Anyhow, I think the simplest means of advocating the metric unit of measurement is this:

Using just your head, what is 16.2% of a meter?
Using just your head, what is 16.2% of a yard?

Seriously? What the heck do you do for a living that requires you to figure out the percentage of a yard/meter?

I've walked this planet for nearly half a century, and I have never, not even in a word problem in math class, been asked to make such a calculation.

Because once one administration starts something, the next administration is obliged to continue it...

It WAS a waste to spend federal dollars to add Km/hr speed limits to ALL signs, and the effort/expense of replacing a few speed limit signs was a big cost savings over finishing the conversion of all signs to include metric speed limits.

If Apple is deluged with requests for what is, most likely, a free service they offer is there any doubt they won't.make it easier for law enforcement/Apple by either offering CSI labs 'DIY' kits OR training an AppleGenius at each store to do it on-demand?

Nixon was going to be impeached for using the IRS to target his political enemies... Lucky thing for Obama some nameless, blameless low-level employee did this!

Obama's AG wouldn't see a financial crime if it jumped up and down in front of him.

At MF Global Jon Corzine *literally* stole client money to cover his own company's underwater trading positions, and no charges were filed.

The "Right Wing" represents a little over one-half of one-third of the federal government, they are the "ruling class"?

Were the Democrats the "ruling class" when they likewise held numerical control of the House, but the Republicans held the Senate and the Oval office under George Bush's last two years in office?

I don't remember them being referred to as the "ruling class"...

They threw no one under the bus.

Three hundred organizations were targeted.

Three Hundred - that takes time, how does that go "under the radar"?

IRS Manager: "Susie, what have you been up to these last few days? You seem very busy and you've sent out a lot of oversize envelopes..."

Low-level IRS Worker: "Oh nothing, just working on a little personal business, nothing you need to concern yourself with boos."

IRS Manager: "Oh, OK, keep up the good work!"

The IRS saw "Tea Party" and "Patriot" in the names and just assumed those groups were political in nature.

No, a low-level IRS employee in Cincinnati, OH jumped to that conclusion, in violation of IRS policy and possibly against the law, but no worries - the inquiries weren't politically motivated (although they were based on the political terms in the groups names?) and though highly improper and egregious enough to warrant a formal apology from the IRS (I can not ever EVER remember the IRS apologizing to any, ever, for anything!), have no worries for the low-level IRS worker that started this, there will be no disciplinary measures taken.

Yep, I bet that low-level worker learned their lesson - do this again, and nothing will happen to you...

There do appear to be some abuses of power here, but keeping an eye on organizations likely to be engaged in political activity isn't wrong.

The IRS requesting donor lists was illegal, yet they did it and the mainstream media ignored the complaints because...because...why?

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. . . . she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice..

Really? This is something that a low-level employee can do on their own, without any of their superiors being aware of it? Then again, it was low-level employees that decided to initiate a gun-running operation into Mexico and low-level employees that denied the Consulate in Benghazi additional security in the face ot increased threats, so why not? The press has accepted this pitiful excuse before, why not this time?

This volcano has only been above water level for the last 400,000 years, what are they basing their 800,000 year history of reading on?

Here's another one for you to ponder - the volcano has only existed for 700,000 years...

It's called science - it's "only hard if you don't understand it."

And the reason they measure on top of a spewing volcano? Because it was so accessible? Because of the killer waves on the island?

OK, so they put a CO2 sensor at the top of the hill, then they put the other CO2 sensor where, exactly? Inside the volcano? At the base of the volcano? Ten feet away from the other sensor?

We understood the math, we don't understand how they are getting the "local levels" elsewhere - in some disciplines that would be called a "fudge factor":

A fudge factor is an ad hoc quantity introduced into a calculation, formula or model in order to make it fit observations or expectations. Examples include Einstein's Cosmological Constant, dark energy, dark matter and inflation.

Maybe this story has some insight into the process - Climate scientists accused of 'manipulating global warming data' (from 2009)

Or cows... Or deforestation... or maybe it's just a peak in a cycle that has a period somewhat longer than our history of direct measurements shows us...

I find it interesting that we only have direct measurements for about 60 years, but these folks are supremely confident that they know the CO2 level over the past 800,000+ years...

No less an authority than the United Nations pins a full 9% of all human-related CO2 production on cows, but it's worse than that:

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 per cent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 per cent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Source: Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars, UN report warns