There is a great deal of evidence that smoking in some way increases the risks of lung cancer. I don't think there's much room to deny that.

BUT, now look at nicotine use without smoking. Look at all the studies that have the test group smoking and yet claim to draw conclusions about nicotine use.

It's very hit and miss in medicine and we sometimes spend billions on the misses (and then wonder why the U.S. has the world's most expensive healthcare but only achieves mediocre results).

It is worth noting that in an airplane, parachutes are largely useless since the passengers are not trained in how to use them.

When it comes to protecting Earth, everyone doesn't need training, just those who will do something about it.

The risk to Earth, in our lifetimes, is very, very low. The risk over the next 50,000 years is much higher.

The thing is, we don't know when it will happen again. So should we do nothing?

How misleading.

The "credit" from KfW was the german part of the bailout money. They didn't speculate in Greece, they were simple the vehicle through which the german government sent its share. Also, KfW is not a bank in the normal sense of the word. For example, you can't go there and open an account. It's a specialized government investment institute that is primarily used as a low-interest credit bank for government subsidized investment. For example, because the government wants to support renewable energy, you can get very cheap credits from KfW if you want to build solar panels on your roof.

I usually exit these discussions when people begin to argue ad hominem. You have no idea what I like, because we haven't talked about it. Also, you're wrong.

As far as the partially government-owned banks are concerned, they're not owned by the German government, but by regional governments. The national government is too much in bed with the major banks (Deutsche Bank, etc.) to run their own.

Actually not. Some of them are partially government-owned. That's a difference. It is now that all the debt is transferred to state-owned banks.

Which is basically what happened.

Add the error and difficulty of subtracting rider movement (remember, a phone's accelerometer is not something that is fixed to the chassis of the vehicle, but instead is something loosely carried by a squishy human being) and I'm going to say the answer is probably far closer to 0% than it is 92%.

And cheap USB2 keys that hold a couple hundred times as much data as a DVD don't exist. Nope, they do, and are far more convenient and resilient to damage than optical media.

A DVD is universal, and not going anywhere. It has well-established standards for dealing with audio, video, and just works.

If I hand someone a cheap USB2 key, I'm out a few dollars and the result -might- be that they get to view the thing I just handed them.

If I hand someone a DVD-R, I'm out a few pennies and the result -will- be that they get to view the thing I just handed them.

Which is beside the point. Consensus isn't about truth, it's about burden of proof.

Suppose Alice and Bob both try to make a perpetual motion machine. Alice claims she has failed, but Bob claims he has succeeded. The scientific community treats Alice's claims of failure without skepticism but it automatically assumes that Bob has made a mistake somewhere.

Does that seem unfair to Bob? Well, imagine you're a rich guy and Alice and Bob are both applying to you for a job. Bob says you should give the job to him because he's your long-lost fraternal twin your parents never told you about and which the hospital hushed up for some reason. When you mention this to Alice she freely admits she is not related to you. You automatically believe Alice, so is it fair to Bob to be skeptical of his claims?

It's a case of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In either case Bob can prove his claim, it's more complicated and time consuming because he has to explain what went wrong with all the prior knowledge. Alice's claims in either case are consistent with what you reasonably believe to be true so you can reasonably assume she's correct.

That's why we must preserve what little is left, for its rarity makes it finite and precious.

I like that better than adopting a defeatist attitude and assuming all is lost.

New York is also probably the only place in the USA with both sufficient population and population density to justify alternative transportation schemes. How about some overhead transport? Lots of room up there.

Sterile mosquitoes are well-known to only retard the problem as long as you're doing it. It will require more severe measures to eradicate the mosquito.

Er, no. That's like positing science going off the rails because it replaced instrumentation with data.

In general I would agree with you, but not in this case. That they are natural monopolies would be grounds for a summary rejection. There's no reason that cannot be a special exception.

That it got this far without being summarily rejected is problematic all by itself.

A summary rejection, now that would demonstrate the slightest concern for preserving competition.

It isn't, though. The pirates can afford a better net connection, since they're not buying games.