position.

For example, he may have worked with Wikileaks, been in contact with Snowden, or have some other non-Snowden issue that caused Customs to be very interested in him.

So he exercised his rights to free speech and he gets harassed and stolen from by the government, and you're OK with this? Shame on you.

I'm pretty sure that New Zealand customs does not randomly target backpackers for confiscation of electronics and this is not an example of a police state gone mad.

Confiscating electronics is ALWAYS an example of a police state gone mad. Electronics contain information. Confiscating information is a violation of our rights to free speech.

I'm sure he knows the real reason they took his stuff

Blame the victim. Shame on you.

In this world you cannot be both ridiculously reasonable and neutral on most things.

Don't they know what happens when you fsck a server in the alps?

You seem rather persistent in insisting that what you consider "necessary" or "worthwhile" is objectively so, demonstrated simply because you say it is

Not at all. I keep asking what separates the unprovable God hypothesis from other hypotheses (e.g. the teapot, the FSM, etc.). I'm asking *you* to tell me why the God hypothesis is worthwhile, when infinitely many other hypotheses that are equally (un)supported are not. (I presume you'd agree that it's not worth seriously considering the existence of a teapot orbiting the sun).

The scope of "worthwhile" is tautologically defined by the reality you already accept--if it is an extension of philosophical naturalism, it is worthwhile, if it is not, it is not worthwhile.

No, you misunderstand. It's not about me, you do it too. There are infinitely many potentially true things, and you only have finite time to consider them. How do you distinguish between the potentially true things you consider, and the ones that you don't?

You don't see this stance as rather... limiting?

Humans are limited creatures. It does us no good to pretend we know things that we actually do not.

it is simply untrue that knowing "God did it" tells us nothing. At minimum, it tells us God did it.

But that adds no explanatory power to our models. Saying "God did it" does not allow us to make more accurate predictions about observable reality. That's the same as telling us nothing.

My experiences are consistent with many others' as per the expectations of the religion. If there is disparity, you haven't demonstrated it.

"many" others. Try "all others". It only takes one contradictory observation to disprove a hypothesis.

So what? You get "different answers" asking anything from any diverse group, whether it be in politics, art, or for that matter, physics. From this we infer none of the positions is correct?

Politics and art are matters of opinion. In physics, no you don't get different measurements. If you get different measurements for the same phenomenon, you either discovered a novel effect(e.g. you weren't actually observing the same phenomenon), or your apparatus is broken.

Here's an example. The OPERA experiment measured the speed of neutrinos. Every experiment in every laboratory everywhere in the world had already determined through extensive observation that the speed of light is the fastest any particle with mass can go. This one experiment contradicted decades worth of experimental evidence, and got huge amounts of press coverage. As well they should have, it would have turned physics upside down if it were true. But as it turns out, it was a loose cable.

So no, it's not OK to get different answers. If your revelation tells you one thing, and another person's revelation tells them something contradictory, at least one of you is wrong. Since you are both using the same technique, you have to conclude that the technique is unreliable.

Remarkable, given it was presented in this very thread, to you. You neither challenged the evidence nor acknowledged it. "Not seeing it", however, seems remarkably unlikely.

No idea what you're talking about here. Link or quote.

You have not explained how or why hypoxia results in these specific experiences, consistently.

Nor do I need to. That we do not have an explanation for consciousness currently does not mean that deity is required.

Which, ironically, is precisely what you just did. Conjecturing and asserting your conjecture regarding the writings is true.

I did not assert that my conjecture was true. I asserted that it was plausible. If a plausible naturalistic explanation exists, there's no reason for us to assume a supernatural explanation. Remember, I said it was important that evidence be *inconsistant* with the model you are trying to reject. Currently your "evidence" is consistant with both a theistic and naturalistic model of the universe. Show me something inconsistant with a naturalistic model of the universe.

"The evidence" is for the dominant model of the time, in science in particular. For it to expand, someone has to propose a model contrary to the known evidence, and initially, their hypothesis-formation is highly speculative. This is precisely how we came to accept Einstein's Relativity. This will be how we will determine whether String Theory is ultimately correct. This is how we will determine which of the Interpretations of QM is correct--and one of them is, and none of them are differentiable by testing.

Nope. We follow the evidence. Relativity was prompted by the observation that the speed of light is constant in all directions. String theory was prompted by the observation that two extremely well supported models produce nonsensical results when combined.

Can speculation be useful? Sure, but until you have something testable, it's just speculation. Including string theory. Asking "what if" questions is all well and good. The problem comes when you like the answer enough to forget it's a "what if" and call it an "is".

Then people are correct or incorrect based purely and exclusively on whether or not they are correct, based on what actually happened. Conjecturing what might have happened, or noting a lack of knowledge as to what happened, does not alter what happened. If someone saw what happened, they know what happened, regardless of the lack of knowledge of others.

I agree with this entirely. If Bill shot Steve, the people who saw Steve shoot Bill are wrong, the people who saw Andy shoot both of them are wrong, and the people who saw no one shoot anyone are wrong. Using the arbitrarily assigned numbers I made up for illustration, that means that 3 out of 4 eye witnesses are wrong.

But you're an eye witness too! If you know that 3/4 of eye witnesses are wrong, how can you not doubt your own eyes? Their incorrect beliefs were based on "direct empirically derived direct experience", just as yours is. But they were all still wrong! What kind of hubris does it take to make you think that your eyes don't lie, when everyone else's eyes do?

If it's not clear, eyesight here is used as an analogy for revelation.

Holy crap, I agree with cold fjord!