I don't think it's a false choice at all. Everything is prioritized. When we focus on global warming we lose site of pollution.

So you don't think there is any hyperbole re global warming. You don't think something is wrong when you hear "The Ice Caps will be gone in 2014"? You accept that bullsh*t as normal, acceptable hyperbole. And when I call it for the bullsh*t it is I'm an idiot?

It is degrading if you it results in you not feeling good about yourself. If you don't spend your time learning skills. If you expect others to provide for you. I will help someone who is helping himself (example: pushing a cart up a ramp) but resent being asked to do it myself while he is sitting by the side drinking a beer and chatting with friends and complaining that it isn't being done quickly enough.)

http://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/c... 2012 was above / even to 2008. And let's not forget that there was supposed to be NO ICE CAP by the summer of 2014. Ooops.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be reducing pollution; that we shouldn't be taking actions such as no encroaching into the few wild areas left - but that we're seeing hysteria regarding global warming.

That's interesting. I will have to look at this more carefully. I know people from the Caribbean - Grenada and other places. There was a murder in Grenada the other year and EVERYONE (the expats here in NYC) were talking about it because it was so unusual. The whole island is like a series of small towns. Homes aren't locked. It's described as "old-fashioned" small-town country life.

It's true that there are concerns that the drug-trade is coming to with its violence.

When the Antarctic ice pack shrinks it's all over the news. "The sky is falling." But funny, now that the Arctic ice pack has increased over the last 5 years and the prediction that there would be no Arctic ice pack by 2014 we don't hear a fu**ing peep.

In a few years when the Antarctic ice pack increases that will no longer be in the news - but since the Arctic will start shrinking. "OMG. The sky is falling."

Did you know that coastlines have risen and fallen? that the period between ice ages are periods of ... gasp ... global warming; that ice ages are a recent phenomenon (last 2.5 million years) - probably due to continental drift and change of ocean/wind currents.

Here's the thing - people living in deltas have a very short time frame (geologically) before they have to start building dykes. Maybe, just maybe, people should not build mega cities in flood plains and then be surprised that sh*t happens. Islands will disappear under rising oceans as they have numerous times before; and in a short amount of time (geologically speaking) new land bridges will arise.

But no - lets not be concerned about dioxins, dumping nuclear waste on the ocean floor - let's take our eye off the pollution and spend our time, energy and money on global warming. YEAH!!!! Makes so much sense.

I don't like the racism of the poster above but your point is incorrect. Factoring for population differences still result in blacks disproportionately being the aggressor. Now why is that?

Unlike the poster above I don't think it is due to something innate in being black. There are plenty of majority places in the Caribbean, Africa and the Americas in which the crime rate is low and normal.

There are other factors involved - oh, maybe, single-parent homes; a society which hits people with a triple-whammy: expect nothing; provide a subsistence and degrading handout; and provide incentives to not have two-parent households.

But my mac can connect to alien command ship and give it a cold (um virus, I mean virus).

You feel guilt for something somebody else did?

I don't know. Why don't you ask John Hancock?

So knowing how to live off the land is simply foolish? Knowing how to track, kill and prepare game is simply foolishness? The only people that should have this knowledge are ranchers, butchers and cooks? I don't think so. I think it's useful to know how to use a compass; how to make fires; etc...

No one thing is "salvation." But space exploration is important for a whole slew of reasons.

Are you mad? Do you know how many businesses struggle with payroll? Where owners take loans (or are late paying other bills) in order to cover payroll. This is SOOOOO fu*king common. Start a business and see how often it happens to you.

I think of government as bloated corporations with guns, jails and the force of law behind them.

No. It never was a Democracy. You know just a few weeks ago I was castigated by other /.ers for saying that the US was never a Democracy. Democracy is antithetical to individual freedom.

It's becoming less and less of a representative republic because we are disempowering the individual (in the name of the greater good) and wondering why there are no checks and balances.