No, I'm implying that everyone involved with those bad loans is stupid. The people who thought it would be a good idea to reward brokers based on the dollar amount of the loan, the brokers who tried to push larger mortgages than the customers were asking for, the people who took the loans they couldn't afford and the polititians who made it all possible.

I'm also implying that people who think trickle-down economics works are stupid. Anyone who's seen things fail as often as trickle-down policies have and yet still believe in it is an idiot. Here's an idea let's give a few billion dollars to a bunch of corporate banks, provide no incentives or oversight and see what happens. Yo republitards: wake up and smell the obvious.

You're right, only small-scale ones.

Woah, woah, woah. You're saying that lending enormous amounts of money with extremely high interest rates to people who can't possibly afford to pay it back is a bad idea? Since when? Next you're going to tell me that trickle-down economics doesn't work and that two plus two doesn't equal five (even for very large values of two)! You obviously aren't an economics major.

Basically Russia is just doing what the US has for the past 60 years only on a smaller scale.

I'll bet that local computer store of yours is actually a front of some kind. See if you can get me some LSD or mushrooms.

You idiot! The minute you paid that ticket you acknowledged your guilt. Had you stuck it out and went to court you would have had to pay nothing. You wouldn't even need a lawyer since you traded the car you should have proof that you don't have it anymore. Title change, receipt, and whatnot.

I don't understand why you would lose the court case. And if you didn't lose, why you would have had to pay the impound fee.

As for the license plate light, either the cop was having a bad day or you were a jerk.

That would be rather boring, it would be little more than the star wobbling a pixel or two in high resolution.

The proximity to the sun has nothing to do with Venus's atmosphere or and very little to do with its extreme heat. In fact, if its atmosphere was more like Earth's (density and makeup) we might be able to live there without too much trouble. (it wouldn't really be that much warmer)

The prevailing theory of the source of planetary magnetic fields is Dynamo Theory, has nothing to do whatsoever with atmospheres (except in the case of stars and gas giants).

The theory about Mars is that when its core was still molten it had a magnetic field that protected its much thicker atmosphere (one able to sustain liquid water). Because the planet is smaller its core lost heat faster and hardened causing the magnetosphere to collapse. With nothing to protect it from solar radiation the atmosphere was literally blown away by solar wind.

Wow, that's a lot of stupid for one sentence. If there was any more stupid or it was any smaller it would collapse in on itself and become an intelligence black hole. I'll try and explain the major stupidities since explaining them all would take far too long.

For starters if global temperatures rise, for any reason whatsoever it's called "global warming". Global warming, in itself, doesn't imply any connection with humans. So yeah, anything that increases the global temperature would be part of it.

Though, of course, your stupidity doesn't stop there. Volcanoes spew tons of ash which block out the Sun. Since the extent (or lack of) intelligence is in question I'll mention that the Sun is the main source of heat, without that everything gets very cold. For an example of what happens when a very large, but not super-, volcano erupts check out what happened in 1816.

It bears mentioning that it's not the friendly ash that comes from burning wood, paper, and other things, it's actually tiny shards of powdered rock. Perfect for turning into cement inside wet lungs and ripping airplane and car engines to shreds.

The range of possible scenarios the OP mentioned is too small. It could cover much more than two thirds of the continental US, and it could cover much less than one half.

Yeah, unfortunately a sense of humor isn't required to get mod points.

If they could get the processing to work that fast then yeah. I wonder if that would fry your brain...

I vote that you try it first.

Yeah, but these guys did it without the cow!

I really fail to see why GIMP is so hard to use for some people.

I guess that means either I'm just really smart or everyone else is just really dumb. :P

You obviously have a hard time picturing scenes and objects in your mind. Some of us have the ability to picture a 3D model of something and manipulate it on the fly. If we could get that information to other people it would be truly amazing.

I've had this discussion so many times I've come to the conclusion that some people just can't be convinced.

The reason I think drilling for oil is dumb is because it's an old technology (burning stuff to get the energy out), we really need to move beyond it.

Asbestos was thought to be the perfect building material, as we've discovered, it is not. Lead was thought to be a great material as it didn't corrode, it was only later we discovered it was highly toxic. Leaded gasoline was considered more environmentally friendly, we increased the lead in the atmosphere a huge amount before we noticed. The same guy who invented leaded gas also invented CFCs, yeah, that worked well...

What I'm saying is that burning stuff to get the chemical energy out is a very outdated and rather primitive technology (we discovered how to make fire how long ago?) and needs to be replaced by something cleaner, renewable, more efficient, etc.

I'm sure there ARE environmentalists who think the telescope is a bad idea, just as there were when Cassini was doing a flyby of Earth. I am not one of those as I consider the pursuit of knowledge to be one of the most important things we can do. Obviously I'm not going to suggest we drop a few nukes to get a better understanding of the composition of the planet (which it would do), however as long as the environmental trade-off is relatively small I'm fine with it.

Now, if you think that digging holes in the ground to get ancient rotted plants to burn is a particularly intelligent idea then that's your prerogative. However it would be good to keep in mind that the most liberal estimates of how much oil is left contain less energy than the Sun provides to the Earth on a daily basis, and we've still got to find it and get it out of the ground.