Blahblahblah.

I've studied the science and the "science" behind climate change for 20 years. I've reviewed the publicly available data. I've reviewed the models and their results. I've reviewed the common methodologies behind the statistical smoothing and proxy data collection. I've also studied the arguments raised by those who claim it's impossible or simply untrue.

What I've found is that both sides are filled to the brim with people who understand nothing of scientific rigor. They're filled with people who reached a conclusion as soon as they heard the initial one-liner argument from one side or the other. In the end, the real science underpinning this discussion is in its infancy. We're looking at an incredibly complex system with enormously influential inputs that come and go - some in cycles, some not - and which drastically alter the equation. We're still at the point where we don't know what we don't know. What we do know is that changes are happening and have been happening which have an enormous impact on human civilization and the entire ecosystem. We also know that we've been doing significant environmental damage to some areas.

What we most certainly do not know is how our activities have affected the world's climate. We just don't. We can't model any of it because we don't understand it. There's never been a model that's worked even reasonably well for more than about 3 years and not a one can do historical prediction without an enormous amount of fudging (i.e. "yeah no idea why that data is there, so rather than just ignoring it, we told the model that at this specific point there would be some new factor we called "X" that accounts for the change and then goes away at this other point, so now the model looks better". "Oh, our model just ignored that data and we marked it as bad data").

You see, the problem here isn't that I don't understand science. I do. It isn't that I haven't kept up with the field. I have. That's the problem: I've actually looked at it from both sides, and both sides are fairly full of shit.

It gets worse...

If you go back more than about 35 years, the data becomes so terrible that you have to use ridiculous amounts of statistical hand-waving to pretend you have any sort of precision (and to make the data move outside the error bars). When you go back past about 1920 (when the first fragments of standardized temperature measurement took hold), the data turns into a pile of garbage. Now you're on to looking at which flowers bloomed where and subjective accounts from human settlements (e.g. some guy's personal correspondence complaining about how cold it's been this year). If you want to go back further, to points where -as you said- you get geologically significant data, you're using even more terribly imprecise proxies like ice cores. They'll tell you within a couple of degrees what the average was over the course of a few hundred years.

None of this, outside of data gathered in the past ~35 years, even comes close to actually being able to diagnose the cause of a 1c shift over the course of 100 years. Not only can we not say what the actual cause is, we can't even say that it hasn't happened in half the one-century periods since the end of the last ice age. And that data gathered over the past ~35 years since satellites went into orbit? That data disagrees with itself. You ask the satellites, you get one set of data. You ask the ground stations, you get another set of data. You ask the proxies, you get yet another set of data. Some of that data agrees on general trends and some of it outright bucks everything else.

All of it gets hand-waved away with "we know what we're talking about!!!". This isn't science; certainly not the science I grew up with. In the science I grew up with, you didn't start with the conclusion, then develop the tests that get you there and ignore any and all data to the contrary.

"A study out of McGill University sought to examine historical temperature data going back 500 years..."

In other words, "We looked at the last 2 seconds of this 9 hour VHS quality movie and determined that the car featured in it is moving faster than it should be in last frame."

"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Funny how most gun control advocates in the US will swear up and down that this kind of fascist crap isn't part of their agenda. The gun rights crowd gets called paranoid for even suggesting it as a future possibility.

If you don't want to own guns, that's fine and I honestly have no problem at all with someone making that personal decision. Where I draw the line is when someone tries to make that decision for me. Whether or not I actually do own or want to own any firearms is my business and mine alone. If one accepts that self-defense is a basic human right, one must also accept that the tools necessary to exercise that right are intrinsically and inseparably linked. God/nature/whatever does not provide the average person (in particular, women and children, but applicably to all) the means for self defense against hardened violent criminals, those on stimulant drugs such as cocaine, PCP, etc, and those who through some mental defect have become uncontrollably violent. God/nature/whatever also does not provide the average person the means for self defense against groups of violent attackers or those using tools of their own (be they guns, knives, hammers, baseball bats, or sharp sticks). Lastly (and of course what everyone will jump on as soon as it's mentioned), God/nature/whatever does not provide anyone with the means for resisting a tyrannical government which has violated the rights of its citizens and begun treating them as subjects or slaves.

From my perspective, a society which bars average, decent, law-abiding people from obtaining the best available means of defense against anyone or any group meaning to do them or other innocent people harm has violated one of the fundamental justifications for having government: defense of peoples' rights. I completely understand that many if not most in some societies (such as in the UK, Australia, and some others) decided as a group that they didn't want guns around anymore. However, some invariably would prefer (and no doubt some actually do - at great personal risk) to keep guns around for self defense. They have a natural/God-given right to do so and no law passed by any number of people in the society can take away that right.

If all but one vote away basic, fundamental human rights, this remains the essence of the tyranny of the majority. It is three foxes and a hen voting on what's for dinner. It is always wrong and never justifiable and no government should be allowed to do it as it is a violation of the sole justification for the existence of government.

Wait a moment, are you saying that there are people who might ignore the gun-free zone signs and carry a gun anyway? What kind of person would even think of doing such a thing?

But your point is well taken. I think the best way to go is to stop everyone but the police and the military from carrying guns, just like they do in Mexico. Then we could enjoy Mexico's legendarily low violent crime rate right here in the United States.

Exactly, which is why you always see mass shootings at gun shows, gun stores, and gun ranges where there's lot of guns, lots of ammunition, and lots of gun-obsessed people.

Thankfully, there are some places where that sort of thing isn't tolerated, like schools, malls, and US Postal offices. Ahh yes, gun-free zones, where violence is a thing of the past.

To be fair, most liberal arts majors never reach this realization. They just get together in dirty groups and complain about how evil bankers are.

Kudos to this individual for connecting the dots and taking some personal responsibility, then acting on it to improve his or her situation.

Well sport, since you like Wikipedia, we can use that if you like.

"The number of Crimean residents who consider Ukraine their motherland increased sharply from 32% to 71.3% from 2008 through 2011; according to a poll by Razumkov Center in March 2011,[10] although this is the lowest number in all Ukraine (93% on average across the country).[10] Surveys of regional identities in Ukraine have shown that around 30% of Crimean residents claim to have retained a self-identified "Soviet identity".[11]

Since the independence of Ukraine in 1991, 3.8 million former citizens of Russia applied for Ukrainian citizenship.[12]

This is particularly apparent in both the Russian and Ukrainian ethnic populations, whose growth rate has been falling at the rate of 0.6% and 0.12% annually respectively. In comparison, the ethnic Crimean Tatar population has been growing at the rate of 0.9% per annum.[13]

The growing trend in the Crimean Tatar population has been explained by the continuing repatriation of Crimean Tatars mainly from Uzbekistan."

As for the 1989 and 2001 census numbers, they're also up there on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Sadly enough, all this information was in a link right from the very page you originally linked. See, you've got to keep reading, sport. Can't give up as soon as you think you've found something to back up your incorrect, out of date beliefs. Now, am I still a CIA spy here to mislead the masses? Or is someone else perhaps a little guilty of drinking that Putin Kool-Aid delivered right from the RT pitcher? :)

Sorry, sport, you're a little out of date. Your Wikipedia numbers are pulling from the 2001 census (and it was 58% Russian then). Since that time, overall population in Crimea has been falling at about 0.4% per year. Numbers of ethnic Russians in Crimea has been falling at about 0.6% per year. Meanwhile, ethnic Tatars have been growing at a rate of about 0.9% each year.

If you look back a little bit, the trend (which has continued) shows up a bit easier. In the 1989 census, it was 67% Russian and 1.6% Tatar. By the 2001 census, it was 58% Russian and 12% Tatar. The shift is from mass repatriation of Tatars primarily resettling from Uzbekistan. So your 13-year old data just isn't valid anymore. Best estimates are that right now, it's about 51% Russian. Of those, a growing number would actually self-identify as Ukrainian. Putin's lies just don't work here. The memory hole doesn't go deep enough.

I'm particularly amused at your "now go back to langley" comment, essentially claiming I'm working for the CIA. That's pretty funny, but it actually just helps to confirm your disconnect from the facts on the ground. I'm not working for any government agency; I'm just a regular guy with better, more up to date information. Chin up though, sport, you'll get the hang of it. Just need to not use decades old data when making your point if there's any chance you're going to get caught.

No, people are making a big deal out of this because Russia marched troops and mobile armor into Ukraine, allowed (some would say encouraged) armed mobs of fanatical ethnic Russians to run amok, surrounded Ukrainian bases in Crimea, and then decided there should be a hastily organized vote on whether Crimea should join Russia immediately or become independent and let its leadership vote on whether to join Russia (no options to remain part of Ukraine). Ethnic Russians make up about 51% of Crimea. Since Crimea was handed to Ukraine some 60 years ago, younger generations of ethnic Russians have grown up as Ukrainians and largely self-identify as Ukrainian. About 15% of the population there are ethnic Tatars, who were brutalized and murdered by Russia until Crimea came under control of Ukraine. The rest is mostly ethnic Ukrainian.

So with Russian tanks and armed troops parked outside peoples' homes and armed mobs of fanatical pro-Russia groups roaming the streets uninhibited, a vote took place in which 97% of votes cast were to join Russia. 97%, despite the fact that at least 15% of the population would essentially be like Jews voting to have their homes fall under the control of the Nazis. The Russians claim this is somehow a legitimate vote and that the people of Crimea have the right to simply vote themselves part of any country they choose (so long as that country is Russia).

There's very little fighting going on. Much of the violence you're seeing in Crimea is from pro-Russian fanatics who've formed armed mobs supported by the Russian military. They've killed or wounded a small number of Ukrainian soldiers stationed at Ukrainian bases in Crimea and they're generally running amok because nobody's stopping them. The Ukrainian troops in Crimea aren't shooting because if they did, the Russians would just murder them (bombing from the air, rockets from helicopters, shelling from artillery; the Russians have a lot of options against small numbers in tight quarters armed only with small arms). As it turns out, about half the Ukrainian military on the ground in Crimea are joining Russian forces, likely because they don't want to be on the losing end of a potential slaughter and/or due to personal or familial Russian self-identification issues.

Amazing how the percentage keeps going up. Every decent source I've seen says 51% ethnic Russians. A poster here named etash claims it's 60%. You're claiming 65%.

Well I'm now claiming it's 104%! 104% of Crimea is ethnic Russians! 110% of them voted to join Russia! Vote is complete! It is fair and reasonable!

You'd need to adjust your analogy to assume the Nazis stayed in power (being that Putin is "ex" KGB and is running the place like the Soviet Union of old). So it would be like saying that if the Nazis who exterminated Jews still controlled the German government, all Jews who ran from Hitler would still hate/distrust Germans.

And yes, I think that's fair to say.

Even Russia doesn't claim that. I don't know if you're drinking Putin's Kool-Aid or if he's drinking your's.

There is no dispute that Crimea was part of Ukraine a month ago. Seriously, not even Putin has ever claimed any differently. The area belonged to Ukraine. The argument Putin has made is that the people there didn't want to be part of Ukraine anymore; they wanted to have Crimea be part of Russia again, and that the right of self-determination makes it all legal. But that's a far cry from claiming it was always Russian land.

Also, it isn't 60% Russian. It's about 51% ethnic Russian. Of those, the younger generations grew up only ever knowing it as part of Ukraine. Therefore, even among ethnic Russians, some percentage would self-identify as Ukrainian. Then you have the roughly 15% Tatars who've had nothing but persecution under Russian rule (the reason so many of them are there is that Russia got tired of beating the Hell out of them and expelled them from Russia ... to Ukraine). Between the ethnic Ukrainians, Tatars, and the younger generation of ethnic Russians who self-identify as Ukrainian, a fair vote would likely be something like 45% join Russia 55% not (some mix between becoming independent and staying with Ukraine).

The fact that it was 97% shows just what a Saddam Hussein style "vote" it really was.

As someone who manages a decent sized VMware vSphere environment, I can tell you that core counts are not so important as you may think. My AMD-based ESXi servers have triple and quadruple the cores of my Intel-based ESXi servers, yet they experience chronic problems with CPU Ready Time at far lower over-subscription rates and even sometimes while under-subscribed if some oversized VMs are present. It's one of the reasons I'm pushing through a complete shift away from high-core count Opterons (24 and 32 core hosts) and moving toward lower core count (mostly 8 core) Xeon hosts.

And that deeply pains me as someone who's used AMD CPUs since the K6-2 days. Once Intel fell into the P4 clock speed trap, I thought AMD would finally be able to beat them into submission. Sadly, AMD has sat idly by and allowed Intel to dominate nearly every metric of raw performance. As much as I grew up loving AMD as the plucky underdog, I can't ignore reality and I have to make the smartest decisions from a professional standpoint. When licensing costs get added to the mix, Intel absolutely obliterates AMD from a TCO perspective in the server space. I hate it, but it's true, and I'm left with little choice if I want to be honest.