all of Christainity worship the same savior and are supposed to follow the same rules.

That's not completely true. While they all have their roots in the same book, the actual religions can be very different.

Roman Catholics, for example, include the worship of demigods (they call them Saints) and obeisance to the Church hierarchy, as well as the rite of confession. Some Protestant religions base their religion on personal understanding of the New and Old Testaments, and the Good Book is the only set of rules to live by. Some Protestant religions include the rite of confession, some don't. Some have clergy, some don't.

To say that all Christian religions are the same except for trappings would be the same as saying that all Abrahamic faiths are the same except for trappings. I mean, sure, Christians have a set of extra books to follow (compared to Jews),and Muslims have another book on top of that. But really, it's the same God they worship, so they're all the same religion, right?

Most everyone else managed to express the central point clearly; the claim that AGW sceptics are comparatively ignorant is false.

But that's not the central point, not at all. That's what some sloppy writers (Janet Raloff @ Science News, in particular) chose to accentuate, but it's a side point at best. The central point is that AGW theory skepticism is a cultural product that intensifies with scientific education -- moreso than AGW theory adherence does (although it also intensifies with scientific education).

We produce more than twice as much CO2 as the #2 country.

s/b "...as much CO2 as the #3 country"

The US pollutes a lot, but we've offshored so much of our production that the vast amounts of pollutants are not coming from us anymore

Wait, what? That's simply not true. We are the #2 producer of CO2 in the world. We produce more than twice as much CO2 as the #2 country.

And what's more, it's US demand for goods produced in China that drives a lot of their CO2 production (China is the #1 CO2 producer). If you wiped the US off the face of the Earth, that demand would evaporate, just like a good portion of China's emissions.

How crazy do you have to be to file DMCA take-down notices with the website providers over your blog photo as your FIRST option?

You don't have to be crazy at all. That's what the DMCA allows for, so you don't have to get bogged down in a bunch of back-and-forth with multiple infringers. That's the very intent of the take-down notice portion of the DMCA.

If you don't want your site pulled down due to a DMCA notice, then don't use other people's content without permission. It's that simple.

But they have no right to an answer to any of their questions.

And they have no right to withhold the form or arrest someone for not answering their questions.

Sorry Wiseguy, but my state (Texas) is a net exporter of taxes.

I guessed as much... we might have discussed it previously.

And don't look too close, but you have a lot of folks aligned wit the Tea Party in New Jersey.

I know. I've been to Tea Party events in NJ. There was potential in the beginning, but by early last year it was clear that religious conservatives, even in NJ, were getting too powerful in the Tea Party. One meeting I went to in Hunterdon County opened with a prayer, and the entire focus of the meeting was abortion, one guest speaker being an official at a local church.

As I said, legitimate use of Tax dollars is ok.

The problem is that people have differing views of what is legitimate. And I think the Tea Party, while comprised mostly of people who are well-intentioned, misses the mark. We'll never agree on that, I guess.

Taking care of lazy mother fuckers is not.

This statement of yours illustrates what I think to be a big problem in the Tea Party -- blaming lack of success on laziness. Sure, it plays a defining role, but success, despite hard work, is often not possible for those who start out poor. We are no longer the land of opportunity, and in my opinion, it is some of the very policies espoused by the Tea Party that make it so.

The Tea Party has been captured by the religious right and by the extremely wealthy. It's sad.

As a citizen of New Jersey:

1. The government takes too much of OUR money.
2. It spends it on stupid stuff and stupid people.

That's what I would say about the transfer of wealth from my state to red states. That's what I would say about the transfer of wealth, via taxation and spending, from my state to states where the Tea Party is strongest.

Except I believe it is just, moral, and required for the wealthy to subsidize the poor, and the government is the most efficient way to make it so.

Taxes to support your community...Police, Fire and other essential services are not theft. Taxes to pay off crooked bankers, cronies of local politicians, corrupt unions, etc. are theft.

So you're not really talking about taxes, you're talking about spending -- it's the use of the funds that determines whether or not the acquisition of them is theft.

Here's the thing, though -- that's not a distinction made by those in the Tea Party that I'm acquainted with. That's not a distinction I see made on signs I've seen at Tea Party rallies.

I've got a few more spending categories that the Tea Party seems to agree with, but I personally would put in the "theft" column: taxes to enrich defense contractors; taxes to enforce drug laws and incarcerate huge numbers of nonviolent offenders; taxes to give subsidies to established industries, like industrial agriculture.

What are the criteria by which the Tea Party determines what spending items represent a theft from taxpayers?

I've yet to have any Tea Party member enumerate a set of criteria that is not contradicted by Tea Party positions on specific issues... can you do so?

Since "baby planet" is not a proper IAU category, I think this means either A) it's a dwarf planet, like Pluto or Ceres, or B) the question is still open, but we've learned something new about its origin--a completely separate matter.

It's not a baby planet, it's not a dwarf planet. It's a proto-planet stuck in proto- state due to Jupiter.

I like to think of it as an aborted planet.

Obviously we need to outlaw Jupiter to prevent further proto-planet abortions.. Furthermore, we need full funding of a federal agency to ensure Jupiter isn't available to all wanton sinners who would otherwise bring a planet to full term.

Well, folks, seems to me like we finally figured out how to ensure NASA's budget isn't axed.

The talent or interest just isnt there in the US.

Well, first, he probably didn't look very hard. There are plenty of people who will do things like that, the best way to find them in my experience is to call you local junkyards -- if they don't have someone, they'll know someone who'd be willing to do it.

The other issue is that our labor costs are very high. This is what really drives the throw-it-away culture here. We buy things that are made with cheap overseas labor... which is why repairing them using costly local labor is not price-competitive, usually.

If someone has an 8% student loan I'm assuming it was taken out when interest rates where higher than they are now.

Then you're clearly not aware of what is going on in DC wrt the student loan issue.

He loses the election without women, so he make sure that the right wingers end up on the wrong side of every women's issue.

He doesn't need to do that... they're doing that all by themselves.

Obama and his team are very competent at political wrangling... but you can't lay the missteps of the Republicans at his feet. They screw up enough all by themselves, by needing to appeal to their ever-more-rabid base.

Shocker... some people actually own apartments!! In the US!! They pay cash, or they finance it through a mortgage.

Sometimes I wonder just how sheltered you are, and how much that sheltered life factors into your belief system.

And 8% isn't a high interest rate, other than relative to recent obscenely low rates.

I get what you're saying, I think you're looking at it a little wrong, though.

You shouldn't be comparing the interest rate to historic interest rates... you should be comparing it to the rate of return on investments in the same time period. 8% is a high interest rate because it represents a huge premium over what the lender would be forced to offer on the open market. Yes, we need to allow the lenders to cover their costs; yes, we need to allow them to make a profit on their capital. However, such a huge premium would normally only be seen when it is due to risk -- when actuarial studies show that a high portion of the borrowers would default.

Here's the catch: these loans are guaranteed. So there should be NO risk premium on the interest rate.

Allowing rates that high on a guaranteed loan is just a cash handover to the lending companies.