According to Wikipedia, the US didn't ratify the 1969 Treaty on Treaties. But even if it had, the President and the Senate cannot alter the Constitution even by a treaty and 2/3 vote. Altering the Constitution requires 3/4 of the states. Even a treaty on treaties duly ratified by the Senate, can't give away the Senate's obligation to ratify treaties. The Paris Agreement is a treaty regardless of whether it is called one or not. The words of the Constitution have a particular meaning. And something doesn't stop being what it is just because you label it something else. For example, if the Constitution requires 3/4 of the States for something, you can't just slap the label "State" onto a bunch of kindergartners and give them a cookie for their signature. A kindergartner is not a state. The Paris Agreement IS a treaty. The American people ratified the Constitution based on the plain meaning of the words. They expected the protection that comes from the Constitution denying the president the power to unilaterally enter the US into binding treaties. But even if the treaties on treaties was binding on the US, no country could reasonably claim that the American people were bound by the President's agreement, not after the House of Representatives voted to nullify the President's status as a representative of the American people.

Those who mod me down either don't know the moderation rules or they don't care. If they don't know then I need to inform them. But more likely they don't care, so I need to let them know the consequences. I disagree that that is childish, petulant, or even threatening. I'm not threatening to do anything, just saying what the consequences of bad faith moderation are.

The House of Representatives voted against it before Obama even negotiated it. I'm surprised Trump didn't mention that in his speech. And the Senate never ratified it. Under the US constitution, treaties must be ratified by the Senate. Even if you don't think Senate confimation is necessary because you don't think it was technically a treaty, the US is still not a party to it because a president can only enter the country into an agreement because it is normally assumed that the leader of a country represents the country. But when the legislature explicitly denies that the president represents the country for the purposes of a particular negotiation, then no other country can reasonably assume that the people of the US are bound by Obama's agreement.

By the way. Slashdot rules are that you are not supposed to mod down a post just because you are convinced it is wrong. If a significant number of people believe it is correct then you are supposed to respond with arguments and evidence, not just bury the opposing view. If it is something like a typographical error or something then you can mod it down, but not if it is a considered conclusion, even a wrong one.

Slashdot administrators have told me that moderators that modded down my good faith posts, have had, and will have their moderator privileges permanently revoked. Even though the Slashdot administrators may disagree strongly with my conclusions, burying opposing views is considered bad faith moderation.

Here's a video to get you started making your own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Instead of banning it, the government could just require a label warning that it is poison, and thus preserve the freedom to consume. But that would have about the same effect as a ban.

Only connections to the domain you're on are allowed by Request Policy. That prevents page loads and tracking from Google Analytics links and others embedded in web pages. I wondered why Firefox didn't have this feature, but I didn't know about this for a long time because the name gave no obvious description of its purpose. My Karma was knocked down for political reasons. Please don't be reluctant to undo that injustice and mod me up.

The Request Policy plugin for Firefox along with Noscript is the most important privacy plugin you might not know about. Nearly every web page makes a connection to google analytics or something when you connect. Request policy blocks all connections to domains other than the one you're visiting.

Water siphons have been demonstrated to 24 meters. Water can resist -280 atmospheres pressure without vaporizing. Corresponding to possible siphon heights of more than 2800 meters. Siphons can operate in a vacuum. Siphoning of mercury has been demonstrated to more than 30cm above the barometric height, even in glass which mercury adheres poorly to.

24 meter siphon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Siphon of ionic liquid in vacuum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Siphon of mercury to 30cm above barometric height:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...

Negative pressures of -280 atmospheres in water have been demonstrated in the ingenious Z-tube:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Z-tube is a z-shaped tube nearly filled with liquid and set on a spinning table. If the liquid starts to shift away from the center, the "height" of the liquid in the bent inward ends "rises" toward the center, increasing pressure in that end and returning the liquid to the center. By measuring the spinning speed and the distance from the center to the liquid level in the ends, the pressure can be calculated. It helps if the tube is of a material the liquid will adhere well to. And the tube must be very clean and the liquid degassed to prevent cavitation.

Another example of negative pressures in water are in the xylem of very tall trees. The water does not rise by capilary action very far. The water is pulled up by action in the leaves at top. Negative pressures of several atmospheres are achieved in tall trees.

So, many people are correct that liquid cohesion DOES pull the liquid over the top of a siphon in SOME siphons. And everyone agrees that all siphons rely on gravity (or similar acceleration) for their effect. But most practical siphons don't rely on liquid cohesion. And some siphons CAN'T use liquid cohesion to pull the liquid over. It is not the case that only one of the theories: atmospheric pressure, gravity, or liquid cohesion, is the answer to how a siphon works. All three of those explanations are involved. We don't have to choose just one.

One example is the siphoning of CO2 gas, which has been demonstrated. And a demonstration you can easily do with a garden hose is like figure 4 of the Wikipedia siphon article, fill the tall down side of a siphon with water, but leave the top and short up side with only air. When the water in the tall down leg is released, gravity will reduce the pressure at the top of the siphon and atmospheric pressure will push the water from the upper reservoir up and over the siphon. Since the water on each side of the siphon is not touching at the start of this experiment, liquid cohesion cannot explain what force raises the water. The air at the top of the siphon, though reduced in pressure, is still at positive pressure relative to complete vacuum, and therefore it is trying to expand, and pushing DOWN on BOTH sides of the siphon. Since gravity is also pulling down, only atmospheric pressure can supply the force to push the liquid up into the low pressure zone created at the top of the siphon by gravity pulling down the liquid in the taller down tube.

Another observation of the difference between vacuum siphons and practical siphons is that in practical siphons, small and even fairly large air bubbles can flow over the siphon without much change in its working. Whereas in a vacuum siphon, a bubble or void will immediately expand to break the siphon.

In practical siphons near sea level, liquid cohesion is not only unnecessary, it cant even contribute, because all the fluids in the siphon are at positive pressure relative to complete vacuum and therefore all the molecules are being squished together and are repelling each other. There can be no pulling in siphons near sea level pressure. Atmospheric pressure pushes the liquid up despite that the pressurized fluid at top is trying to push the fluid DOWN on both sides.

Atmospheric pressure pushes the liquid up in a typicall siphon the same way atmospheric pressure pushes the liquid up in a barometer or drinking straw. But of course the energy to lower the pressure at the top is provided by gravity.

Some people think that the atmospheric pressure at the entrance and exit cancel. But actually the atmospheric pressure at the exit doesn't completely cancel that at the entrance because the weight of the liquid in the taller down tube partially cancels some of the atmospheric pressure at the exit. The weight of the liquid in the up tube also cancels some of the atmospheric pressure from the entrance, but not as much because the up tube is shorter, and therefore there is a failure to cancel and a remaining imbalance of atmospheric pressure between the entrance and exit.

So the gravity and air pressure explanation are BOTH CORRECT most of the time and the liquid tensile strength with gravity explanation is ALSO CORRECT in the rare case of siphons at very low pressure, though ONLY at low pressures.

If an oil company had did this "hide the decline" then the climate science community would have said it was obviously unscientific behavior. But climate scientists are so biased they cant even admit the rules of good science. If your oppinents say the data is not irrelevant, then you are not supposed to leave it out of the graph to make it cleaner. If the trees are giving falsely low temperatures then that is important information about their credibility. If his opponents say contray data is not fully explained then a scientist is not supposed to decide for himself that contrary data is fully explained. He is supposed to include it and explain it. If the trees weren't giving falsely low temperatures then there would have been nothing for Phil Jones to hide in his own words. The decline wasn't in plain sight or he wouldn't have used the word hide. He left it out of the graph for a reason. He hid it because people would realize his tree rings were unreliable. He hid it because he knew many people wouldn't dig in far enough to realize what he had hidden.

DeadCatX2 wrote:
"wondering whether you agree with the fact that I was modded down to -1 for providing evidence contrary to your post."

Although you shouldn't have advocated breaking the moderation rules, you still shouldn't have been moded down. My partial rebuttal is above.

There is no -1 incorrect mod choice because it is against the rules to mod down for that.

"I'd say "Overrated" works well for someone who really is wrong."

No. If I admitted a simple mistake of fact or something then you could go back and mod me down, but the moderation rules prohibit moding somebody overrated on a controversial topic just because you think you have solid reason to say somebody really is wrong. Large majoriies of scientists have been convinced of wrong things before. They're not infallible. On a controversial subject you are only supposed to post a rebuttal not bury with downmods. You will lose your moderator privileges for that.

Your source contradicts itself

DeadCatX2 quoted some source:
"Tree-ring growth has been found to match well with temperature ... However, tree-rings in some high-latitude locations diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960."

If the tree rings are showing falsely low temperatures after 1960 then it is questionabe at best if they were not giving falsely low temperatures back during the medieval warm period. It is a rule of science that you are not supposed to hide such evidence especially if your opponents say it is significant.

To say it was not hiding is rediculous since the alarmist Phil Jones himself described what he was doing as hiding. Burying data deep in an academic paper the public won't see is still hiding. Sure the experts were debating it, but it was hiden from the public who wouldn't look deeper than the graph.

I would have replied earlier but my battery died and i lost my post. I'll have more.

It is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down even if they REALLY ARE wrong. Especially if it is a controversial issue. I'll address the argument in a minute.

The whitewashes explicity decided not to invetigate Mann's "hide the decline" because he did it and it couldn't be denied. Hiding contrary evidence is a no no in science, Especially after your opponents have made it clear that they think that contrary evidence is significant. You have to include it in your graph and explain it, not leave it out. Worse, nearly the entire climate science community has defended this unscientific conduct, destroying the credibility of the entire community. And they continue to put forth the deception that he was exonerated from this misconduct. One of their leaders was quoted by Discover magazine as saying that they had to choose between honesty and effectiveness. We now know what they chose. It was not defamation because it was an opinion based on at least arguable, if not obviously true evidence. Remember it is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down just because you think they are wrong. It is also not flamebait if it is a sincerely held belief put forward for honest discussion.

US law now allows the military to imprison you for life without trial. See the NDAA. or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKaTxjxnYfE This was signed into law by Obama. There is an exemption for American citizens from the requirement that the military take them to Guantanamo Bay, but the exemption is only to the requirement, the military still has the OPTION to imprison you forever without trial. The law says it is only for suspected terrorists, but the law only requires suspicion, not proof, and anyone can be suspected of being a terrorist. It has been claimed that there is a requirement for one hearing before a judge but I haven't seen that in the law. It boggles my mind that Congress and Obama think it is a good idea to make it legal for the military to secretly snatch you in the middle of the night and imprison you for life without trial on mere suspicion.