By the same token, the way that bic pens work has been called 'miraculous', an answer to prayer for those who struggle with fountain pens, and come in sky blue, which [make logical leap] means they come from heaven, after all, I saw it on an ad or something, so my bizarre and ignorant interpretation must be the correct one.

This means that people who believe in BIC pens must believe in sky fairies. What's that? BIC Pens aren't like sky fairies?

People who rely on bad analogies to make an argument (like the 'sky fairy' argument, or calling climate science a 'religion' as a derogative) are making those statements because framing something complex that they don't fully understand as a caricature saves them the trouble of making a reasoned argument in support of their position. It's like saying "Jews are money grubbers" or "rag heads hate our freedoms", a blatant attempt to dehumanise, to classify their beliefs as something "other" - when in fact, their beliefs are just as justified by objective proof as your own. They have none, and neither do you.

If frustrates you that others don't rush to join your religion? It makes you angry that their beliefs contradict your own? Well whoop de do. Get over it. People have believed conflicting things for thousands of years, and by all accounts, will continue do so until the Sun swells up and we are boiled alive.

i thought for a second you said "it has been screed" which is also true.

You do realise that it isn't? The City of London is a coorporation. It has nothing to do with the "british police", whatever that is supposed to be.

Yes it's vaccine - a vaccination against the disease of democracy.

You are blind to what is obvious to everybody else. You have the right to carry a gun. You don't have the right to rebel against the government. If you rebel, you have broken the social contract between yourself and the government and the notions of which 'freedoms' the government respects and upholds are gone. Shoot at the US Military, break the contract with the US government, they will shoot you dead and go out for a bacon and egg breakfast after. You think your situation is different because you are permitted to carry a gun? You've been fooled - you've been indoctrinated to keep you compliant, to make you think you are special. You aren't special. You don't have more freedoms. Once the bullets start leaving the guns with deadly intent, do you think it matters to anyone whether both parties agree the guns were obtained legally in the past? Don't be so naive. Pull the trigger, and your rights are the same as a Pashtun, a Uiger, a Tibetan or a Tamil. The bit where you can carry a gun a fantasise about how it makes you powerful is just for pretend. You think rebellions are put down because the rebels can't get their hands on legal hand held weapons? Don't be stupid.

Instead this fantasy is encouraged by the US government and it's powerful backers. It keeps the US populace from protesting grave indignities using any means that would be effective. Consider two responses to the Snowden revelations.

City A, hearing the revelations, is outraged. They exercise the lesser options - taking to the streets in protest, striking, threatening to vote in ways that disrupt the status quo and then following through on those threats. The government and its backers are forced to take a conciliatory approach. No more spying.

City B, hearing the revelations, is outraged. But discussion at the public meeting takes a different tact. Someone yells "Revolution!" and immediately the outrage is dissipated. Some families have children in the military. Others, recognise that attempted revolution is useless, that there are no visionary leaders of the movement, and no-one they can see who they would trust to be in charge, that they would never sway popular opinion toward revolution on this issue alone. Still others, quite validly, see revolution as an overreaction. Still, having contemplated such a radical action, the wind is out of the sails. After all, they could revolt, but the situation is not that serious. Maybe we'll just hold fire. City B goes back to their homes, satisfied that they have exercised a freedom, living quietly with tyranny. The government and its backers are sitting pretty.

American faux revolutionaries are effectively quislings for the government they think they are protecting us from.

You mean we. 'We' is the inclusive pronoun. It doesn't matter what we believe. And it does matter. You likely believe there are many differences (real or imagined) between your own beliefs and the beliefs of others.

Curious. By 'zealots' I guess you mean atheists, since we seem these same erroneous patterns on Slashdot, perhaps when they grew older they started posting their irrational rants here?

You are right, religious hatred is on the rise in the West, or those launching diatribes against people based on religion use this as an excuse for some darker intent - who knows. There is a section, an element of society that wants to hate the other - doesn't matter on what grounds the notion of 'other' is made, as long as there is someone to hate: the indigenous, the chinese, the irish, the jew, the german, the hippy, the homosexual, the muslim, the vietnamese, the christian, the persian. Pick one and hate them.

This rising wave of hatred reflects in some ways the rising wave of persecution in other parts of the world. In many parts of the world, the middle east, north africa, bhutan, burma, china - believing the wrong thing is a crime punishable up to death.

So - a vanishingly small number of people

And if either of them are right, you are wrong (see below), which puts you in the same category as them.

Well, you are entitled to your beliefs, without being subject to snide remarks about your relative intelligence, or lack thereof.

A quell surprise! Those that don't share your beliefs don't distinguish YOUR beliefs from other beliefs they consider incorrect.

Welcome to the village.

Curious anecdote. Do you know many people who believe in Poseidon or Zeus?

A fairly arbitrarily selected finish line - as opposed to 'put a probe on the moon', 'put a human in orbit', 'put a craft into interstellar space' or 'achieve useful velocities to enable interplanetary travel', 'send a spacecraft to the moons of Saturn and return it safely to earth' - and so on. Kennedy select one from a list and went for it. Arguably the other options would have served more purpose but didn't involve imagery of brave Americans breaching a new frontier, and thus did not suit the PR driver.

Of course it is possible. The difficulty is that, absent fear of the communists or imperialists (depending on which team you go for) there is just no reason to do it.

That is why the Apollo program was shut down of course, due to a gradual realisation that travelling to the Moon served no useful purpose. People love to talk about why it was started, forgetting that the reasons why it was not continued are far more relevant.

Do you have short term memory issues? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4449841&cid=45432619

You don't have an answer? You accept that that your argument As to legislation, the reality is that the highly restrictive climate change oriented legislation is deeply unpopular both nationally and internationally. contradicts your initial premise Australia is rejecting existing and new CO2 laws?

You don't have a response - we'll take it as read then, that this is yet another ill conceived and baseless rant on your part.

I'm struggling to see why. Satire is not offensive, or least, not nearly as offensive as the kind of untruths we hear from politicians day in and day out. It is a legitimate way to convey a message that sticks in the mind. Should public institutions be forced to convey important public announcements without the aid of any rhetorical device? What of loudspeakers? Some people find them "offensive".

It would be unfortunate indeed if we accepted the right of the anti-science brigade to engage in rhetoric, up to and including very offensive remarks (threats of physical and sexual violence, allegations of pedophillia lagainst leading climate scientists and the like) and denied the right of science to engage in satire to convey facts.

The irony

If your argument consistents of repeatedly screaming "give up! give up!" with no detail on what I ought to give up or what would compel me to give it up I'll make free to interpret your remarks in any way I choose.

If that were true, I fail to see how it would affect legislation that is not highly restrictive. If anything, you are making an argument AGAINST Direct Action (which is purely regulation) and FOR an ETS (which is not). How does this not contradict your central premise (Australia is rejecting existing and new CO2 laws)?

Please cite me expressing this point of view or indeed showing any interest at all in what the US is doing.

My position being that Australia has not rejected the need for climate action

And then of course you lapse into a series of disconnected rants which have nothing to do with the point you are trying to make: [snipped]

Let's consider you judgments in context.

• Scientists told us the earth was warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Denialists told us the earth wasn't warming
• Scientists told us the earth was warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Denialists told us the earth was warming, but it's the sun
• Scientists told us the earth was warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Denialists told us the earth was warming, it's not the sun and how dare you talk to us in those words! We are offended! Appease us!
• Scientists told us the earth was warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Denialists rang up the scientists making death threats and threats to rape theoir children if they didn't stop talking
• Scientists told us the earth was warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Economists told us that we can make the necessary cuts with minimal impact on our economy and be the better for it. Denialists told us it was a conspiracy involving time travelling clones of AL Gore - invisible clones of course.
• Scientists told us the earth was warming due to anthropogenic emissions.Economists told us that we can make the necessary cuts with minimal impact on our economy and be the better for it. Denialists told us it was a conspiracy by governments to get more power and we shouldn't try to do anything because governments don't want to do anything

Talk about your cognitive dissonance. What a joke. It's a government conspiracy to control us using legislation, but we shouldn't tell our governments to legislate, because they don't want to do it!

You'll excuse me if I don't take your speculations about my intent, or your judgements about my intellect, or you conspicuously contradictory and uncited views on the feelings of the Australian public very seriously.

Satire is a legitimate form of argument.

If you find that satire is offending you on par with baseless, personal insults as a form of rhetoric, you are missing the point.

Well let me see. Here's what I said:

Yes. Yes I did.

It seems unlikely that the film called someone a stupid f*ck based on zero evidence.

It seems more likely that the film makes reference to the stupid and dangerous legislation in force in North Carolina by suggesting that it is stupid and/or dangerous, which is simply an accurate annotation, something you yourself apparently do not dispute.

Hopefully you are smart enough to see the difference.

The existing infrastructure needs to be replaced - perhaps not straight away, but within 20 years. So the conversation is always about what we replace it with. We are also already paying a mitigation cost although this is at present minimal, ramping up to 20% for GDP by about 2060. Infrastructure costs include the power stations themselves, but also the huge connecting infrastructure, powerlines and substations, easements for same to be maintained. The primayr cost factors for renwable verus non-renwable are:

C: Cost

M: Cost of mitigation

I: Infrastructure costs for powert distribution

G: Cost of generating Infrastructure

g: Ongoing costs (fuel, maintenance etc)

Suffix

r: renewable

nr: non renewable

Cnr = Mnr + Inr + Gnr + gnr

Cr = Mr + Ir + Gr + gr

Gr > Gnr (for the time being)

Mnr >> Mr

Inr > Ir

gnr > gr

In order for non - renewables to be cost competitive with renewables, Gr - Gnr would need ot be larger than (Mnr - Mr) + ( Inr - Ir ) + (gnr - gr) where M >> G.

This is not likely.