But OK, so hurricane frequency is at a 30 year low in America.

If you don't dispute the message, why did you have to attack the messenger? Sigh...

World-wide, hurricanes, cyclones, & similar category 3+ storms are at a 40+ year high

The chart you linked to a) ends in 2005 (9 years ago!); b) does not suggest anything of the kind. The number of "named systems" peaked in the early 1930-ies, according to it, with spikes in 1968 and 1994 being below that of 80 years ago. Given the state of most of the world back then — and the quality of communications in particular — I am not at all surprised, we aren't even aware of some of the major storms hitting remote places in 1920-1950ies...

For example, according to Wikipedia Chavez High School in Houston is less than a quarter mile from chemical plants owned by Texas Petroleum, Denka Chemical, USS Chemical, and Goodyear Chemical. I'm going to say that's not a good outcome in my book.

Get a new book then. Because if the children live near those plants — such as because their parents work there and don't want too long a commute — they may as well study there.

That said, I think those decisions should be made at a local level

It is not any better at "local level" — the opportunities for graft and other abuses still exist, and the fundamental principle of the owner having full control of the property is still violated.

Seems like Houston has minimum parking requirements and minimum lot sizes, so no.

That's not zoning. You can still change your home into a business, if you wish.

Are you out of your mind? Listen to me, Charlie. Get out of L.A. Now. Cause if there's one thing I know, it's that you never mess with Mother Nature, mother-inlaws, or mother-fucking Ukrainians.

Hurricane INTENSITY is projected to increase

Touche!

That has nothing to do with hurricane FREQUENCY

Oh, it has quite a bit to do with frequency — if there are no hurricanes to begin with, for example, you can claim they have any intensity — such is one of the funkier properties of the empty set.

More seriously, here is a scientific write-up, which has the following to say about the 2004 study:

Furthermore, the idealized study of Knutson and Tuleya (2004) assumed the existence of hurricanes [emphasis mine] and then simulated how intense they would become. Thus, that study could not address the important question of the frequency of intense hurricanes.

If I assume the existence of unicorns, I too may be able to predict global warming's impact on the length of their horns...

The flower children of 1960-70-ies have all grown and are running the country. A feminist NY Times reporter agreed to show the Sony exec an article about her prior to publishing it — which is strictly against journalistic ethics. The article, of course, is quite adoring — the firm is praised for its "pro-women" movies (like "Frozen"). Journalistic integrity is secondary to the agenda — the Greater Good of promoting women justifies the means. Nobody will know, right?

Sony executive — Ms. Pascal — is quoted in the exchange as unable to properly spell "you are". Despite her correspondent — NYT's Dowd — gently correcting her several times, she kept writing "YOUR" (yes, in ALL CAPS) instead of "you're". How could such a moron become a major executive? Because it is good for a company's image to have a woman at the top, that's how... And, it being Hollywood, she had to be an Illiberal, of course.

And that's part of the bigger picture — our very President is who he is not (only) because of personal merits, but because of his race. Some mythical "haters" may have voted against him because of it, but he got more votes thanks to it, than he lost due to it.

Not only did it help him in 2008, it helped him all along before that. We don't know, how well he did in college, for example, but we know, he was elected President of Harvard Law Review — a feat, for which he thanked Black professors...

Among the first things he did in White House, was to appoint a fellow affirmative action "wise Latina" to Supreme Court. Again, not because she is the best qualified legal expert, but because she is a Latino.

No one with the functional organ will agree to a brain surgery done by a doctor, who got to do it because of his skin color or sex. Why, then, do we tolerate the governance of public and private institutions alike run by people, whose gender and race were taken into account, when they got the job?

They also cite a Nature editorial pointing out the same thing about extreme weather.

Extreme weather, huh? 10 years ago we were discussing right here, how continuing global warming will make hurricanes more frequent.

The usual suspects were writing "insightful" posts lamenting "deniers" and the sorry state of the uneducated populace preventing the sophisticated elite from saving the planet.

Today, 10 years since that discussion, we are living through a 30 year low hurricane-frequency — something, none of the "Global Warming" models predicted...

People should be able to do anything they want on/with their own property because, you know, fuck everyone else

Sigh... Statists gonna state...

I've been to countries that don't have zoning laws and frankly I wasn't impressed with the results

What countries were those, and how do we know, those "unimpressive" results were due to, rather than in spite of (or even regardless of) lack of zoning?

I'm open to alternate solutions

Well, you must've missed my link to article about Houston, so here it is again...

Zoning laws prevent you from doing what you want with your property... They are evil and, obviously, a magnet for graft and other corruption.

Houston, for example, is not any worse without them...

All it takes is a municipal decision to make the road one-way (in the wrong direction)

That would be rather inconvenient for the residents themselves, would not it?

And local municipalities care more about what their residents think than what passing commuters think.

Why, yes, this is a great argument to justify selective enforcement of traffic laws too — tell the police to only ticket non-residents. Still feeling good?

Why is the site, that is all up-in-arms about net-neutrality — forcing private corporations to treat all traffic the same — tolerates the exact opposite sentiment, when it comes to traffic on public roads?

Unlike the network cables and electronics, the roads are actually ours — we all pay taxes for their repairs and upkeep — how can it be Ok for mayor and/or town-council of Western Bumfuck to limit traffic and give preference to local residents?

There are about 1.3 billion muslims in the world and the fraction causing problems in practice is minimal however you try and spin it.

I don't need to spin it — ISIS and Al Qaeda do it themselves. Few of the Muslims are actually fighting, yes, but they are funded by the much larger group of people.

You really don't know about the whole Catholics vs. Protestants thing?

I know about it quite well — enough to understand, that nothing in the doctrine of either flavor of Christianity compels its followers into doing the things IRA has done.

The Bible says an awful lot of things that aren't particularly nice either

None of those things are attributed to Him or His prophets. Koran, on contrast, dispenses with such subtlety and purports to be entirely the word of God.

Yes, Christianity too has been used to justify all sorts of atrocities, but one had to pervert the doctrine to make it usable to that end. Islam, unfortunately, does not need any such creative interpretations. It is quite explicit.

Most conflicts have some religious twist to them

Yes, religion is a tool used by societies during conflicts to rally supporters, team up with allies, comfort its own, and help its fighters do non-survivable things for the rest of us. But only Islam compels its followers into spreading itself.

In particular, Koran is incompatible with the First Amendment, which represents an interesting paradox for the US. On the one hand, Muslims swearing to respect the Constitution must denounce their religion. On the other, that very Amendment makes it impossible for us to force them into such denouncing...

how religion adversarial is to society

Though a Soviet-raised atheist myself (where Communists could not afford to have any other teaching compete with their own), I must say, I prefer living in among religious folks — so long as they aren't empowered to convert me, of course.

You don't need as strong a lock on your house, nor do you have to fear as much, when your daughter walks home from the train.

Unfortunately, the alternative to an established monotheistic religion like Judaism, Christianity (most flavors), or even Islam, is not the theoretical atheism of the USSR or the sophisticated agnosticism of the educated elites. No, it is the superstitions and paganry — with vampires and werewolves, amulets and "lucky charms", "jinxing", and "bad karma" nonsense.

not actively start wars/fights to gain goods or force people to convert.

Yeah, 2:256. What came after that — and thus, by the rules with which the book is interpreted, takes precedence, is:

• Qur'an (8:39) - “And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone [in the whole of the world ]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do.”
• Qur'an (9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
• Qur'an (9:5) "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them..."
• Qur'an (9:11) - (Continued from above) "But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then are they your brethren in religion"

I would've said "dream on", but your pro-Islam propaganda endangers the rest of us...

are we still holding all the crusades against christians?

Why is it, that you have to go back 600 years to find anything against Christians to counterweight contemporary behavior of Islamists?

I claimed that some Americans were joining the military for the same reasons that some Muslims become terrorists, to defend their religion and culture against its perceived enemies.

Well, in that case our participation in Korean war is evidence, we are full of Buddhist terrorists.

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company

None of the references cited on that page actually promote fighting or armed struggle. They were put there to comfort the soldiers — all religions help followers do non-survivable (or hard-to-survive) things. But only Islam requires that.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity

Ann Coulter was, quite obviously, trolling — she is very good at it. Just last week she wrote, that the Rolling Stones reporter, who falsely accused some college students of rape, received an award from Rape Hoax Monthly. Are you going to cite that as evidence, such a society exists? Her article simply reversed the tables — it expressed the sentiment written into "religion of piece".

The mechanisms are different but Christianity has it's own long history of aggressive attempts to spread the faith.

Secular leaders have used Christianity to justify conquests and subjugation, yes. But those aren't part of the scripture — neither Christian god, nor any of His prophets have ever called for anything of the kind.