I have no intention -- or reason, for that matter -- to reply to you about something someone may have written on Twitter.

However, regarding what you asked above, I have a question of my own: are you unaware of the issues that have been raised about GRACE? That seems unlikely.

I have already admitted I made an error.

But as for dishonesty, yes, you have given me ample and frequent reason to think you have been less than honest. So I won't apologize for suspecting you may be doing so at times when you may not actually be. "Fool me once..." as the saying goes. Here is an example:

Nowhere did I write such a thing. So when you continually -- rather routinely, in my experience, as I have demonstrated on many occasions in the past -- suggest I have stated things that in fact I have not, I have to wonder what the reason is. Given the context and past experience, Occam's Razor would seem to indicate dishonesty. I know of no other reason that is anywhere even remotely as likely.

No, without looking into it further, I do not agree. I'm not claiming that it is false, either... I would have to look some things up, which I am not free to do at the moment.

One thing I would have to check, just for example, is what those confidence intervals are given the multidecadal variability, which is not -- at least not uncontroversially -- known to any precise degree yet. What has been claimed to be a newly discovered variability in the Atlantic has turned up, for example. Not to mention that we know during La Niña periods of ENSO there tends to be storage, while during El Niño, more of a release. All these factors would need to be considered. Until I do, I neither agree or disagree.

Engaging in your usual context-shifting, I see. But even more: how could I be "reflexively dismissing it" if my own statement, which you quoted, was "THOSE temperatures are no surprise and have already been accounted for"??? , That makes absolutely no sense. No great surprise there, I suppose.

Assuming the rather huge problems with GRACE's accuracy have been fixed. It is claimed they were. Perhaps they have been.

Except I did not do that. You have had a very nasty habit of twisting what other people say. That's dishonest. I've pointed that out to you many times, over a period of years. You really need to start reading what people actually say rather than interpreting so heavily.

Now, THAT is a fair point. I did in fact get surface temperatures mixed up with upper ocean temperatures. Mea culpa.

But I am just curious. Just a straightforward question: are you now claiming, as you seem to be, that the "missing heat" cause of the pause in surface warming is actually hiding in the UPPER ocean, rather than the lower?

Thanks, Obama.

You have a point but it is grossly over-stated. First, it is very clear why the U.S. telephone and internet infrastructure currently suck: incompetent (or in some cases corrupt) regulation. When ISPs and phone service providers are allowed to act as oligopolies, they just pocket their money and run, rather than properly investing in better infrastructure. Because they can.

However, there is another issue that is mostly unrelated: the U.S. is less densely populated than most "Western" countries, and the cost of infrastructure for providing comparable service is provably higher. That doesn't excuse the monopolists and incompetent bureaucrats, still it is true. And the U.S. government's attempt to fix the rural infrastructure problem was a comedy of errors, literally ridiculous cost overruns, and incompetence.

So you can lay the blame for a lot of this -- perhaps most of it -- directly at the feet of the U.S. government.

Back when we had a telephone system that was a properly regulated utility, it was demonstrably better than in the vast majority of Europe. Many European countries still had competing land-line services that were wholly incompatible with one another.

Also: in the beginning, the Japanese were not making cars that were "far superior" to those built in the U.S.. What they were making were cars that got better mileage and were inexpensive. The quality left a hell of a lot to be desired. So that statement is just plain wrong.

Over time, the quality got better and the U.S. manufacturers (also effectively an oligopoly, or so they thought) did not keep up. So much is undeniable.

Originally, the meaning of "drone" in relation to vehicles meant it was autonomous, with no pilot at all. It had nothing at all to do with line of sight. But Now it is often used to mean remotely-operated craft, regardless of whether they have any autonomous capability, but that's very different indeed from the original.

The word "drone" essentially meant "no human pilot", even a remote one. And it's still that way in a lot of dictionaries.

I know what it says; I'm the one who linked to the paper.

I would simply repeat my questions above, but based on past experience you would continue to not get it.

The Llovel paper contradicts other papers in regard to stored heat in the upper ocean. I linked to a summary of some of them earlier.

According to THEM, there has been no observed upward trend, so my position that there is no significant warming is quite defensible.

Are you able to read? Did you see that my comment was about DEEP ocean? Did you see that the very title of the paper is:

??? The comment about temperatures at other depths is irrelevant to the point I made ABOUT THAT PAPER.

Do you know what the word "context" means?

As for other depths, this paper contradicts the other one I cited earlier. Are you telling us that you get to decide which one is correct?

I answered your question in my last post.

Did you get my point about "escalating" not just beyond what is socially acceptable, but even further, beyond what is legally acceptable? Once again, to be clear, I'm not accusing you of breaking any laws, I was making a point. Harassment is odious behavior. It is far worse than simply calling people names.

As I stated before: you seem quick to judge others but at the same time appear blind to your own transgressions.

I don't owe you anything, despite what seems to be a feeling on your part that I do. So this is all you're going to get. If you aren't satisfied with the content of my answers, my best suggestion would be to just go away.

However, we do not know what long-term unintended consequences there may be to this type of gene modification, because there has been no long term. While selective breeding of natural mutations -- even of a relatively "forced" variety -- has been around for millennia.

The point being that one method is time-tested and the other one not. We don't have any long-term examples of jellyfish genes crossed with plant genes. We do have evidence that bacterial and viral genes have invaded other organisms, but again those we have evidence of were very long ago and have had eons to weed out any bad variants or effects.

I do agree, however, that the regulatory system is faulty.

And I would disagree.

Societal / economic issue aside, when an altered genome that was controversial in the first place, and was promised not to be cross-fertile, proves otherwise and starts cross-pollinating other strains uncontrollably, we should take that as a strong warning.

Ever read Jurassic Park? The book, not the movie.

Warming, according to whom?

This says long-term trends have not been detected, up to 2000.

This says no warming trend in upper ocean SINCE 2000.

This -- which is the longest and most comprehensive study to date -- says there is no detectable warming in the deep ocean.

So I don't know who you've been listening to, but my sources say it isn't happening to any noticeable degree.

I don't "think" it, I know it. I haven't been following you around and spamming YOUR comments with insults. That is not a matter of opinion it is provably true. I have only been replying to your own harassing comments.

Listen up: while YOU might find name-calling as a matter of opinion objectionable, there is a line -- and it isn't all that fine of a line -- between that and LIBEL. (I am not accusing you here of libel, that is just a neutral statement of fact.)

There is ALSO a fine line between replying to a comment, no matter how angrily, and HARASSMENT.

Name-calling might not be a nice thing to do, but libel and harassment are behaviors that are so odious they are actually ILLEGAL. Illegal behaviors are grounds for lawsuits. That is also a statement of fact.

Do you understand the difference between those kinds of behaviors, or not?

I would very definitely call this HARM.

Introduced plants spreading where they are very definitely unwanted are called invasive species.

Companies suing farmers whose fields have been invaded without their consent is abusive monopolistic behavior. (Read: "corporatism".)

I could go on, but those are 2 harms that have been proved. One to crop diversity, the other to society and free markets.

You just gave away who you are. But I knew already.

Sock-puppetry is another form of dishonesty. It's also universally despised here on Slashdot.

But you've been told that before. So why don't you cease the BS, and STOP HARASSING ME?

Or do you somehow think that my behavior is evil, but bullying and harassment isn't? It's that hypocrisy rearing its head again.

But according to the description their methodology very clearly ISN'T "agile", whether they think so or not.

Agile isn't a tool, it's a method. And that method doesn't include eons of top-down planning, no matter what tools are used. But I may be preaching to the choir here.