Yet Another Investigation Vindicates ‘Hockey Stick’ Climate Scientist Michael Mann

‘This case is closed’
Environment • Views: 33,794

The National Science Foundation has concluded yet another investigation into the work of climate scientist Michael Mann (creator of the famous “hockey stick” temperature graph you see above), whose research and personal character have been targeted in a years-long, relentless smear campaign by energy industry front groups and the right wing media. The NSF’s statement:

“Finding no research misconduct or other matter raised by the various regulations and laws discussed above, this case is closed.”

I’ve lost track of the number of independent investigations that have utterly and completely vindicated the work of Mann and the other scientists involved in the fake scandal of the decade known as “Climategate.” But as Joe Romm points out, the right wing echo chamber just continues to hype “Climategate” in a closed-loop rejection of reality: Climate Secret: NSF Quietly Closes Out Inspector General Investigation with Complete Vindication of Michael Mann.

Let me end with some key findings of the Penn State investigation:

“An Investigatory Committee of faculty members with impeccable credentials” has unanimously “determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or other scholarly activities.”

His work “clearly places Dr. Mann among the most respected scientists in his field…. Dr. Mann’s work, from the beginning of his career, has been recognized as outstanding.”

So Mann isn’t merely a competent researcher.  He is one of the leading climate scientists in this country, which of course is precisely why the anti-science crowd has gone after him, much as they have with other leading climate scientists, including Hansen and Santer.

And that’s one more reason why the major media outlets who smeared and defamed him owe him an apology and a retraction — loud ones!

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305 comments
1 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:34:25pm
And that’s one more reason why the major media outlets who smeared and defamed him owe him an apology and a retraction — loud ones!

That will never happen.

2 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:39:28pm

It doesn't seem like any amount of scientific evidence is going to convince the gullible and the negligent alike that there is a real need to start slowing, if not work to reverse, climate change. Assuming we survive as a species into the next century, future historians will look back and wonder how it was that we saw the problem, saw the dangers, and ignored it all until it was too late.

3 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:42:30pm

re: #2 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

It doesn't seem like any amount of scientific evidence is going to convince the gullible and the negligent alike that there is a real need to start slowing, if not work to reverse, climate change. Assuming we survive as a species into the next century, future historians will look back and wonder how it was that we saw the problem, saw the dangers, and ignored it all until it was too late.

As long as people can look at serious scientific evidence and think that "This religious text says differently" is a reasonable line of debate, we're screwed.

4 jamesfirecat  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:42:50pm

I choose to read the title of this post as "Yet Another Investigation Vindicates 'Hockey Stick Man'"

Because "Hockey Stick Man" would be a great name for a scientist turned superhero.

5 Iwouldprefernotto  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:42:54pm

re: #2 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

It doesn't seem like any amount of scientific evidence is going to convince the gullible and the negligent alike that there is a real need to start slowing, if not work to reverse, climate change. Assuming we survive as a species into the next century, future historians will look back and wonder how it was that we saw the problem, saw the dangers, and ignored it all until it was too late.

People that want to teach the bible in school will NEVER respond to evidence.

6 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:55:04pm

Tweet this to #climategate, they're trying hard not to see it:

[Link: twitter.com...]

7 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:55:12pm

Science gets another mark in the win column

The Final Nail in the Texas Creationism Efforts

those changes are now in and so are the reviews. TFN, NCSE and other scientists have reviewed the changes and have found them to be in line with established, fact-based science.

Here's the head-exploding part for the creationists. Not only does the final version of Holt not include creationist arguments against evolution, but they also include language explicitly affirming Darwin's theories.

With Holt's materials finalized, we can now say with certainty that all of the materials approved from the nine publishers are in line with fact-based science and free of creationist attacks seeking to undermine science.

8 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:56:09pm

re: #6 jaunte

Tweet this to #climategate, they're trying hard not to see it:

[Link: twitter.com...]

How can they tweet with their hands over their eyes and fingers in their ears?

9 YoungLochinvar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:57:31pm

Not sure this even matters - the people who reject the work of Dr. Mann & others like him will simply view the NSF investigation as the work of other "elitist insiders" (or some other similar garbage) - they view the entire system as being corrupt, so any "vindication" that comes from within that system will be equally corrupt in their eyes...

10 elizajane  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:57:36pm

Maybe Ken Cuccinnelli will call off the dogs. Maybe. Let's see.

But on the Right blogosphere, they'll just holler some more about conspiracies and coverups. Heck, there have been five separate investigations of the hacked East Anglia e-mails, at the highest levels including the British Parliament, and you still see endless nitwits sounding off about how "Climategate" has proven that all climate science is just a huge plot, evidently involving the entire elected government of Great Britain.
Perry, for instance, claims to believe this. Maybe he even does believe it. Beliefs of Convenience seem to be his thing.

11 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:57:53pm

re: #8 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

From what I read there, Al Gore is to blame.

12 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:58:26pm

Hey Honcos,

How is the afternoon going?

13 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 1:59:29pm

re: #9 YoungLochinvar

Someone named Rex Murphy at the National Post, hoping it will all just go away:

...Perhaps Climategate gave a too-souring glimpse into the mixture of science and advocacy that has, to some extent, corrupted both. Perhaps, finally, the unctuousness, sanctimony and sputtering righteousness of the highprofile environmentalists signal to most observers that they aren't really as certain of all this "science" as they pretend to be. Either way this long green game has lost its fundamental energies. The celebrities will find another wristband; the politicians will find a new vague distraction.[Link: www.nationalpost.com...]
14 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:13:11pm

Ther right wing and their enablers are completely void of any credibility. That's why they ingnore the truth, because they would have to admit their lifes work, which is destroying the country, doesn't work.

Dangerous assholes.

15 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:13:57pm

Dr. Michio Kaku America Has A Secret Weapon

Dr. Michio Kaku speaks about how America's poor educational system has created a shortage of Americans who can perform high skilled technology jobs. As a result, America's H-1B Genius visa is used to attract immigrants who are skilled enough to perform these jobs.

16 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:15:43pm

Look at it this way:

If the Environmentalists are wrong, we get cleaner water, air, and cities, alternative energy solutions and it was all for nothing.

If the anti-science crowd is wrong, the filthy rich stay that way, the poor get screwed as usual, and the human race dies off due to global famine and disasters.

Lets debate it some more.

17 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:17:32pm

re: #16 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Look at it this way:

If the Environmentalists are wrong, we get cleaner water, air, and cities, alternative energy solutions and it was all for nothing.

If the anti-science crowd is wrong, the filthy rich stay that way, the poor get screwed as usual, and the human race dies off due to global famine and disasters.

Lets debate it some more.

If it goes down like your second scenario, the poor aren't gonna stand around while they starve. I don't think so.

18 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:17:39pm

There has been almost a decade of straight droughts in the Southern US. Texas has been in the worst drought for some time since February. China experienced its worst drought in 200 years in its breadbasket. Monsoons wiped out 6,000,000 people's homes in Pakistan and as many as 1,000,000 died.

2011 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record - Last decade was the hottest decade on record. The 90's were the hottest decade before that.

What people don't get is what these curves mean in real human costs. If we continue on the path we are on now - in which our emissions exceed worst case scenario emissions models we are looking at billions of deaths worldwide. Not millions, but billions.

The deaths will be cause primarily through famine and loss of water coupled with fighting over diminished resources. Hundreds of millions will be rendered homeless along flooded coastal areas, while people inland find there is less and less food and water.

With changing climates come migrations of all sorts of species into new environments. Many of them will carry diseases into regions that do not have immunity.

The unchecked result of AGW is world wide war famine drought and plague. I have been writing about this here for longer than I care to think about. With each passing year, the science does not go away and the results get worse and worse. This is happening now. This ends in a nightmare that most Americans can not imagine and it will hit America too. We will not be immune.

Yet, we have an entire party who takes it as an article of faith that there is no problem to cynically support the interests of certain wealthy fossil fuel interests who back them. We have an entire segment of our population brainwashed by lie after lie about something that can be seen out the window presented by a continuous stream of propaganda from the right wing media.

The situation is already bad. We have about a decade to really start taking this seriously and changing our emission patterns. If we do not, then what we are looking at is the collapse of our civilization as we know it and a new dark ages at best. Eventually, America as we know it will no longer be able to function and it will collapse to anarchy. That is what happens when there are millions of refugees, no food, scarce water and most of our economic infrastructure destroyed by flooding. That is what we will not might, but will have happen by 2100. The worst case scenario is the eventual extinction of our species.

The will not to believe, the gentle lies we tell ourselves that somehow it will be all right are nothing more than a childish response in the face of hard reality. I know that most find that so much more comfortable. I get that. The data I look at day in and day out - as part of my job as a physicist - makes me shudder for the future. The fact we can avoid that if only we work together now - yet the knowledge we don't - makes me hate most other people.

Hate a strong word?

No.

We are all like people tied together on a train track. There is an oncoming train. When it comes we are jelly. No miracle medicine will fix us. The scientific community is screaming about the oncoming train. The political class is screaming that there is no train or that we have time to worry about it later. The rest just believe that its a debate over their head, or get distracted. They sit there because it is easy to sit and not look. If everyone moved, we could get out of the way. But I and the scientists and you and any future kids I have are tied to the lot of them and we aren't strong enough to move them. So like you my reader, I sit and wait to be hit by the train. And yes I hate other people for murdering me, my country and my civilization.

19 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:20:57pm

re: #17 Amory Blaine

If it goes down like your second scenario, the poor aren't gonna stand around while they starve. I don't think so.

Those are on a different slide. I just listed the bullet points.

20 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:21:06pm

re: #18 LudwigVanQuixote

Well said.

21 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:21:25pm

re: #20 Amory Blaine

Well said.

Thank you.

22 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:22:13pm

re: #2 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

It doesn't seem like any amount of scientific evidence is going to convince the gullible and the negligent alike that there is a real need to start slowing, if not work to reverse, climate change. Assuming we survive as a species into the next century, future historians will look back and wonder how it was that we saw the problem, saw the dangers, and ignored it all until it was too late.

We should survive even the worst case of this. It's grim. Humanity ends up in an enclave in the Himalaya, growing yams. All our livestock die. All the birds die. But we? We live. We're not just a smart species. We're pretty damned tough.

This century we're in now won't see the worst of it. The Antarctic ice cap will be long in melting. Even the Greenland ice cap will be largely in place. Ice melts when heated, but a big block of ice takes a long time to melt. This block is miles deep and hundreds of miles across.

This is part of our problem. Warnings of doom, that the end is nigh, are all around us. Some, that didn't pan out, have come from realms not far from science. Paul Ehrlich and his population bomb theory had us in famine by now, for instance.

Most people have no particular knack for science. Most who do are busy men and women with not much time for it, though they could follow the logic if they took the time. Most who do follow the logic and take the time have no particular talent for popularizing and proselytizing. (I'd guess that talent is negatively correlated with a scientific inclination, controlling for general intelligence.)

So the court of public opinion is hearing from all sorts of lying witnesses and all sorts of false trails laid down by canny lawyers. Juries can be led down the primrose path.

The one thing that makes this case different is that this court cannot render a final verdict. Just its own verdict for this year. The case will be tried again next year, and again, the next.

One by one, the barriers to public understanding will fall. Spin things as they might, the other side cannot make this brutal summer disappear from the record books. There will be more of the same.

One by one, Antarctic ice shelves are breaking up. The Arctic sea ice is thinning dramatically---but who sees thinning? It's still white, ain't it? The day of reckoning will be when some windy storm thrashes that thin cover to shreds and the Arctic opens up. That photo, of before and after, will convince a lot of people who cannot or will not follow abstruse arguments. Seeing will be believing.

There is a commercial side to all this, too. Right now, food inflation is ticking along well ahead of general inflation. And that's before beef prices soar. They will. Cattle are going to slaughter all over the southwest, since there's no forage. Once that bulge in supply clears, watch out!

Sea levels will rise at rates that cannot be papered over with talk of how it's been happening all along. Because the rates in our future are very different from the recorded rates for the last few thousand years.

Fifty years from now we'll have got ourselves into a deeper hole and the problem will be much worse than it would have been had we acted now. But it won't be the worst it could possibly get, and we won't get that worst case because by then, if not earlier, we'll have seen the peril and got cracking.

Even if we lose the political debate today, we can still pave the way to a better future. The technology of wind, solar, and nuclear can be upgraded so that when the time comes, we have really good stuff, shovel ready.

23 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:23:33pm

re: #22 lostlakehiker

If we cross an SO2 tipping point our species will become extinct. We can't breath SO2.

24 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:24:00pm

re: #22 lostlakehiker

Given the alternatives, I'd rather take action now than see my grandkids as Himalayan Yam farmers.

25 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:25:14pm

re: #17 Amory Blaine

If it goes down like your second scenario, the poor aren't gonna stand around while they starve. I don't think so.

This is the only argument that will work with some. It works like this.

The Romans gave free bread and entertainment to the citizenry to keep them from rioting--right? Roman citizens did not have the right to carry arms within the city limits.

Tell that to a hard-core wingnut and watch the light-bulb go off in their head.

This is the argument I use primarily to explain why I believe social programs are essential because using any other argument does not get to the little grey cells of the rwnj's.

Now, as a far as AGW, you have to use the same type of argument. You have to appeal to their sense of survival --we all survive or none of us surivive. It's not a matter of degrees. If you don't present it as a zero-sum game, they will not understand.

26 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:26:14pm

We can't even come to an agreement for high speed trains or other mass transit options. Ignoring AGW, why can't we diversify our travel options?

27 Daniel Ballard  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:26:42pm

re: #12 ggt

Hey Honcos,
How is the afternoon going?


Turbulent times at work. Not in my office (great place to work) but in the jewelry making industry in general.

28 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:27:54pm

Meanwhile, instead of serious policy debate, we get this shit:


NH Sponsor Of Minimum Wage Restriction Law: Young People Are ‘Not Worth The Minimum’


State Rep. Carol McGuire (R-NH), the sponsor of the law, still believes the federal minimum wage is too high. In a statement to reporters, she said she would like to repeal all minimum wage laws and have corporations pay workers whatever rate they desire. She also said the $7.25 minimum is overly generous to young people who are “not worth the minimum“:

“It’s very discriminatory, particularly for young people. They’re not worth the minimum,” she said. She believes there are young people who would get a job if they could be paid $5 an hour instead of the minimum.
29 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:28:53pm

re: #27 Rightwingconspirator

Turbulent times at work. Not in my office (great place to work) but in the jewelry making industry in general.

Department stores are still trying to dump stuff and strange prices.

Haven't bought anything --yet.

30 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:29:49pm

re: #26 Amory Blaine

We can't even come to an agreement for high speed trains or other mass transit options. Ignoring AGW, why can't we diversify our travel options?

Because we're a consumerist culture that puts price and convenience over any other considerations. It's a part of Americana to believe that having a car = "freedom," that being stuck in a traffic jam for hours is still somehow better than riding a high-speed train between the same two points. Why? "Well, I'll have my car when I arrive, rather than walking or using public transit to go from the station to my destination!"

It's going to take a radical change in how we move ourselves around to begin to combat the CO2 problem that exists in our transportation system. But so long as there's money to be made in the two major systems (automotive and air travel), the alternatives will always be seen as either "too restrictive" or "too expensive."

31 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:30:24pm

re: #16 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Look at it this way:

If the Environmentalists are wrong, we get cleaner water, air, and cities, alternative energy solutions and it was all for nothing.

If the anti-science crowd is wrong, the filthy rich stay that way, the poor get screwed as usual, and the human race dies off due to global famine and disasters.

Lets debate it some more.

If the human race dies out, the filthy rich die too. Long before it comes to that, the rich become poor. On this issue, there's only one boat and everybody's in it. Good point if you dial it back a tad, though. If/when solar and wind become commercially superior to coal, the problem will solve itself.

We could warn that the Chinese will corner the market in wind and solar if we don't play the game too. That it's going to be a big market. The nice thing is, that argument is not just smoke. It stands by its own logic. With the two leading powers competing in that technology, it will advance more rapidly than it otherwise would.

32 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:30:40pm

re: #26 Amory Blaine

We can't even come to an agreement for high speed trains or other mass transit options. Ignoring AGW, why can't we diversify our travel options?

Because Americans likes our cars. It's the independent spirit in all of us.

And the Auto Makers lobbying groups.

33 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:30:52pm

Cadmium wedding bands FTW!!!

34 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:31:13pm

re: #28 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Meanwhile, instead of serious policy debate, we get this shit:


NH Sponsor Of Minimum Wage Restriction Law: Young People Are ‘Not Worth The Minimum’

Oh goodie, the "For the Children!" argument, haven't heard that one in awhile. *rolls eyes*

These are the same brand of moron who believes that doing away with child labor laws would actually be beneficial, because kids should be allowed to decide if they want to work or if they want to focus on their education.

35 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:32:04pm

re: #24 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Given the alternatives, I'd rather take action now than see my grandkids as Himalayan Yam farmers.

Well, me too. And while we're on the topic of zero sum games, it wouldn't be OUR grandkids who got that perk.

36 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:32:07pm

re: #27 Rightwingconspirator

Turbulent times at work. Not in my office (great place to work) but in the jewelry making industry in general.

I have noticed they are offering A LOT more silver than gold.

37 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:34:39pm

re: #34 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

These are the same brand of moron who believes that doing away with child labor laws would actually be beneficial, because kids should be allowed to decide if they want to work or if they want to focus on their education.

Smaller coal mines for greater efficiency:
Image: v_lowering_children.jpg

38 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:34:49pm

re: #23 LudwigVanQuixote

If we cross an SO2 tipping point our species will become extinct. We can't breath SO2.

Peter David Ward has given quite a bit of thought to it. He thinks he's run the numbers. The Himalayan plateau is far from the sea. Our species is better able to tolerate the SO2 levels he sees in store, in the worst case, than most. He thinks we would survive. Not handily, and only a meager remnant, but some of us.

He could be wrong. Of course we don't want to run that risk.

39 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:35:17pm

re: #22 lostlakehiker

Yeah, I keep hearing that more often than not from the denial crowd: "So what if climate change is real? We're humans, we adapt, we'll survive!" No no, the rich will survive, the connected will survive, because we still believe that money is the answer in and of itself to all of life's problems. If we have a problem, we just need more money and we can afford the means to solve it.

The rest of us, the poor and working stiffs? We're on the short end of the stick, and about to be shaken off. We're not going to adapt, we're going to get to see Darwinism in action.

40 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:35:24pm

Anyone listened to the Metropolis series of short stories offered by Amazon and Audible. There are two books in the series and both are only in audio. Great narration, BTW.

It is a Sci-Fi series that deals with exactly this topic. What happens when everything breaks down.

It's an interesting stab at the future. I highly recommend them.

41 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:36:02pm

re: #37 jaunte

Smaller coal mines for greater efficiency:
Image: v_lowering_children.jpg

Why do people in these drawing always have such tiny feet?

42 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:36:39pm

re: #39 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

We won't need the end of the world for that though. 10 more years of rising medical costs will take care of us working stiffs.

43 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:36:49pm

re: #34 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

Oh goodie, the "For the Children!" argument, haven't heard that one in awhile. *rolls eyes*

These are the same brand of moron who believes that doing away with child labor laws would actually be beneficial, because kids should be allowed to decide if they want to work or if they want to focus on their education.



My name's Little Cletus and I'm here to tell you a few things about child labor laws, ok? They're silly and outdated. Why back in the 30s, children as young as five could work as they pleased; from textile factories to iron smelts. Yippee! Hurray!

44 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:37:28pm

re: #41 ggt

Why do people in these drawing always have such tiny feet?

Foot binding.

45 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:37:52pm

re: #43 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

How did you lose your toes, Cletus?

46 Daniel Ballard  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:37:58pm

re: #36 ggt
Retail price points are static or lower, so we get this.
"Silver is the new gold"

Then we had this from a snarky jewelry maker I know well and admire-
"Dirt is the new wood, wood is the new copper, copper is the new silver, silver is the new gold, gold is the new platinum and platinum is the new unobtanium".

47 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:38:58pm

re: #42 Amory Blaine

We won't need the end of the world for that though. 10 more years of rising medical costs will take care of us working stiffs.

My response, when I'm told by some flag-waving moron about how America has "the best medical service in the world," is to point out that it's the best if you can afford it. If you've got the money or the connections, you can live virtually forever (or at least until your money runs out). If you've got neither, then your only choice is to pray to God you don't get sick. Cause if you do, then you're SOL.

48 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:39:55pm
49 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:40:22pm

re: #45 jaunte

How did you lose your toes, Cletus?

The foreman says its was because I didn't love Jesus enough.

50 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:40:35pm

re: #44 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Foot binding.

That was only aristocratic girls in China.

51 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:41:15pm

re: #49 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

The foreman says its was because I didn't love Jesus enough.

"Cletus, I notice you're coughing an awful lot. You got a cold, perhaps?"

52 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:41:54pm

re: #26 Amory Blaine

We can't even come to an agreement for high speed trains or other mass transit options. Ignoring AGW, why can't we diversify our travel options?

Because high speed trains are not economical in most of the country. A high speed rail line between Kansas City and Denver, for instance, would simply not have enough passengers to break even with either flying or driving, even in terms of CO2.

Our travel options are flying, driving, and not going. The realistic answer is a mix of all three, each with better technology. Flying in carbon composite planes. Driving in cars that get 50 mpg, maybe still more. Not going, but going virtually.

53 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:42:00pm

re: #51 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

"Cletus, I notice you're coughing an awful lot. You got a cold, perhaps?"

No, it's tuberculosis.

54 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:42:02pm

re: #47 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

My response, when I'm told by some flag-waving moron about how America has "the best medical service in the world," is to point out that it's the best if you can afford it. If you've got the money or the connections, you can live virtually forever (or at least until your money runs out). If you've got neither, then your only choice is to pray to God you don't get sick. Cause if you do, then you're SOL.

I was reading that the vast majority of bankruptcy filings in the US are due to medical bills.

"You can have a working kidney or a house, not both, make up your mind already."

55 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:42:18pm

re: #51 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

"You uh, coughed some blood up on my slacks. That of course is coming out of your check./

56 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:42:32pm

re: #50 ggt

That was only aristocratic girls in China.

SILENCE!

57 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:42:56pm

re: #52 lostlakehiker

Because high speed trains are not economical in most of the country. A high speed rail line between Kansas City and Denver, for instance, would simply not have enough passengers to break even with either flying or driving, even in terms of CO2.

Our travel options are flying, driving, and not going. The realistic answer is a mix of all three, each with better technology. Flying in carbon composite planes. Driving in cars that get 50 mpg, maybe still more. Not going, but going virtually.

I've noticed in Chicago and D.C. (the only metro areas I go to with any regularity) the trains are very popular.

58 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:43:00pm

re: #52 lostlakehiker

Well when gas hits 10 bucks a gallon, alot of us won't be going anywhere I guess.

59 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:43:53pm

re: #56 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

SILENCE!

You're not the boss of me!

60 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:44:00pm

re: #51 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

"Cletus, I notice you're coughing an awful lot. You got a cold, perhaps?"

"I think I'm getting the Black Lung, Pop. It's not very well ventilated down there."

61 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:44:15pm

re: #46 Rightwingconspirator

Retail price points are static or lower, so we get this.
"Silver is the new gold"

Then we had this from a snarky jewelry maker I know well and admire-
"Dirt is the new wood, wood is the new copper, copper is the new silver, silver is the new gold, gold is the new platinum and platinum is the new unobtanium".

Silver has to be polished, I hate it.

62 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:45:08pm

re: #54 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

I was reading that the vast majority of bankruptcy filings in the US are due to medical bills.

"You can have a working kidney or a house, not both, make up your mind already."

And half of America fought for the rights of insurance companies to deny them coverage.... Way to go America!

63 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:45:26pm

re: #61 ggt

Silver has to be polished, I hate it.

Stainless steel is stainless though.

64 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:45:37pm

re: #60 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

I love that movie. The gas fill-up scene makes me laugh every time.

65 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:46:27pm

A small element of the human cost of this drought.

My lawn needs mowing for the first time this year. It rained week before last, for the first time since May, and this has brought out some growth. My mom's lawn, obviously, is in similar need. I don't have time to do it, frankly, so I tried to find the guy who did our mowing last year. His name is David. He carries his tools in a beat up old Oldsmobile because he can't afford a pickup. Sometimes he brings his young children with him. My mom used to feed them ice cream while their father did the yard work. I can't find David this year, nobody has been out doing lawns and nobody has made any money at it. Some are kids who need pocket money, some are professional landscapers with a bottom line, some are poor guys like David, just trying to eke out a living and provide for his children. I haven't located him yet. He may have left town, headed for greener pastures, or lawns, farther north.
Incidentally, I hear that demand for free school supplies and school clothes is off the chart this year. I'll do what I can.

66 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:46:33pm

re: #57 ggt

I've noticed in Chicago and D.C. (the only metro areas I go to with any regularity) the trains are very popular.

The only problem in the Chicago area is that the train system is all geared to the City traveller. If you are going or coming from the City or somewhere on the route, you are good. If you want to go to a Suburb North or South of you, no go--a car is the only option.

Some bus service, but not like in the City.

67 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:48:06pm

re: #64 Amory Blaine

I love that movie. The gas fill-up scene makes me laugh every time.

I remember watching it up to that point thinking "What the fuck is this shit?" and getting pissed I had paid money to see it. Suddenly...

68 eachus  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:48:33pm

There are three separate facts here which have to be kept separate:

1) Is/was the Hockey Stick wrong? Big time. I don't think some people realize how many peer reviewed papers in fields as diverse as history, biology and astrophysics would have to be withdrawn if the hockey stick was considered settled science. Why? The hockey stick obliterates the MWP (medieval warm period) and the Little Ice Age.

2) Is global warming caused by human emissions of CO2? Probably not, but (lots) more research is needed. Don't get me wrong. I think that increased CO2 levels are killing people, but not thorough global warming. As for global warming, it exists. But the interaction between CO2, cloud cover, the oceans, etc. is still not understood. If it was, I would have access to a working global climate model. Instead I have access to lots of models, none of which has correctly predicted anything other than by chance.

3) Was Michael Mann's behavior ethical? Well it certainly didn't violate academic ethics. When it became clear that his paper contained errors, he withdrew it. It is not ethically wrong to make errors, and it is certainly less wrong to publish a summary paper which includes incorrect data. So why is LGF publishing data that Michael Mann retracted?

69 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:48:41pm

re: #62 LudwigVanQuixote

And half of America fought for the rights of insurance companies to deny them coverage... Way to go America!

70 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:49:22pm

re: #62 LudwigVanQuixote

And half of America fought for the rights of insurance companies to deny them coverage... Way to go America!

I still have a problem with mandated insurance. It seems to go against the whole concept of insurance, which is "risk management".

I don't get how the math would work if everybody was "insured". Do the actuaries?

71 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:49:30pm

re: #39 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

Yeah, I keep hearing that more often than not from the denial crowd: "So what if climate change is real? We're humans, we adapt, we'll survive!" No no, the rich will survive, the connected will survive, because we still believe that money is the answer in and of itself to all of life's problems. If we have a problem, we just need more money and we can afford the means to solve it.

The rest of us, the poor and working stiffs? We're on the short end of the stick, and about to be shaken off. We're not going to adapt, we're going to get to see Darwinism in action.

The upshot of business as usual is widespread anarchy, rampant diseases for which we have no immunity and no treatment, and universal poverty. The grim reaper winnows vigorously. Can you metabolize yams into protein? Fend off malaria? Maybe you're adapted. But probably not.

Gaddafi was rich. He had his own army too. Much good it did him. The rich will not be able to sit this thing out on the sidelines.

Darwinism is in action all the time, but overdrive isn't pretty and the rich won't get a pass.

72 Daniel Ballard  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:49:39pm

re: #61 ggt

Not anymore, we now have non tarnishing silver. Besides there are great easy ways to get rid of that tarnish, and prevent it in the future. Nic is blue so I can get that to ya offline if you like.

73 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:49:55pm

re: #63 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Stainless steel is stainless though.

Not always, I've seen it rust.

74 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:50:53pm

re: #58 Amory Blaine

Well when gas hits 10 bucks a gallon, alot of us won't be going anywhere I guess.

In Europe, gas is already at about $8. People still drive. We'll still travel, but we'll do it in more efficient vehicles and we'll travel less.

75 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:51:14pm

re: #65 Shiplord Kirel

A small element of the human cost of this drought.

My lawn needs mowing for the first time this year. It rained week before last, for the first time since May, and this has brought out some growth. My mom's lawn, obviously, is in similar need. I don't have time to do it, frankly, so I tried to find the guy who did our mowing last year. His name is David. He carries his tools in a beat up old Oldsmobile because he can't afford a pickup. Sometimes he brings his young children with him. My mom used to feed them ice cream while their father did the yard work. I can't find David this year, nobody has been out doing lawns and nobody has made any money at it. Some are kids who need pocket money, some are professional landscapers with a bottom line, some are poor guys like David, just trying to eke out a living and provide for his children. I haven't located him yet. He may have left town, headed for greener pastures, or lawns, farther north.
Incidentally, I hear that demand for free school supplies and school clothes is off the chart this year. I'll do what I can.

Check out the office supply stores, Walgreens and Target. All have cheap, really cheap deals this time of year. .39 cent Sharpies and such. You may have to go from store-to-store, but you'll spend a lot less and get alot more.

77 wrenchwench  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:51:48pm

re: #68 eachus

He's baaack...

78 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:51:58pm

re: #73 ggt

Not always, I've seen it rust.

Rust isn't a stain!

79 William Barnett-Lewis  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:52:39pm

re: #52 lostlakehiker

Because high speed trains are not economical in most of the country. A high speed rail line between Kansas City and Denver, for instance, would simply not have enough passengers to break even with either flying or driving, even in terms of CO2.

Our travel options are flying, driving, and not going. The realistic answer is a mix of all three, each with better technology. Flying in carbon composite planes. Driving in cars that get 50 mpg, maybe still more. Not going, but going virtually.

Perhaps you wouldn't take a train. But when I was stationed in Germany, I got to see how real trains are. If I could, I'd visit every city in the nation and never set foot in an airport or fill up at a gas station. Trains are the best mode of long distance travel yet invented for comfort and efficiency. We hurt this nation badly when passenger rail was allowed to disintegrate into Amtrak.

I'd so love to have High Speed rail connecting Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison & Minneapolis. I'd use it, at minimum, twice a week (to & back to one of those from Madison). Add a line to St. Louis & I'd be ecstatic.

80 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:54:03pm

re: #79 wlewisiii

Walker saw to it we will never see those connections in our lifetime. That was a once in a generation proposal that he pissed away.

81 wrenchwench  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:54:16pm

re: #77 wrenchwench

He's baaack...

The only thing he got right:

Sorry, I don't understand any of this.
82 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:54:19pm

re: #70 ggt

I still have a problem with mandated insurance. It seems to go against the whole concept of insurance, which is "risk management".

I don't get how the math would work if everybody was "insured". Do the actuaries?

Yes as a matter of fact.

Consider this. By definition an insurance company is in business to make money. That means some portion of health care profits goes to their coffers. Take that out of the loop for a non-profit insurance company and suddenly - voila - more money actually goes to patients and doctors.

America pays more per capita for health than any other country in the first world, yet amongst all nations we are somewhere in the 30s for quality of health received. One major reason for this is that the vast majority of our health care dollars go to parasitic entities like insurance companies and HMOs who take their slice out of your needs even though they themselves produce no real product or service.

83 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:54:32pm

re: #77 wrenchwench

He's baaack...

Also a stupid birther. I knew something else would come up.

84 William Barnett-Lewis  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:54:43pm

re: #80 Amory Blaine

Walker saw to it we will never see those connections in our lifetime. That was a once in a generation proposal that he pissed away.

I know. Oh, sweet lord, I know. :(

85 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:54:59pm

re: #81 wrenchwench

The only thing he got right:

LOL blew his wad right away aas that is the opener!

86 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:55:39pm

re: #72 Rightwingconspirator

Not anymore, we now have non tarnishing silver. Besides there are great easy ways to get rid of that tarnish, and prevent it in the future. Nic is blue so I can get that to ya offline if you like.

done! and thanks

87 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:56:41pm

re: #78 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Rust isn't a stain!

ah!

89 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:58:30pm

re: #68 eachus

There are three separate facts here which have to be kept separate:

1) Is/was the Hockey Stick wrong? Big time. I don't think some people realize how many peer reviewed papers in fields as diverse as history, biology and astrophysics would have to be withdrawn if the hockey stick was considered settled science. Why? The hockey stick obliterates the MWP (medieval warm period) and the Little Ice Age.

2) Is global warming caused by human emissions of CO2? Probably not, but (lots) more research is needed. Don't get me wrong. I think that increased CO2 levels are killing people, but not thorough global warming. As for global warming, it exists. But the interaction between CO2, cloud cover, the oceans, etc. is still not understood. If it was, I would have access to a working global climate model. Instead I have access to lots of models, none of which has correctly predicted anything other than by chance.

3) Was Michael Mann's behavior ethical? Well it certainly didn't violate academic ethics. When it became clear that his paper contained errors, he withdrew it. It is not ethically wrong to make errors, and it is certainly less wrong to publish a summary paper which includes incorrect data. So why is LGF publishing data that Michael Mann retracted?

(1) The hockey stick graph was substantially correct. The MWP was not, at the time, recognized as having been worldwide, so it didn't feature as strongly as it should have. It's quite possible in science to get this or that detail wrong without being wrong on the big picture.

(2) All the climate models have correctly predicted that it will generally get warmer. You just move the goalposts by insisting on a fine grain detail that's beyond our reach.

And CO2 is so the cause. This is almost trivial. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. More CO2, more greenhouse. Really!

(3) Most of Mann's work on climate stands, unretracted and with no reason for it to ever be retracted. That's because he's a good scientist. He gets things right, most of the time if not absolutely all the time. He's a leader in the field. Did he retract a paper? Are you sure of that? I hadn't heard.

The basic thrust of the whole body of scientific work on this subject vindicates his main point: it's warmer now than in the relevant past, and it's getting warmer fast. How to describe that in one quick metaphor?

Hockey stick.

90 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:58:52pm

re: #88 Killgore Trout

Ugh.

He also stated that the reason they wouldn't have a march in Washington DC was because its too dangerous for white people there amongst all the blacks and latinos who love Obama.

PS: Don't call them racists.

91 Shiplord Kirel  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:59:29pm

re: #65 Shiplord Kirel

Another reason I don't mind paying someone to mow my lawn, or do other things for me, is that I am a believer in what I call the "his rice bowl" principle (from the Sand Pebbles). I simply think it is false pride for me to carry my own bags or mow my own lawn when I can afford to pay and there are people in need willing to do the work.

92 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:00:40pm

Republicans To Oppose Tax Cut For Working People

Tax cuts have become the panacea of conservative economic thinking, but curiously, the AP reports Republicans are now lining up to raise taxes on nearly half of all Americans. In his radio address this weekend, President Obama called for an extension to the payroll tax holiday he signed into law last year, which benefits every working American, lowering the 6.2 percent tax that funds Social Security to 4.2 percent. The tax cut will expire in January, and many of the same Republican lawmakers who fought tooth and nail to preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are now coming out against an extension of the payroll tax holiday.

Why? Social Security payroll taxes mainly benefit middle- and working-class Americans, as the tax only applies to the first $106,800 of a worker’s wages. Thus, no matter how much money someone makes, they will see a maximum benefit of $2,136 from the holiday — a pittance compared to the savings for the wealthy from the Bush income tax cuts. Republicans claim these cuts for lower-income earners will do less to stimulate the economy than cuts for the wealthy or employers:

93 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:02:49pm

re: #82 LudwigVanQuixote

Yes as a matter of fact.

Consider this. By definition an insurance company is in business to make money. That means some portion of health care profits goes to their coffers. Take that out of the loop for a non-profit insurance company and suddenly - voila - more money actually goes to patients and doctors.

America pays more per capita for health than any other country in the first world, yet amongst all nations we are somewhere in the 30s for quality of health received. One major reason for this is that the vast majority of our health care dollars go to parasitic entities like insurance companies and HMOs who take their slice out of your needs even though they themselves produce no real product or service.

My HMO has done right by me. They're not remotely "parasites". Consider the auto insurance industry. It serves a public need. Auto insurers know a lot about what causes accidents. They try to hold down their losses by educating or influencing their customers. Gimmicks like price reductions for going another year without an accident are all over the place.

HMO's have their own gimmicks. They'll try to help a guy lose weight. They talk up getting the various precautionary tests. There's real value in that.

94 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:04:02pm

re: #82 LudwigVanQuixote

Yes as a matter of fact.

Consider this. By definition an insurance company is in business to make money. That means some portion of health care profits goes to their coffers. Take that out of the loop for a non-profit insurance company and suddenly - voila - more money actually goes to patients and doctors.

America pays more per capita for health than any other country in the first world, yet amongst all nations we are somewhere in the 30s for quality of health received. One major reason for this is that the vast majority of our health care dollars go to parasitic entities like insurance companies and HMOs who take their slice out of your needs even though they themselves produce no real product or service.

I have a hard time with that. As I used to work in the insurance industry.

The idea of paying a premium of one amount instead of saving every nickel I have and hoping it will cover any catastropic damage to my house or car AGAINST NAMED PERILS seems like a great idea. Because it is a good idea, it makes sound financial sense.

What people don't like is that in the Health Insurance industry, the premiums are very high and not everything is covered--JUST LIKE ANY OTHER TYPE OF INSURANCE.

Since the invention of HMO's and PPO's and co-insurance and co-pays and prescription plans, people's idea of what should be covered has changed. They think everything should be covered. There are no more NAMED PERILS in Health Insurance.

The idea of paying a premium in case someone a broken bone or has a heart attack or cancer is the least of people's concerns. They want every doctor visit covered, every prescription.

I don't understand how that is considered INSURANCE or Risk Management.

95 wrenchwench  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:04:50pm

re: #91 Shiplord Kirel

Another reason I don't mind paying someone to mow my lawn, or do other things for me, is that I am a believer in what I call the "his rice bowl" principle (from the Sand Pebbles). I simply think it is false pride for me to carry my own bags or mow my own lawn when I can afford to pay and there are people in need willing to do the work.

Got any bikes you need fixed?

/just kidding, actually I'm swamped with repairs right now. Back to work!

96 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:05:36pm

re: #92 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Republicans To Oppose Tax Cut For Working People

Give the rich a tax cut, because they might create jobs. But give the poor a tax increase, because not all tax cuts are beneficial.

Beam me up, Scotty. There is no intelligent life on this planet./

97 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:06:57pm

re: #94 ggt

Our health insurance model is an utter failure. The only reason it exists is greed.

98 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:07:21pm

re: #79 wlewisiii

Perhaps you wouldn't take a train. But when I was stationed in Germany, I got to see how real trains are. If I could, I'd visit every city in the nation and never set foot in an airport or fill up at a gas station. Trains are the best mode of long distance travel yet invented for comfort and efficiency. We hurt this nation badly when passenger rail was allowed to disintegrate into Amtrak.

I'd so love to have High Speed rail connecting Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison & Minneapolis. I'd use it, at minimum, twice a week (to & back to one of those from Madison). Add a line to St. Louis & I'd be ecstatic.

I take trains when in Europe. It's great. But they're full because so many people live so close by.

My point is that corridors such as the one you describe are few. And while it might be good for you, I'm not sure that even the Minneapolis/Chicago/etc. run would pay for itself, either in terms of money, or in terms of CO2. The likely traffic on the line should be carefully estimated before going ahead with construction.

Of course, if we had wind/solar electricity, that would be another story.

99 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:07:36pm

re: #96 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

Give the rich a tax cut, because they might create jobs. But give the poor a tax increase, because not all tax cuts are beneficial.

Beam me up, Scotty. There is no intelligent life on this planet./

The poor, IMHO, are uniquely situation to create more jobs. It's called small business, entrepreneurship.

How about a tax deduction for the cost of retraining, including set daily amount for rent, food, gas mileage, utilities and child-care?

100 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:08:32pm

re: #97 Amory Blaine

Our health insurance model is an utter failure. The only reason it exists is greed.

health insurance works. What doesn't work is regulation to change it into something it is not.

What we have now is a system that is called insurance, but is not.

A lot of people are making money on this scam. Most of them are lawyers.

101 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:09:07pm

re: #99 ggt

In my opinion, if Americans didn't have to be worried about health insurance, for example single payer, it would unleash a torrent of small businesses like we've never seen.

102 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:09:31pm

re: #68 eachus

I see we have a web troll. Only because I am bored, I will debunk your lies and foolishness.

There are three separate facts here which have to be kept separate:

OK hit me big boy....

1) Is/was the Hockey Stick wrong? Big time. I don't think some people realize how many peer reviewed papers in fields as diverse as history, biology and astrophysics would have to be withdrawn if the hockey stick was considered settled science. Why? The hockey stick obliterates the MWP (medieval warm period) and the Little Ice Age.

The so called Medieval warm period is not obliterated by the hockey stick. The MWP was the result of a minor Milancovitch cycle that affected the Earth by substantially less than deniers would like to imagine. It is in Mann's data, however Mann's data is global data and the small localized effect simply doesn't show up as that big. In fact, if you look at it. I know that's hard, but there is a graph right at the top of this page you can see the bump peaking around 1000 CE. Please try reading the graph before opining, especially when it is right in front of you.

2) Is global warming caused by human emissions of CO2? Probably not, but (lots) more research is needed. Don't get me wrong. I think that increased CO2 levels are killing people, but not thorough global warming. As for global warming, it exists. But the interaction between CO2, cloud cover, the oceans, etc. is still not understood. If it was, I would have access to a working global climate model. Instead I have access to lots of models, none of which has correctly predicted anything other than by chance.

Actually there are many ways that we know we are causing it.

1. As carbon concentrations have increased, O2 levels have decreased in a directly related amount consistent with burning.

2. You would expect a GHG to warm the planet from the bottom of the atmosphere up. This is because the GHGs trap thermal emissions from the surface. This is exactly what we see.

3. We know that the CO2 increasing in the atmosphere is not just a GHG, but from the burning of fossil fuels because fossil carbon burning has different properties than burning stuff that was made recently.

4. As per Milanckovitch cycles we should be cooling right now, as the graph above shows... yet we are warming. Since it is not orbital variation doing the job and there has not been a massive spike in volcanic emissions, we know that it is CO2 from burning that is doing the job.

5. You would expect with a GHG warmed atmosphere that the difference between night and day temperatures would be less because the atmosphere itself is trapping more heat. This is exactly what we see.

6. It is really hard to warm a planet. Planets are big. Only GHG's have the energy budget to do the job that we have seen in the time we have seen the changes. Natural cycles have timescales of thousands of years. This happened in a century.

3) Was Michael Mann's behavior ethical? Well it certainly didn't violate academic ethics. When it became clear that his paper contained errors, he withdrew it. It is not ethically wrong to make errors, and it is certainly less wrong to publish a summary paper which includes incorrect data. So why is LGF publishing data that Michael Mann retracted?

Because it was never retracted. Sort of the whole point is that it was vindicated many times over. Do try to read.

103 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:10:30pm

re: #94 ggt

I have a hard time with that. As I used to work in the insurance industry.

The idea of paying a premium of one amount instead of saving every nickel I have and hoping it will cover any catastropic damage to my house or car AGAINST NAMED PERILS seems like a great idea. Because it is a good idea, it makes sound financial sense.

What people don't like is that in the Health Insurance industry, the premiums are very high and not everything is covered--JUST LIKE ANY OTHER TYPE OF INSURANCE.

Since the invention of HMO's and PPO's and co-insurance and co-pays and prescription plans, people's idea of what should be covered has changed. They think everything should be covered. There are no more NAMED PERILS in Health Insurance.

The idea of paying a premium in case someone a broken bone or has a heart attack or cancer is the least of people's concerns. They want every doctor visit covered, every prescription.

I don't understand how that is considered INSURANCE or Risk Management.

It isn't. And I don't want that kind of coverage. Why put a middleman into those transactions? Our paperwork costs just go up, mine and the middleman's.

I'm good with paying cash to the dentist, paying a proper copay for a prescription or an office visit for strep throat or what have you. What I want out of insurance is protection from whopping bills that can wipe out whole months of earnings...if not years.

104 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:12:25pm

re: #94 ggt

Fine so make your job a gov't job and take the profit motive out of it and suddenly there is more money to go around. There has to be because a non-profit is by definition a non-profit.

105 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:12:26pm

re: #101 Amory Blaine

In my opinion, if Americans didn't have to be worried about health insurance, for example single payer, it would unleash a torrent of small businesses like we've never seen.

Of the first world, most of our direct trading partners enjoy universal health care of one flavor or another. And so they don't have to figure in health insurance costs when it comes to the cost of labor. We choose to continue putting ourselves at a disadvantage, because we've become convinced that relying on the government for anything is "socialism."

Or, we do right up until we're broke and destitute, which is when we get outraged that the government "isn't doing enough!"

106 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:12:40pm

re: #101 Amory Blaine

In my opinion, if Americans didn't have to be worried about health insurance, for example single payer, it would unleash a torrent of small businesses like we've never seen.

I'd like to try the old fashioned way for a while. 80/20 --you pay your premium, you pay your own doctor visits etc. You submit on your own and see what you get back. Costs would come down.

Many costs of tests etc are inflated because of the haggle they hospitals have to go thru to get payment. They have to have whole departments and legal experts to get contracts etc. Eliminate those jobs --sorry guys--and see what would happen to prices.

If my doctor can take $60 payment from insurance, but actually charges $160 for a visit --???? What's the real cost?

Too many people are making money along the way.

Politicans and Lawyers got it to this point.

107 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:13:49pm

re: #103 lostlakehiker

Alot of people don't get that kind of protection. In most of health related bankruptcies, the people had health insurance.

108 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:13:56pm

re: #104 LudwigVanQuixote

Fine so make your job a gov't job and take the profit motive out of it and suddenly there is more money to go around. There has to be because a non-profit is by definition a non-profit.

In Theory.

I don't for one minute think the government is non-profit. Not when there are large contracts that involve regulation and political backing.

109 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:14:45pm

The only answer I have is to STAY AS HEALTHY AS POSSIBLE.

110 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:15:26pm

re: #108 ggt

In Theory.

I don't for one minute think the government is non-profit. Not when there are large contracts that involve regulation and political backing.

Yeah my theory does require a degree of honesty from our congress critters. There would have to be very strong oversight to keep the system immune from congressional tampering.

111 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:15:38pm

re: #109 ggt

The only answer I have is to STAY AS HEALTHY AS POSSIBLE.

But I'm not a Christian...

112 Renaissance_Man  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:16:05pm

re: #109 ggt

The only answer I have is to STAY AS HEALTHY AS POSSIBLE.

That's the only thing that 'works' in the US health care system.

113 Vicious Babushka  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:16:38pm

re: #61 ggt

Silver has to be polished, I hate it.

I'll take yours.

114 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:17:12pm

Completely off topic:

Cutaneous skin tags annoy the shit out of me.

115 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:18:16pm

re: #114 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Completely off topic:

Cutaneous skin tags annoy the shit out of me.

I know, how do they work?

I use Neosporin with Pain Killer in it then clip them off myself.

Dermatologist wanted $250 each and insurance doesn't cover. Which, IMHO, it shouldn't as it isn't really a health problem.

116 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:20:56pm

re: #115 ggt

I know, how do they work?

I use Neosporin with Pain Killer in it then clip them off myself.

Dermatologist wanted $250 each and insurance doesn't cover. Which, IMHO, it shouldn't as it isn't really a health problem.

Cuticle scissors and wart remover. I know they aren't a health problem, but they just ... just is all.

117 Gus  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:21:27pm

re: #18 LudwigVanQuixote

There has been almost a decade of straight droughts in the Southern US. Texas has been in the worst drought for some time since February. China experienced its worst drought in 200 years in its breadbasket. Monsoons wiped out 6,000,000 people's homes in Pakistan and as many as 1,000,000 died.

You might want to check this figure. Seems a little high. The total deaths for the 2010 Pakistan floods was 1,781. Additionally, running a request at the EM-DAT database for flood events in Pakistan covering the years 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007; 2008; 2009; results in 2,065 deaths. Total flood events according to EM-DAT from 1900-2011 includes 4,372 + 2,994 + 7,500. Total deaths from storms in the period including 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007; 2008; 2009; is 369.

118 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:23:37pm

re: #107 Amory Blaine

Alot of people don't get that kind of protection. In most of health related bankruptcies, the people had health insurance.


I'd guess that the health insurance was essentially fraudulent. For instance, suppose they ask, are you a smoker. And you answer, no. You aren't.

But say once, in college, you took a puff off a friend's reefer. That counts as smoking, according to the insurance lawyer. So, you lied on your health coverage application and that means the deal's off.

There oughta be a law. There is a law, I think, but it can be tough to fight through the lawyerly layers and make that law stick. Has Obama Care fixed that? I sure hope so.

Anyhow---

I'm not asking for unlimited coverage. I don't have it. My life isn't worth spending X million dollars on stringing out. If that's what it takes to prolong it by a year or two, I shouldn't get the care. Certainly not on somebody else's dime.

There's a range in there, costs running from several thousand, to several hundred thousand, that's just right for insurance. Money that would be well spent, but tough, or beyond coping with, on a cash up front basis.

119 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:24:11pm

re: #117 Gus 802

You might want to check this figure. Seems a little high. The total deaths for the 2010 Pakistan floods was 1,781. Additionally, running a request at the EM-DAT database for flood events in Pakistan covering the years 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007; 2008; 2009; results in 2,065 deaths. Total flood events according to EM-DAT from 1900-2011 includes 4,372 + 2,994 + 7,500. Total deaths from storms in the period including 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007; 2008; 2009; is 369.

Those numbers do not include the subsequent deaths of those displaced from secondary causes.

120 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:25:22pm

re: #109 ggt

The only answer I have is to STAY AS HEALTHY AS POSSIBLE.

Many health problems are chronic conditions that are made more likely by obesity or excessive drinking or smoking or illegal drug use or unsafe sex.

You can't "stay healthy" against all hazards, but you can bring down some hazards on yourself. Best not to.

121 Gus  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:25:35pm

re: #119 LudwigVanQuixote

Those numbers do not include the subsequent deaths of those displaced from secondary causes.

From like a resulting famine, etc? OK, then that would work.

122 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:26:30pm

Speaking of the weather, it looks like at the present pace, I could potentially be getting a visit from Irene by next weekend. Fun...

123 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:28:00pm

HISTORY OF THE BARBER POLE

The barber pole as a symbol of the profession is a legacy of bloodletting. The barber surgeon's necessities for that curious custom were a staff for the patient to grasp (so the veins on the arm would stand out sharply), a basin to hold leeches and catch blood, and a copious supply of linen bandages. After the operation was completed, the bandages would be hung on the staff and sometimes placed outside as advertisement. Twirled by the wind, they would form a red white spiral pattern that was later adopted for painted poles. The earliest poles were surmounted by a leech basin, which in time was transformed into a ball.
124 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:28:19pm

re: #121 Gus 802

From like a resulting famine, etc? OK, then that would work.

Yes.

125 Gus  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:28:23pm

Anywho. I'm hot right now and my sister just had to throw another stupid mini fit about something I was doing. Laundry. Pain in the ass that she is. So once I was finished with that I told her "another crisis averted."

126 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:31:07pm

re: #120 lostlakehiker

Many health problems are chronic conditions that are made more likely by obesity or excessive drinking or smoking or illegal drug use or unsafe sex.

You can't "stay healthy" against all hazards, but you can bring down some hazards on yourself. Best not to.

The human body is one of nature's greatest mysteries. Every year, it seems like "conventional wisdom" is challenged by a new discovery or correction of old myths. I've heard about health food nuts who dropped dead of congenital defects or diseases they never knew they were at risk for. At the same time, I've read about people who've lived to be 90 or older, drinking port wine and smoking cigars.

Life is a crap shoot. What makes you "healthy" today could very well kill you tomorrow.

127 Gus  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:31:48pm

Back in a bit. I'm going to punch a concrete wall and then bang my head against it.

128 Mostly sane, most of the time.  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:32:17pm

re: #126 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

The human body is one of nature's greatest mysteries. Every year, it seems like "conventional wisdom" is challenged by a new discovery or correction of old myths. I've heard about health food nuts who dropped dead of congenital defects or diseases they never knew they were at risk for. At the same time, I've read about people who've lived to be 90 or older, drinking port wine and smoking cigars.

Life is a crap shoot. What makes you "healthy" today could very well kill you tomorrow.

Pretty sure that smoking will not make you healthy on any day.

129 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:33:22pm

re: #128 EmmmieG

Pretty sure that smoking will not make you healthy on any day.

Its medicinal.

130 Gretchen G.Tiger  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:33:29pm

gotta go,

Have a great evening all!

131 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:33:57pm

Smoking is a risk, so is pounding your joints 2 hours a day running at the park. Kayaking, climbing etc. all have high risks.

132 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:34:01pm

re: #128 EmmmieG

Pretty sure that smoking will not make you healthy on any day.

I don't know, I've met some pretty healthy potheads.

/

133 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:36:30pm

re: #131 Amory Blaine

Smoking is a risk, so is pounding your joints 2 hours a day running at the park. Kayaking, climbing etc. all have high risks.

Fapping remains a low risk activity which promotes a healthy prostate.

134 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:36:30pm

re: #131 Amory Blaine

Smoking is a risk, so is pounding your joints 2 hours a day running at the park. Kayaking, climbing etc. all have high risks.

sitting on your ass all day is the worst you can do to yourself....mushroomitis

135 Schadenfreude 'r' Us  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:37:00pm

And a brief return to topic, more or less -- the ad served up to me with this thread was "FIX SLANDER NOW." If only it were that easy.

136 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:37:08pm

re: #133 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Fapping remains a low risk activity which promotes a healthy prostate.

Not that any of us engage in it, of course.

//

137 SanFranciscoZionist  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:37:47pm

re: #90 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

He also stated that the reason they wouldn't have a march in Washington DC was because its too dangerous for white people there amongst all the blacks and latinos who love Obama.

PS: Don't call them racists.

Wait, I thought (recalling the election) that Latinos wouldn't vote for Obama. They can't change the stereotype now!!

138 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:40:35pm

re: #137 SanFranciscoZionist

Wait, I thought (recalling the election) that Latinos wouldn't vote for Obama. They can't change the stereotype now!!

Consistency is not a trait they are known for.

139 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:40:35pm

I wonder why the right wing blogs are so silent about the fact that the "anti-tax" GOP is raising taxes on working and poor people?

The people on those blogs aren't rich. They don't get the benefits of the GOP, because they don't count to them. Why cover for the schmucks? This will hit their paychecks on their own seemingly biggest issue.

Could it be because it was never really about the deficit, but more about hating a black man, with a lovely and brilliant wife as president? Could it be that they are just scared white trash who don't understand their world and hold desperately on to the fear that they are losing everything?

I don't know, but they sure as G-d made little green apples don't care about tax cuts.

140 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:41:14pm

re: #133 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Fapping remains a low risk activity which promotes a healthy prostate.

Maybe a national health initiative is in order. Or does it need initiative?

141 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:43:08pm

re: #137 SanFranciscoZionist

Wait, I thought (recalling the election) that Latinos wouldn't vote for Obama. They can't change the stereotype now!!

More from the same guy, plus a bonus from David Barton

Gheen: they are protecting illegal aliens, they facilitated their importation into the United States and they seem to have some broader political/economic agenda of replacing many core Americans and American values and our jobs and our schools and everything else. That's what they're doing. They don't like Americans so they're replacing us in our own country

And from noted hysterian David Barton:


it is God and not man who establishes the borders of nations. National boundaries are set by God. If God didn't want boundaries, he would have put everyone in the same world and there would have been no nations; we would have all been living together as one group and one people. That didn't happen.
142 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:43:44pm

re: #135 C1nnabar

And a brief return to topic, more or less -- the ad served up to me with this thread was "FIX SLANDER NOW." If only it were that easy.

Just a quick question OT is your nic related to the David Drake series?

Up Cinnabar!

143 Renaissance_Man  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:44:43pm

re: #139 LudwigVanQuixote

The cult media is silent because the only tenet of their faith is hating the left, and this issue will not be mentioned unless it is to further spew hate.

The more pertinent question is why this is not news.

144 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:45:38pm

re: #139 LudwigVanQuixote

I wonder why the right wing blogs are so silent about the fact that the "anti-tax" GOP is raising taxes on working and poor people?

The people on those blogs aren't rich. They don't get the benefits of the GOP, because they don't count to them. Why cover for the schmucks? This will hit their paychecks on their own seemingly biggest issue.

Could it be because it was never really about the deficit, but more about hating a black man, with a lovely and brilliant wife as president? Could it be that they are just scared white trash who don't understand their world and hold desperately on to the fear that they are losing everything?

I don't know, but they sure as G-d made little green apples don't care about tax cuts.

Why are they saying nothing? Because they've convinced themselves that the poor don't pay taxes, so the expiration of this tax cut doesn't really have the same weight as one benefiting "job creators." If anything, they're secretly happy that the poor are about to get whacked with the end of this cut, because they feel that they're getting a "free ride" and it's time to bring an "end" to that. But they're not going to openly vocalize such thoughts, especially not in an election year.

145 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:46:12pm

re: #139 LudwigVanQuixote

I wonder why the right wing blogs are so silent about the fact that the "anti-tax" GOP is raising taxes on working and poor people?

The people on those blogs aren't rich. They don't get the benefits of the GOP, because they don't count to them. Why cover for the schmucks? This will hit their paychecks on their own seemingly biggest issue.

Could it be because it was never really about the deficit, but more about hating a black man, with a lovely and brilliant wife as president? Could it be that they are just scared white trash who don't understand their world and hold desperately on to the fear that they are losing everything?

I don't know, but they sure as G-d made little green apples don't care about tax cuts.


I've given up on them. They don't care about anything but hating Obama. They don't give a shit about anything else.

146 makeitstopghazi  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:46:18pm

re: #139 LudwigVanQuixote

The people on those blogs aren't rich. They don't get the benefits of the GOP, because they don't count to them. Why cover for the schmucks?

Because it's worth whatever they will lose if it pisses liberals off.

//

147 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:46:37pm

re: #141 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)


it is God and not man who establishes the borders of nations. National boundaries are set by God. If God didn't want boundaries, he would have put everyone in the same world and there would have been no nations; we would have all been living together as one group and one people. That didn't happen.


"54-40 or Hell"

148 Digital Display  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:46:49pm

re: #139 LudwigVanQuixote

I wonder why the right wing blogs are so silent about the fact that the "anti-tax" GOP is raising taxes on working and poor people?

The people on those blogs aren't rich. They don't get the benefits of the GOP, because they don't count to them. Why cover for the schmucks? This will hit their paychecks on their own seemingly biggest issue.

Could it be because it was never really about the deficit, but more about hating a black man, with a lovely and brilliant wife as president? Could it be that they are just scared white trash who don't understand their world and hold desperately on to the fear that they are losing everything?

I don't know, but they sure as G-d made little green apples don't care about tax cuts.

Hey Ludwig..Haven't seen any bills proposed by the GOP raising taxes on poor people...Do you have more details on this?

149 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:47:48pm

I like them sour little green apples straight off the tree.

150 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:48:29pm

That whole "God made National boundaries" line has got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever read in my life.

151 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:49:06pm

re: #148 HoosierHoops

Hey Ludwig..Haven't seen any bills proposed by the GOP raising taxes on poor people...Do you have more details on this?

See #92

152 Mostly sane, most of the time.  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:49:19pm

re: #150 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

That whole "God made National boundaries" line has got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever read in my life.

Well, if the National Boundary is an ocean, that is true.

153 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:49:48pm

re: #143 Renaissance_Man

The cult media is silent because the only tenet of their faith is hating the left, and this issue will not be mentioned unless it is to further spew hate.

I have this dream that people - no matter how dumb - can notice something that hits them directly. Of course, I have had those dreams dashed many times.

The more pertinent question is why this is not news.

Indeed. This probably bc Fox (you know, the GOP ministry of truth) would never cover something about the GOP that made them look bad and the MSM is going to get more add revenue by talking about whatever sensationalist crap of the day is.

Honestly, I don't think most Americans deserve what their forbearers sacrificed so much to give them.

Honestly

154 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:50:24pm

re: #148 HoosierHoops

Hey Ludwig..Haven't seen any bills proposed by the GOP raising taxes on poor people...Do you have more details on this?

They're not proposing a tax increase, but instead opposing the extension of payroll tax cuts that were part of the Bush Tax Cut extension. Their argument, as of right now, is that the payroll tax cuts offer no "benefit," so being allowed to eclipse is acceptable. They're actively trying to sidestep their own argument that allowing any tax cuts to expire qualifies as a "tax increase."

Grover Norquist has yet to weigh in, but I'm sure he'll be okay with the idea. *rolls eyes*

155 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:51:22pm

re: #148 HoosierHoops

Hey Ludwig..Haven't seen any bills proposed by the GOP raising taxes on poor people...Do you have more details on this?

I did a whole page on it yesterday.

GOP to raise taxes on poor in latest repulsive hypocrisy

156 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:51:33pm

re: #152 EmmmieG

Well, if the National Boundary is an ocean, that is true.

"So if God made all the national boundaries, and we stole land from the Indians, does this mean we've defied God's will? What about when the Romans conquered Israel?"

157 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:52:12pm

re: #154 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

BY their own definitions, that is a tax increase. This was the argument they used in every other extension debate - but those were for rich people.

158 Renaissance_Man  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:52:33pm

re: #148 HoosierHoops

Hey Ludwig..Haven't seen any bills proposed by the GOP raising taxes on poor people...Do you have more details on this?

You haven't seen it because the national news is too busy reporting very important stories about how some commentators are questioning whether it's appropriate for the President to be taking a holiday when everything is so very dire and horrible and miserable just like it's been since the start of 2009, except in Libya where it's sort of okay but would have been a lot better if there'd been a different President.

But briefly, the payroll tax holiday is coming to an end, and Obama would like to see it extended, as it mostly benefits working class people. On the other hand, the party that clearly best represents working class people and that insists we're Taxed Enough Already wants that tax cut to end, because the bad Democrat wants otherwise.

159 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:52:42pm

re: #150 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

That whole "God made National boundaries" line has got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever read in my life.

God made state boundaries too. And when a river changes course, and state boundaries are adjusted, the river has sinned against His manifest will.

160 Mostly sane, most of the time.  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:53:50pm

re: #159 lostlakehiker

God made state boundaries too. And when a river changes course, and state boundaries are adjusted, the river has sinned against His manifest will.

You realize that building a bridge can change the shipping lane, which changes the actual state boundary?

BUILDING BRIDGES IS A SIN!!!

God meant for you to swim it.

161 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:54:24pm

re: #157 LudwigVanQuixote

BY their own definitions, that is a tax increase. This was the argument they used in every other extension debate - but those were for rich people.

Ayep. But they won't admit to that, because that would mean they're violating their own pledge not to raise taxes. So, instead, they're trying to argue that a tax increase isn't really a tax increase when it falls on the poor and working class.

My guess? Between now and January, when the cuts expire, look for the GOP to try to lump them together with yet another extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, declaring that if the poor can't handle a tax increase, neither can the rich.

162 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:55:06pm

re: #160 EmmmieG

You realize that building a bridge can change the shipping lane, which changes the actual state boundary?

BUILDING BRIDGES IS A SIN!!!

God meant for you to swim it.

God also split man apart and made him speak other languages, so learning another language and traveling to new lands is going against his will.

SINNERS!

163 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:55:47pm

re: #161 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

Ayep. But they won't admit to that, because that would mean they're violating their own pledge not to raise taxes. So, instead, they're trying to argue that a tax increase isn't really a tax increase when it falls on the poor and working class.

My guess? Between now and January, when the cuts expire, look for the GOP to try to lump them together with yet another extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, declaring that if the poor can't handle a tax increase, neither can the rich.

"We're not raising taxes, we're just letting an exemption expire"

164 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:56:12pm

Multilingualism is of the devil!!!111!!!!!T!!y==

165 Mostly sane, most of the time.  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:56:32pm

re: #162 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

God also split man apart and made him speak other languages, so learning another language and traveling to new lands is going against his will.

SINNERS!

Wait, you mean it wasn't the school district that cancelled French 3 at the high school, it was God?

Crud. Never gonna get it re-instated now.

166 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:57:23pm

re: #164 Amory Blaine

Multilingualism is of the devil!!!111!!!T!!y==

Your use of excessive punctuation combined with numerals and mathematical symbols has been deemed heretical. Prepare to be purged sinner.

167 Amory Blaine  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:57:26pm

Being bilingual is an affront to God!

168 garhighway  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:57:54pm

re: #22 lostlakehiker

We should survive even the worst case of this. It's grim. Humanity ends up in an enclave in the Himalaya, growing yams. All our livestock die. All the birds die. But we? We live. We're not just a smart species. We're pretty damned tough.

This century we're in now won't see the worst of it. The Antarctic ice cap will be long in melting. Even the Greenland ice cap will be largely in place. Ice melts when heated, but a big block of ice takes a long time to melt. This block is miles deep and hundreds of miles across.

This is part of our problem. Warnings of doom, that the end is nigh, are all around us. Some, that didn't pan out, have come from realms not far from science. Paul Ehrlich and his population bomb theory had us in famine by now, for instance.

Most people have no particular knack for science. Most who do are busy men and women with not much time for it, though they could follow the logic if they took the time. Most who do follow the logic and take the time have no particular talent for popularizing and proselytizing. (I'd guess that talent is negatively correlated with a scientific inclination, controlling for general intelligence.)

So the court of public opinion is hearing from all sorts of lying witnesses and all sorts of false trails laid down by canny lawyers. Juries can be led down the primrose path.

The one thing that makes this case different is that this court cannot render a final verdict. Just its own verdict for this year. The case will be tried again next year, and again, the next.

One by one, the barriers to public understanding will fall. Spin things as they might, the other side cannot make this brutal summer disappear from the record books. There will be more of the same.

One by one, Antarctic ice shelves are breaking up. The Arctic sea ice is thinning dramatically---but who sees thinning? It's still white, ain't it? The day of reckoning will be when some windy storm thrashes that thin cover to shreds and the Arctic opens up. That photo, of before and after, will convince a lot of people who cannot or will not follow abstruse arguments. Seeing will be believing.

There is a commercial side to all this, too. Right now, food inflation is ticking along well ahead of general inflation. And that's before beef prices soar. They will. Cattle are going to slaughter all over the southwest, since there's no forage. Once that bulge in supply clears, watch out!

Sea levels will rise at rates that cannot be papered over with talk of how it's been happening all along. Because the rates in our future are very different from the recorded rates for the last few thousand years.

Fifty years from now we'll have got ourselves into a deeper hole and the problem will be much worse than it would have been had we acted now. But it won't be the worst it could possibly get, and we won't get that worst case because by then, if not earlier, we'll have seen the peril and got cracking.

Even if we lose the political debate today, we can still pave the way to a better future. The technology of wind, solar, and nuclear can be upgraded so that when the time comes, we have really good stuff, shovel ready.

So what do you think of the political party that shamelessly trades on climate skepticism and a general contempt for science?

169 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:57:55pm

re: #161 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

Ayep. But they won't admit to that, because that would mean they're violating their own pledge not to raise taxes. So, instead, they're trying to argue that a tax increase isn't really a tax increase when it falls on the poor and working class.

My guess? Between now and January, when the cuts expire, look for the GOP to try to lump them together with yet another extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, declaring that if the poor can't handle a tax increase, neither can the rich.

You are correct that Fox is in full hate the poor class warfare mode, but those taxes are taken out of everyone's paycheck - right there for all to see. Of course those people are paying taxes.

On the other hand... why isn't GE or the Oil industry paying taxes by their same metric?

170 garhighway  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 3:58:39pm

re: #167 Amory Blaine

Being bilingual is an affront to God!

That's right. She only made us with one tongue.

171 Renaissance_Man  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:00:12pm

re: #153 LudwigVanQuixote

I have this dream that people - no matter how dumb - can notice something that hits them directly. Of course, I have had those dreams dashed many times.

They will notice. But they will blame Democrats. People will disbelieve anything, including incontrovertible evidence before their very eyes, if it reinforces opinions that they hold dear.

This isn't limited to the Conservative cult - it's a human trait. The cult is just one of the more ugly concentrations of it.

172 Digital Display  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:00:20pm

re: #167 Amory Blaine

Being bilingual is an affront to God!

yup..That's why he destroyed the tower of Babel so we couldn't speak to each other..There is a asteroid on the way to destroy the HQ of Rosetta stone.. They are f*cked..

173 garhighway  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:01:23pm

As an aside: Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman, has lawyered up:

[Link: dealbook.nytimes.com...]

174 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:08:59pm

re: #173 garhighway

As an aside: Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman, has lawyered up:

[Link: dealbook.nytimes.com...]

I noticed that earlier. Goldman stock dropped like a stone in late trading and continues to fall in after hours trading. That may be what spooked the market late in the day. Something might be going on.

175 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:11:11pm

re: #174 Killgore Trout

I noticed that earlier. Goldman stock dropped like a stone in late trading and continues to fall in after hours trading. That may be what spooked the market late in the day. Something might be going on.

stay away from the market....
cash rules

176 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:12:46pm

re: #174 Killgore Trout

The Big Short:

Lloyd Blankfein went to Washington and testified under oath that Goldman Sachs didn't make a massive short bet and didn't bet against its clients. The Levin report proves that Goldman spent the whole summer of 2007 riding a "big short" and took a multibillion-dollar bet against its clients, a bet that incidentally made them enormous profits.
[Link: www.rollingstone.com...]
177 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:14:05pm

An interesting point...

re: #168 garhighway

I know it wasn't pointed at me, but I like the question.

Science is not dictated by the whims of people. The universe is the way the universe is. It obeys certain rules. If you believe in G-d, than accurate data is no more or less than the revelation of the Divine will. He made it that way. We just work here. If you don't believe in G-d, then the Universe itself is that way and that is just the way it is.

In any case, scientists do not make the science. We only uncover what is already there, made by things much greater than men.

We all accept that there are consequences for messing with the order of things or ignoring how they work on some level. For example, we all get the idea that jumping from a great height leads to a very predictable interaction with gravity and whatever is below. We all get that this is lethal. We all get that no amount of prayer on the way down will stop the fall and that the universe will not change the way it works too spare us from becoming road pizza.

So the best way to answer you question is with a question.

Suppose someone had a room on the 90th floor of a high rise and I plastered over the windows to make it look like a wall and I added a door that went right outside. Suppose someone was crafty and made it look like maybe there was a hallway beyond that door, but the reality is there is no floor. If that person convinced people to walk through the door, would it be murder?

Of course it would.

The science of AGW is settled enough to know that the path we are on is as inevitable as gravity and a one way trip to ruin. That is not what I say... That is what the data says. G-d made that data.

Perhaps I misread it or didn't understand it...

OK...

That is the same read as NASA, NOAA, AGU, NSF, The National Academy, The American Physical Society, The Royal Society, and the Academies of England, France, Germany and Israel say - to name a few.

The tens of thousands of us who have collected the data and analyzed it are not all wrong.

And the proof in science is always in the accuracy of the predictions. For example, we've been calling for terrible droughts in the American South for some years now. Are we seeing that? Are we seeing increased storm intensities and changing migration patterns? Of course we are.

So the answer to your question is that the GOP is as guilty of murder as someone who lures another over a cliff.

178 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:14:42pm

re: #171 Renaissance_Man

They will notice. But they will blame Democrats. People will disbelieve anything, including incontrovertible evidence before their very eyes, if it reinforces opinions that they hold dear.

This isn't limited to the Conservative cult - it's a human trait. The cult is just one of the more ugly concentrations of it.

If we don't break through it then we fail the Darwin test. That simple. Black and white.

179 austin_blue  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:14:55pm

Afternoon all.

I won't bore you with a description of today's weather. No different than the last two months.

So on reading this report, did The Right Reverend Senator Doctor Jim Inhofe (R-OK via Mars) mumble something about "Gotdamm academons protecting their own." or did his head explode like a ripe melon hit by a 7.62 NATO hollow point?

I'm guessing the former.

180 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:17:38pm

re: #179 austin_blue

Afternoon all.

I won't bore you with a description of today's weather. No different than the last two months.

So on reading this report, did The Right Reverend Senator Doctor Jim Inhofe (R-OK via Mars) mumble something about "Gotdamm academons protecting their own." or did his head explode like a ripe melon hit by a 7.62 NATO hollow point?

I'm guessing the former.

Neither... He just will call for yet another investigation because it gums everything up.

181 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:18:11pm

re: #175 albusteve

stay away from the market...
cash rules

I cashed out some today. The rest can stay for the long term but I should be flush enough to insulate myself from boom and bust bullshit for quite some time. I have other non-market investments in mind that will work out much better for me.

182 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:19:39pm

re: #176 jaunte

The Big Short:

It's going to be very tricky to bring justice to these dickheads. They hold our economic infrastructure and fucking with them could have serious consequences.

183 garhighway  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:20:24pm

re: #177 LudwigVanQuixote

I agree. Between the politicians who exploit skepticism to do better in the next election and businessmen who do the same to make their numbers for the next few quarters, you are looking at some evil motherfuckers.

184 austin_blue  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:20:54pm

re: #169 LudwigVanQuixote

You are correct that Fox is in full hate the poor class warfare mode, but those taxes are taken out of everyone's paycheck - right there for all to see. Of course those people are paying taxes.

On the other hand... why isn't GE or the Oil industry paying taxes by their same metric?

Because Corporations are *people*, silly Baggi...

Oh, wait.

Hmmm...

185 jaunte  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:21:20pm

re: #182 Killgore Trout

I'm finished with any politican who claims regulation is "holding back" business.

186 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:22:32pm

re: #184 austin_blue

Because Corporations are *people*, silly Baggi...

Oh, wait.

Hmmm...

If Corporations are people then they should get the same 3,600 dollar personal exemption that everyone else gets - and that's it. File a 1040EZ and pay according to the tax table.

187 austin_blue  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:24:23pm

re: #182 Killgore Trout

It's going to be very tricky to bring justice to these dickheads. They hold our economic infrastructure and fucking with them could have serious consequences.

Fucking with the Corporations, maybe, but fucking the individual Suits to show them we are serious about the way they do business?

Priceless.

188 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:24:46pm

I should also say on this topic that few things are more amusing than people who claim to be scientist but deny AGW. By now for example the Mann paper is the most peer reviewed scientific paper in history. Everyone who is anyone remotely related to the field has been up and down the paper and it has withstood the test of that scrutiny. No one claims it is false.

Well no one who actually has a science degree does.

Denying AGW is at this point as scientific as denying Evolution or special relativity. Someone who claims to know anything about science but denies the reality of AGW has the credibility of someone who claimed that he is a rabbi and that pork is kosher. It is that well established.

Simply put, if they say they have a science degree and that AGW is not real, they are either lying about the degree or a paid stooge because no one with any actual expertise or validity in this field would tell such a lie than a legitimate rabbi would tell you that pork is kosher.

189 Stanghazi  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:24:51pm
190 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:25:44pm

re: #186 darthstar

If Corporations are people then they should get the same 3,600 dollar personal exemption that everyone else gets - and that's it. File a 1040EZ and pay according to the tax table.

Anyone with TurboTax want to run a 1040EZ for a "person" making 46 billion dollars a year (go ahead and claim a few deductions for their children like Bush, Cheney, Perry, etc.) like Exxon and see what the taxes would be on that?

191 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:30:08pm

Optics...they're more important than people realize.

Libyan people thank Obama

Image: libya7.png

But Qadaffi thanked Americans too..

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has written to members of Congress thanking them for criticizing President Obama last week over his involvement in the NATO-led military campaign in Libya …

“I want to express my sincere gratitude for your thoughtful discussion of the issues,” Colonel Qaddafi wrote in the letter, a copy of which was supplied to The New York Times .... “We are confident that history will see the wisdom of your country in debating these issues.” …

It's too bad he didn't thank them by name.

192 eachus  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:30:53pm

re: #89 lostlakehiker

If you look up "hockey stick retraction" on Google, you will get lots of hits, including: [Link: www.ncpa.org...]

This flaw in methodology was also highlighted by Henry Pollack and Jason Smerdon (Journal of Geophysical Research, 2004) and led to a retraction by Mann (and Scott Rutherford) in the Journal of Geophysical Research (June 2004). In this article they admit to underestimating the temperature variations indicated by the proxy data since 1400 by more than one-third, which explains why their previous work failed to track the Little Ice Age. While admitting this error, Mann and Rutherford fail to recognize the extent to which it undermines their historical reconstruction and its relation to present temperature trends.

I didn't have a research career tied to the MWP or the Little Ice Age, but I did have friends whose funding was hurt and who were pressured to retract papers. Oops! Losing your funding for "only" a couple years can be pretty painful. Again, this is about the handle of the hockey stick and not at all about recent climate. But I knew that there were going to be royal battles about this.

For example: "The MWP was the result of a minor Milancovitch cycle that affected the Earth by substantially less than deniers would like to imagine..."

I'm not a denier, but I can point you at papers on the MWP in North and South America and Asia. Hmmm...

"Major wet interval in white mountains medieval warm period evidenced in δ13C of bristlecone pine tree rings California". Climatic Change 26 (2–3): 299–307. doi:10.1007/BF01092420

Li, H.; Ku, T. (2002). "Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Periods in Eastern China as Read from the Speleothem Records". American Geophysical Union 71: 09. Bibcode 2002AGUFMPP71C..09L

Keigwin, Lloyd D. (1996-11-29). "The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea". Science 274 (5292): 1503. doi:10.1126/science.274.5292.1503. PMID 8929406

And just for fun: [Link: www.sciencemag.org...]
Yes that is an article with Michael Mann as lead author describing the MWP and Little Ice Age--and trying to come up with a model where the warming and cooling were not global.

I think you mistake which side of your argument I am on. Neither. I think that whether CO2 levels cause heating or cooling depends on a complex interaction between water vapor, CO2, and the oceans. If I had global climate model that fit the data--I'd be planning a trip to Stockholm. As it is, I think we (the global research community) are about a decade or two from doing that.

But the one thing that has come out of existing models is that the current warming is at higher latitudes, with little or no warming at the equator.

In the meantime I feel like everyone is ignoring the extent to which CO2 levels that the human race has never had to cope with are killing people. Get that story out, and we can hope for correction of the problem. Natural gas releases more water vapor than CO2 during combustion, oil is somewhere in the middle, and coal results in say 95% CO2 with other noxious gasses. :-( So I am all in favor of shutting down all coal burning power plants as fast as possible--with B52s if necessary. That might be enough to start global CO2 levels declining.

193 austin_blue  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:31:51pm

re: #188 LudwigVanQuixote

I should also say on this topic that few things are more amusing than people who claim to be scientist but deny AGW. By now for example the Mann paper is the most peer reviewed scientific paper in history. Everyone who is anyone remotely related to the field has been up and down the paper and it has withstood the test of that scrutiny. No one claims it is false.

Well no one who actually has a science degree does.

Denying AGW is at this point as scientific as denying Evolution or special relativity. Someone who claims to know anything about science but denies the reality of AGW has the credibility of someone who claimed that he is a rabbi and that pork is kosher. It is that well established.

Simply put, if they say they have a science degree and that AGW is not real, they are either lying about the degree or a paid stooge because no one with any actual expertise or validity in this field would tell such a lie than a legitimate rabbi would tell you that pork is kosher.

But if he is a really, really reformed Rabbi, who, for instance believes that Jesus *was* the "Messiah of Israel" (it was at this point of The Restoration broadcast I started screaming at the Feed, making She Who Must Be Obeyed molto nervoso), he'd happily be scarfing down grilled bacon-wrapped shrimp.

Wow. I just started to drool uncontrollably.

194 Schadenfreude 'r' Us  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:34:14pm

re: #142 LudwigVanQuixote

Just a quick question OT is your nic related to the David Drake series?

Up Cinnabar!

No, I've been using it since I first went online (back when dialups like Compuserve were all the rage).

195 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:35:40pm

re: #181 Killgore Trout

I cashed out some today. The rest can stay for the long term but I should be flush enough to insulate myself from boom and bust bullshit for quite some time. I have other non-market investments in mind that will work out much better for me.

good for you...time to hunker down...
it's working better for me than I ever expected, but my situation is different...I don't own anything and I like it very much....zero debt

196 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:36:01pm

No wonder McCain and Graham were so sad...

197 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:36:32pm

re: #196 darthstar

No wonder McCain and Graham were so sad...

[Video]

AP Friday, August 14, 2009 9:46 PM A delegation of US senators led by former Republican Presidential candidate John McCain met with Libyan leaders on Friday in Tripoli to discuss the possible delivery of non-lethal defence equipment.

198 jamesfirecat  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:38:46pm

re: #192 eachus

If you look up "hockey stick retraction" on Google, you will get lots of hits, including: [Link: www.ncpa.org...]

This flaw in methodology was also highlighted by Henry Pollack and Jason Smerdon (Journal of Geophysical Research, 2004) and led to a retraction by Mann (and Scott Rutherford) in the Journal of Geophysical Research (June 2004). In this article they admit to underestimating the temperature variations indicated by the proxy data since 1400 by more than one-third, which explains why their previous work failed to track the Little Ice Age. While admitting this error, Mann and Rutherford fail to recognize the extent to which it undermines their historical reconstruction and its relation to present temperature trends.

I didn't have a research career tied to the MWP or the Little Ice Age, but I did have friends whose funding was hurt and who were pressured to retract papers. Oops! Losing your funding for "only" a couple years can be pretty painful. Again, this is about the handle of the hockey stick and not at all about recent climate. But I knew that there were going to be royal battles about this.

For example: "The MWP was the result of a minor Milancovitch cycle that affected the Earth by substantially less than deniers would like to imagine..."

I'm not a denier, but I can point you at papers on the MWP in North and South America and Asia. Hmmm...

"Major wet interval in white mountains medieval warm period evidenced in δ13C of bristlecone pine tree rings California". Climatic Change 26 (2–3): 299–307. doi:10.1007/BF01092420

Li, H.; Ku, T. (2002). "Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Periods in Eastern China as Read from the Speleothem Records". American Geophysical Union 71: 09. Bibcode 2002AGUFMPP71C..09L

Keigwin, Lloyd D. (1996-11-29). "The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea". Science 274 (5292): 1503. doi:10.1126/science.274.5292.1503. PMID 8929406

And just for fun: [Link: www.sciencemag.org...]
Yes that is an article with Michael Mann as lead author describing the MWP and Little Ice Age--and trying to come up with a model where the warming and cooling were not global.

I think you mistake which side of your argument I am on. Neither. I think that whether CO2 levels cause heating or cooling depends on a complex interaction between water vapor, CO2, and the oceans. If I had global climate model that fit the data--I'd be planning a trip to Stockholm. As it is, I think we (the global research community) are about a decade or two from doing that.

But the one thing that has come out of existing models is that the current warming is at higher latitudes, with little or no warming at the equator.

In the meantime I feel like everyone is ignoring the extent to which CO2 levels that the human race has never had to cope with are killing people. Get that story out, and we can hope for correction of the problem. Natural gas releases more water vapor than CO2 during combustion, oil is somewhere in the middle, and coal results in say 95% CO2 with other noxious gasses. :-( So I am all in favor of shutting down all coal burning power plants as fast as possible--with B52s if necessary. That might be enough to start global CO2 levels declining.

. I think that whether CO2 levels cause heating or cooling depends on a complex interaction between water vapor, CO2, and the oceans.

More CO2 In Atmosphere= More Warm.

You can't deny that without denying either

A) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

Or

B) Greenhouse gases trap heat from the sun and heat up earth.

Or if you can figure out a way around it I'd love to hear it.

That's my contribution LVQ would you like to take a turn?

199 austin_blue  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:39:50pm

re: #192 eachus

If you look up "hockey stick retraction" on Google, you will get lots of hits, including: [Link: www.ncpa.org...]

This flaw in methodology was also highlighted by Henry Pollack and Jason Smerdon (Journal of Geophysical Research, 2004) and led to a retraction by Mann (and Scott Rutherford) in the Journal of Geophysical Research (June 2004). In this article they admit to underestimating the temperature variations indicated by the proxy data since 1400 by more than one-third, which explains why their previous work failed to track the Little Ice Age. While admitting this error, Mann and Rutherford fail to recognize the extent to which it undermines their historical reconstruction and its relation to present temperature trends.

I didn't have a research career tied to the MWP or the Little Ice Age, but I did have friends whose funding was hurt and who were pressured to retract papers. Oops! Losing your funding for "only" a couple years can be pretty painful. Again, this is about the handle of the hockey stick and not at all about recent climate. But I knew that there were going to be royal battles about this.

For example: "The MWP was the result of a minor Milancovitch cycle that affected the Earth by substantially less than deniers would like to imagine..."

I'm not a denier, but I can point you at papers on the MWP in North and South America and Asia. Hmmm...

"Major wet interval in white mountains medieval warm period evidenced in δ13C of bristlecone pine tree rings California". Climatic Change 26 (2–3): 299–307. doi:10.1007/BF01092420

Li, H.; Ku, T. (2002). "Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Periods in Eastern China as Read from the Speleothem Records". American Geophysical Union 71: 09. Bibcode 2002AGUFMPP71C..09L

Keigwin, Lloyd D. (1996-11-29). "The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea". Science 274 (5292): 1503. doi:10.1126/science.274.5292.1503. PMID 8929406

And just for fun: [Link: www.sciencemag.org...]
Yes that is an article with Michael Mann as lead author describing the MWP and Little Ice Age--and trying to come up with a model where the warming and cooling were not global.

I think you mistake which side of your argument I am on. Neither. I think that whether CO2 levels cause heating or cooling depends on a complex interaction between water vapor, CO2, and the oceans. If I had global climate model that fit the data--I'd be planning a trip to Stockholm. As it is, I think we (the global research community) are about a decade or two from doing that.

But the one thing that has come out of existing models is that the current warming is at higher latitudes, with little or no warming at the equator.

In the meantime I feel like everyone is ignoring the extent to which CO2 levels that the human race has never had to cope with are killing people. Get that story out, and we can hope for correction of the problem. Natural gas releases more water vapor than CO2 during combustion, oil is somewhere in the middle, and coal results in say 95% CO2 with other noxious gasses. :-( So I am all in favor of shutting down all coal burning power plants as fast as possible--with B52s if necessary. That might be enough to start global CO2 levels declining.

Oh, sweet ham and motherfuckers. Another one makes his appearance.

I love it when geophysicists think they are qualified to peer review a climatologist's work. The fact is that both the MWP and the little ice age were regional phenomena. The evidence from the rest of the planet has been conclusively shown the rest of the world to be bopping along at a normal pace.

That pun was not intended, BTW.

200 OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:40:12pm

For Jefferson fans, win $1000 in a contest

VA Historical Society Mystery Prize

On January 13, 1807, President Thomas Jefferson included a cryptic comment when he wrote a letter to his treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin. The relevant passage in the president's letter reads, "The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I."

Historian Jon Kukla, author of Mr. Jefferson's Women, describes this statement as Jefferson's most candid reference on the subject of women and their public role. But Kukla was not able to find any comment in the Jefferson-Gallatin correspondence that would identify the woman in question or otherwise explain the president's statement.

Can you solve this mystery? Was Jefferson referring to a specific woman? If so, who was she?

201 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:42:45pm

re: #196 darthstar

No wonder McCain and Graham were so sad...

[Video]

I really think that releasing the Lockerbie bomber and normalizing relations with Q'Daffy was a massive blunder from Bush and Blair.

202 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:43:12pm

re: #192 eachus

Ahh this will be fun...

1. The hockey stick was never retracted. Not once. Linking to someone else's incorrect paper on a non-science site is not a retraction - by definition. Retractions come from the authors.

Please learn proper definitions of words - particularly the big ones before trying to use them.

2. You indicate that you have research colleagues - that would imply that you are some sort of scientist. That is of course a lie. All scientists know what is and is not a retraction.

Please do not lie to us.

3.

I'm not a denier, but I can point you at papers on the MWP in North and South America and Asia. Hmmm...

Ummm yes... it is a global sort of thing and the effect of it is right there in the graph on this very page. It's up at the top. Look at the bump in the middle.

Real scientists can also read graphs.

4. Your supposed claim that the research was flawed comes from debunked papers that are getting on to ten years old. The NAS (the national academy) and dozens of other research groups have attested to Mann's validity. More over, other groups using other proxy data sets have replicated the results. Again, that is in the graph right at the top of the page. That is what all those other lines are.

Real scientists can recognize that more than one line on a graph means that there is more than one data set.

5. Please don't talk about the validity of climate models without addressing the predicted terrible monsoons in Asia or the predicted or the predicted flooding of the Mississippi or the predicted Chinese drought or the predicted droughts in the American South and South Central regions - or dozens of other predicted events.

Real scientists don't mislead or ignore data.

203 OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:43:29pm

re: #200 OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin

For Jefferson fans, win $1000 in a contest

VA Historical Society Mystery Prize


Feh, pimgf, wrong link. Use this [Link: www.vahistorical.org...]

204 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:45:14pm

re: #198 jamesfirecat

I was busy taking a turn... But it is good to watch you work. I've done a lot of hard work here dispatching little denier trolls like this putz. It fills me with pride to sit back and watch others eat them for a change.

205 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:46:03pm

re: #199 austin_blue

the AGW had been pounded so bad, it may never recover....convincing the average Joe with a ton of scientific mumbo jumbo was never going to work....science did not foresee the enemies amongst them...it's only hope for resurrection is taking a energy use/national security tact, but that is not happening...in short, rather than blab all day about the truth, time would be better spent taking swimming lessons....it's dead

206 William Barnett-Lewis  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:46:22pm

re: #192 eachus


I'm not a denier, but

We've heard that one before!

ROTFLMAO!

207 blueraven  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:48:26pm

Breasking: CNN reporter just said Saif Qaddafi is not in custody and that he just saw him in a limo at the hotel and spoke with him briefly. Reportedly he said his father was still in Tripoli and that it was a trick to lure the rebels into the city.

208 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:49:22pm

re: #207 blueraven

Breasking: CNN reporter just said Saif Qaddafi is not in custody and that he just saw him in a limo at the hotel and spoke with him briefly. Reportedly he said his father was still in Tripoli and that it was a trick to lure the rebels into the city.

That's very strange.

209 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:49:57pm

re: #207 blueraven

Breasking: CNN reporter just said Saif Qaddafi is not in custody and that he just saw him in a limo at the hotel and spoke with him briefly. Reportedly he said his father was still in Tripoli and that it was a trick to lure the rebels into the city.

I doubt it...any of it

210 jamesfirecat  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:50:03pm

re: #207 blueraven

Breasking: CNN reporter just said Saif Qaddafi is not in custody and that he just saw him in a limo at the hotel and spoke with him briefly. Reportedly he said his father was still in Tripoli and that it was a trick to lure the rebels into the city.

Ahh the old "we're surrounded on all sides, now they can't possibility get away from us!" Gambit, clearly a tactical genius.

211 blueraven  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:50:03pm

re: #208 Killgore Trout

That's very strange.

Fox just reported something similar...just caught the tale end of it.

212 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:52:10pm

rumor is that Mo has as much as $240b stashed away....interesting

213 OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:52:49pm

I heard on iTunes KPTK stream (CNN news breaks, iirc) there is fighting in the daffy compound.

214 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:53:03pm

re: #212 albusteve

rumor is that Mo has as much as $240b stashed away...interesting

He just sent me an email asking if I'd help him transfer the money to the US. Give me your bank account info and I'll have him transfer half to you too so it doesn't look too suspicious.

215 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:53:15pm

re: #206 wlewisiii

We've heard that one before!

ROTFLMAO!

"I'm not a racist, but..."

"I'm not a misogynist, but..."

"I'm not a conservative, but..."

"I'm not an adulterer, but..."

Etc, etc, etc...

216 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:53:38pm

re: #211 blueraven

Fox just reported something similar...just caught the tale end of it.

It seems very strange that he'd be driving around the city full of rebels in a very obvious limo. Just doesn't make sense.

217 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:55:01pm

re: #215 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

"I'm not a racist, but..."

"I'm not a misogynist, but..."

"I'm not a conservative, but..."

"I'm not an adulterer, but..."

Etc, etc, etc...

I'm not a soul sucking alien stealing all your gold, but...

218 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:55:40pm

re: #217 b_sharp

I'm not a soul sucking alien stealing all your gold, but...

Glen Beck?

219 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:56:06pm

Did anyone here think of leaving some denier tidbits for me to chew on?

220 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:56:16pm

re: #210 jamesfirecat

Ahh the old "we're surrounded on all sides, now they can't possibility get away from us!" Gambit, clearly a tactical genius.

Hey, if it's good enough for Chesty...

/

221 goddamnedfrank  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:56:37pm

re: #216 Killgore Trout

It seems very strange that he'd be driving around the city full of rebels in a very obvious limo. Just doesn't make sense.

"They see me rollin', they hatin', trying to catch me ridin' dirty."

222 blueraven  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:56:40pm

re: #216 Killgore Trout

It seems very strange that he'd be driving around the city full of rebels in a very obvious limo. Just doesn't make sense.

I know, but that's what the reporter said. Looking for more info or confirmation. According to the reporter the rebels are not in control of the area of the city where the hotel is.

223 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:56:41pm

re: #218 LudwigVanQuixote

Glen Beck?

His crazy uncle.

224 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:56:45pm

re: #218 LudwigVanQuixote

Glen Beck?

LOL!
that joke's on you

225 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:57:17pm

re: #219 b_sharp

Did anyone here think of leaving some denier tidbits for me to chew on?

Oh chew away... This one is a live one. Like I said, it fills me with pride to watch other people here work.

226 blueraven  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 4:59:21pm

re: #216 Killgore Trout

It seems very strange that he'd be driving around the city full of rebels in a very obvious limo. Just doesn't make sense.

CNN is showing footage of Saif talking to a crowd.

227 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:00:10pm

re: #226 blueraven

CNN is showing footage of Saif talking to a crowd.

As long as he's saying, "Please don't kill me" that's fine.

228 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:01:27pm

Looks like Saif escaped.

[Link: news.blogs.cnn.com...]

229 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:01:35pm

re: #227 darthstar

As long as he's saying, "Please don't kill me" that's fine.

"My dad's the one you want, not me!"

230 darthstar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:02:20pm

re: #229 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

"My dad's the one you want, not me!"

The question is, did he escape or did they let him go so he could experience justice at the hands of the people?

231 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:03:05pm

re: #225 LudwigVanQuixote

Oh chew away... This one is a live one. Like I said, it fills me with pride to watch other people here work.

It looks like you and James scared him away.

232 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:03:07pm

re: #230 darthstar

The question is, did he escape or did they let him go so he could experience justice at the hands of the people?

Don't really think it matters. Either way, he's not getting out of the country, certainly not without outside help.

233 Nadnerb  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:03:16pm

How do the Vostok ice cores relate to this graph?

234 jamesfirecat  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:04:14pm

re: #231 b_sharp

It looks like you and James scared him away.

Meh, two posts in two hours is not what I call a "live one" he'll probably be back in another hour with another post...

235 jc717  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:05:08pm

re: #230 darthstar

The question is, did he escape or did they let him go so he could experience justice at the hands of the people?

I doubt they ever had him.

236 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:06:25pm

re: #232 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

Don't really think it matters. Either way, he's not getting out of the country, certainly not without outside help.

maybe he assumes there is a Hail Mary tossed his direction...no one can leave Libya undetected if the black ops guys are any good

237 Fat Bastard Vegetarian  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:06:36pm

re: #18 LudwigVanQuixote

The rest just believe that its a debate over their head, or get distracted.

You really, really get me!

Ooh! Look! Shiny!

238 blueraven  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:07:00pm

re: #230 darthstar

The question is, did he escape or did they let him go so he could experience justice at the hands of the people?

CNN says he is riding in a convoy of armored land cruisers.

239 Targetpractice  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:10:11pm

re: #238 blueraven

CNN says he is riding in a convoy of armored land cruisers.

Seems some wires are getting crossed. Apparently, one of Gaddafi's sons escaped from custody, while another that was reported as "captured" was sighted arriving at one of the hotels in Tripoli amongst an armored convoy. The second is claiming that the rebels have actually fallen for a trap, with loyalist troops on their way to surround the city.

240 Charles Johnson  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:10:55pm

re: #233 Nadnerb

How do the Vostok ice cores relate to this graph?

A good video on this subject:

241 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:13:17pm

re: #233 Nadnerb

How do the Vostok ice cores relate to this graph?

Charles beat me to that. In the video a number of top people in the field explain it.

242 Nadnerb  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:14:36pm

re: #240 Charles

Thanks! I'll give it a look...

243 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:15:53pm

re: #233 Nadnerb

How do the Vostok ice cores relate to this graph?

What do you mean?

There have been 7 studies using a variety of different proxies since 1998 that have all verified Mann's conclusions. There have also been several reviews of McIntyre's and McKitrick's criticism of Mann's 1998 paper that show Mann's statistical approach was valid and that M&M's claim of random data creating a hockey stick was disingenuous. They ran their code close to a thousand times and selected the dozen or so data sets that produced either a right side up or upside down hockey stick and presented only those.

244 Nadnerb  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:27:54pm

re: #243 b_sharp

I attended a lecture given by someone very well known and respected in aeronautical engineering. He used the Vostok ice core data as a means to attack AGW. I'm not an expert in climatology, but I am in another, so I thought I'd ask...

245 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:32:44pm

re: #244 Nadnerb

I attended a lecture given by someone very well known and respected in aeronautical engineering. He used the Vostok ice core data as a means to attack AGW. I'm not an expert in climatology, but I am in another, so I thought I'd ask...

I thought that may have been the case, although I suspected Anthony Watts' WUWT blog as your source.

There is a group of scientists trained in a number of disciplines related to climate that have repeatedly debunked the attacks on the theory of AGW. I've seen some well trained and intelligent people get the science wrong, including respected physicists claiming GHGs cannot contribute to a warming planet.

246 Fat Bastard Vegetarian  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:34:58pm

Watching 13 Assassins.

I love the movies from China and Japan.

247 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:40:38pm

re: #246 Fat Bastard Vegetarian

Watching 13 Assassins.

I love the movies from China and Japan.

'The Dirty Baker's Dozen'

248 Fat Bastard Vegetarian  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:42:21pm

re: #247 b_sharp

I know they make shit too, but; gosh.

249 Our Precious Bodily Fluids  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:44:01pm

The local NPR affiliate had a great hour-long interview with Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower, discussing the history and origins of al-Qaeda. Very interesting stuff, and if you haven't read his book on the subject you're missing out.

250 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:44:41pm

re: #248 Fat Bastard Vegetarian

I know they make shit too, but; gosh.

Fertilizer by any other name will smell as ...

251 Digital Display  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:49:12pm

You know what is crazy about all this? You know how crazy scientists are...If 99% of them agree on anything there is always that scientist trying to prove the theory wrong..It's what they do..I mean there are hundreds of physicists trying to prove Steven Hawking's papers wrong..
I mean they fight all the time like little babies about science..
But when proved wrong..They accept it and investigate it..
There is no scientist that has any evidence to prove false the current theory of global warming is a real effect on the Earth..
You know the first post grad student does prove the math wrong he'll be a gallionaire.. And you know they want to...It's how those guys work..
It's really funny that the GOP will trust any scientist except a climatologist.. You know those guys are just hacks!
The real problem is there is no one on earth that can dispute the math of the measurements...So you don't see a lot of scientists on Fox that can solve the math issue...The math is the math..And when NASA says it's true about the math.. Then effen you if you disbelieve...I love NASA and they know more about science than the whole bunch of loud deniers with no science..with no math..with only politics and Rush to stand upon

252 Digital Display  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:49:54pm

re: #246 Fat Bastard Vegetarian

Watching 13 Assassins.

I love the movies from China and Japan.

You are not watching Monday Night Football?
*faints*

253 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:51:45pm

re: #251 HoosierHoops

You know what is crazy about all this? You know how crazy scientists are...If 99% of them agree on anything there is always that scientist trying to prove the theory wrong..It's what they do..I mean there are hundreds of physicists trying to prove Steven Hawking's papers wrong..
I mean they fight all the time like little babies about science..
But when proved wrong..They accept it and investigate it..
There is no scientist that has any evidence to prove false the current theory of global warming is a real effect on the Earth..
You know the first post grad student does prove the math wrong he'll be a gallionaire.. And you know they want to...It's how those guys work..
It's really funny that the GOP will trust any scientist except a climatologist.. You know those guys are just hacks!
The real problem is there is no one on earth that can dispute the math of the measurements...So you don't see a lot of scientists on Fox that can solve the math issue...The math is the math..And when NASA says it's true about the math.. Then effen you if you disbelieve...I love NASA and they know more about science than the whole bunch of loud deniers with no science..with no math..with only politics and Rush to stand upon

Hoops, you nailed it.

More than once I've watched several scientists (evolutionary biologists) do exactly what you describe.

254 sod  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:52:06pm

It's been since the climategate emails came out that I read any of them and I didn't read all of them at that time either, but, one thing I remember being kind of surprised about was the seeming almost complete lack of control over data integrity.

They were basically just emailing zip files back and forth to each other was what I remember. No central repository. No software enforced versioning system. No checksums. No software source control.

I think if Mann went to a court of law to prove AGW it'd be thrown out due to improper handling of the evidence - ie. the data.

Please note I'm only commenting on the apparent lack of rudimentary controls that programmers and others use to ensure and verify data integrity, not on anything else.

255 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:55:04pm

re: #254 sod

It's been since the climategate emails came out that I read any of them and I didn't read all of them at that time either, but, one thing I remember being kind of surprised about was the seeming almost complete lack of control over data integrity.

They were basically just emailing zip files back and forth to each other was what I remember. No central repository. No software enforced versioning system. No checksums. No software source control.

I think if Mann went to a court of law to prove AGW it'd be thrown out due to improper handling of the evidence - ie. the data.

Please note I'm only commenting on the apparent lack of rudimentary controls that programmers and others use to ensure and verify data integrity, not on anything else.

The data was looked after by several different organizations, and the code used by HadCrut was not the same as NASA yet the output was very close.

256 Obdicut  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 5:58:52pm

re: #254 sod

Then why did the data have such good integrity?

257 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:04:39pm

Programmers coding for a big software development company are cogs in a well oiled machine. Scientists working on science will create software that does something specific on a small subset of data. The 'program' they create isn't so much an integrated app as a collection of utilities (applets). I converted a FORTRAN app that was more than 30 small programs into an integrated C app, so I understand not only the whys and hows of the scientist's work but the frustration of the programmer hired to unify the applets.

258 Digital Display  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:05:15pm

re: #255 b_sharp

The data was looked after by several different organizations, and the code used by HadCrut was not the same as NASA yet the output was very close.

I have been critical in the past about not giving our scientists the best tools available.. I think an investment of the best software available would be wise.. I don't care if it costs a billion to get these guys the best code available to program in.. Hell We probably paid that much last year to weatherproof houses..
It is shameful having the best of the best program models in Fortran.. It is shameful..
Do you give master Builders an Axe and ask them to build a Mansion?
This is my top priority for investment in Science...
/There is going to be someone that defends using Fortran for historical and familarity and simplicity for numerical input..
I can only say this..Dos 3.11 for workgroups in it's day rocked also.. It's 2011 now

259 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:07:13pm

re: #256 Obdicut

Then why did the data have such good integrity?

Because scientists will tear crap apart until they understand it and they hate messy data.

260 goddamnedfrank  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:08:16pm

re: #258 HoosierHoops

Do you give master Builders an Axe and ask them to build a Mansion?

Was that wrong, should I not have done that?

/Barbarian

261 sod  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:09:01pm

re: #255 b_sharp

re: #256 Obdicut

Not the point I was making at all.

Law enforcement goes to great pains to handle evidence in a way that doesn't screw it up or get it thrown out at trial.

It just seemed like an obvious angle of attack for someone who wanted to dispute the conclusions: undermine the integrity of the source data. They just didn't seem like they were too concerned about it.

262 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:09:52pm

re: #260 goddamnedfrank

Was that wrong, should I not have done that?

/Barbarian

It is better than the handaxe Hoops was going to use.

263 Obdicut  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:10:27pm

re: #261 sod

I don't think you understand the nature of the source data, then.

264 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:11:39pm

re: #261 sod

re: #256 Obdicut

Not the point I was making at all.

Law enforcement goes to great pains to handle evidence in a way that doesn't screw it up or get it thrown out at trial.

It just seemed like an obvious angle of attack for someone who wanted to dispute the conclusions: undermine the integrity of the source data. They just didn't seem like they were too concerned about it.

and AGW hit the mat like Sonny Liston...I don't question the science, I wonder what happens now...seems to me we should try to prepare for the worst, as a nation

265 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:12:23pm

Well fuck me running
Son: Gadhafi safe in Tripoli (video)

266 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:14:12pm

re: #207 blueraven

Breasking: CNN reporter just said Saif Qaddafi is not in custody and that he just saw him in a limo at the hotel and spoke with him briefly. Reportedly he said his father was still in Tripoli and that it was a trick to lure the rebels into the city.

Seems my doubts caused by lack of photos were justified after all. The rebels lied about Saif. The story about Mohammed escaping also cannot be trusted. Al Jazeera took a small interview from Mohammed by phone while in captivity, but we don't know if it was not anyone pretending to be Mohammed.

267 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:14:55pm

re: #261 sod

re: #256 Obdicut

Not the point I was making at all.

Law enforcement goes to great pains to handle evidence in a way that doesn't screw it up or get it thrown out at trial.

It just seemed like an obvious angle of attack for someone who wanted to dispute the conclusions: undermine the integrity of the source data. They just didn't seem like they were too concerned about it.

Can you support your claim with specific arguments?

268 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:16:13pm

BTW, loyalists now claim they control most of Tripoli.

269 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:16:20pm

re: #254 sod

It's been since the climategate emails came out that I read any of them and I didn't read all of them at that time either, but, one thing I remember being kind of surprised about was the seeming almost complete lack of control over data integrity.

They were basically just emailing zip files back and forth to each other was what I remember. No central repository. No software enforced versioning system. No checksums. No software source control.

I think if Mann went to a court of law to prove AGW it'd be thrown out due to improper handling of the evidence - ie. the data.

Please note I'm only commenting on the apparent lack of rudimentary controls that programmers and others use to ensure and verify data integrity, not on anything else.

ON what do you possibly base this? The source data was checked an rechecked by the entire scientific community. The National Academy has vindicated it as kosher. That is a much higher standard of proof than exists in any court of law. So is looking out the window in Texas. Care to explain the droughts for the last decade?

As to the so called fake controversy ginned up by climategate there was absolutely nothing - repeat nothing that showed any sort of misbehaviour on the part of the scientists.

Also for the record, if the ginned up false charges made by the right wing by taking quotes out of context is what you are using to doubt Mann then it should be pointed out that Mann is at Penn State - not East Anglia where the climategate mails came from. It doesn't affect him one bit.

You are something of a fool.

270 Achilles Tang  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:16:21pm

re: #254 sod

It's been since the climategate emails came out that I read any of them and I didn't read all of them at that time either, but, one thing I remember being kind of surprised about was the seeming almost complete lack of control over data integrity.

You make substantive critiques based on self admitted cursory study.

Can you document where and how many places the relevant data exists and how it could, in theory, be corrupted by one or more corrupt individuals for their personal gain, without chance of detection?

271 Killgore Trout  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:16:47pm

re: #266 Sergey Romanov

Seems my doubts caused by lack of photos were justified after all. The rebels lied about Saif. The story about Mohammed escaping also cannot be trusted. Al Jazeera took a small interview from Mohammed by phone while in captivity, but we don't know if it was not anyone pretending to be Mohammed.

From what i can tell I think he was captured for a while but loyalist troops freed him. He won't be free for long if he keeps cruising around the city in a flashy motorcade. Next time he's captured he might not survive.

272 sod  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:16:56pm

re: #263 Obdicut

So if Mann emails so and so and asks him for his raw tree ring data and gets a zip file in return, does he have a way of telling if that was the original data set or some later data set that had been transformed by some algorithm. Does the guy that set it to him know? How easy would it be to make a mistake and accidentally send the wrong data set?

You either agree, disagree, or don't know whether the data was handled as well as it could have been given. Whether or not the outcome is any different is irrelevant to my point.

273 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:17:24pm

So, what I miss? Got home and wife wanted me to make a double size batch of my bean soup to share with her friends.

274 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:18:23pm

re: #251 HoosierHoops

You know what is crazy about all this? You know how crazy scientists are...If 99% of them agree on anything there is always that scientist trying to prove the theory wrong..It's what they do..I mean there are hundreds of physicists trying to prove Steven Hawking's papers wrong..
I mean they fight all the time like little babies about science..
But when proved wrong..They accept it and investigate it..
There is no scientist that has any evidence to prove false the current theory of global warming is a real effect on the Earth..
You know the first post grad student does prove the math wrong he'll be a gallionaire.. And you know they want to...It's how those guys work..
It's really funny that the GOP will trust any scientist except a climatologist.. You know those guys are just hacks!
The real problem is there is no one on earth that can dispute the math of the measurements...So you don't see a lot of scientists on Fox that can solve the math issue...The math is the math..And when NASA says it's true about the math.. Then effen you if you disbelieve...I love NASA and they know more about science than the whole bunch of loud deniers with no science..with no math..with only politics and Rush to stand upon

Excellent post and true. I should add that most of the serious papers questioning AGW were in the 80's they were proven incorrect in the 90's.

275 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:18:29pm

re: #271 Killgore Trout

I think he was captured for a while but loyalist troops freed him.

Where is this from? I've seen no evidence they ever captured him.

276 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:18:30pm

re: #168 garhighway

So what do you think of the political party that shamelessly trades on climate skepticism and a general contempt for science?

I am furious with them, on both this point, and on the teaching of evolution. There has to be a loyal opposition. One party government inevitably runs off the rails. But this isn't a "loyal opposition". It's deranged.

They've taken away my right to vote based on all the other issues. Those are important, and the Democrats, in my view, have got a lot of them wrong. But right now it doesn't much matter, because this issue is of overriding importance and they're fiddling while Earth burns.

They've also taken the heat off the Democrats. Too little is being done, but the little that gets done is sufficient to win all the votes that ride on AGW policy, because the Republicans aren't offering an alternative solution. We can't have a debate over whether cap and trade, or taxing CO2 emission, is the better way to address the problem. We can't have a debate over whether it would serve the environment better to set aside some EPA rules when it comes to power transmission lines carrying wind or solar power...dysfunctional parts of the system can't get fixed.

And the field for the presidential nomination? Fools and grifters, most of them, with one careful guy who's trying to tiptoe through a minefield without saying anything that will scuttle his chances in the nomination phase or later in the general election, and Huntsman, who doesn't have the money or the press backing to really get anywhere this time around.

Arrrgh.

277 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:18:42pm

re: #261 sod

re: #256 Obdicut

Not the point I was making at all.

Law enforcement goes to great pains to handle evidence in a way that doesn't screw it up or get it thrown out at trial.

It just seemed like an obvious angle of attack for someone who wanted to dispute the conclusions: undermine the integrity of the source data. They just didn't seem like they were too concerned about it.

OK.

Science has it's own processes that are practical in nature and comparing those to the legal system is , um, not a good idea.

Scientists replicates others work all the time, the data and the methods used are always available, but they generally use their own systems for the replication.

The source data comes from a number of places and can be accessed fairly easily. Places like NASA and Hadley take the raw data and run adjustments on it before analyzing it.

Anyone complaining about the reliability of the data can only attack the adjustment processes, or the measurement systems, because the raw data is saved as is.

Even the way adjustments are done is published in journals so if you want to you can grab a copy of the raw data, create your own code, and run the adjustments. If your result matches their results then their data has not been compromised.

278 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:18:57pm

re: #271 Killgore Trout

From what i can tell I think he was captured for a while but loyalist troops freed him. He won't be free for long if he keeps cruising around the city in a flashy motorcade. Next time he's captured he might not survive.

I don't think anybody knows wtf is happening...a couple of days, and stuff will shake out some...maybe he has a plan to give up Mo to save his own neck....who knows?

279 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:19:43pm

re: #273 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

So, what I miss? Got home and wife wanted me to make a double size batch of my bean soup to share with her friends.

LOL!...like we are all watching a movie?

280 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:19:45pm

re: #265 Killgore Trout

Well fuck me running
Son: Gadhafi safe in Tripoli (video)

Too difficult to fuck a moving target.

Hold still for a couple of seconds.

281 Achilles Tang  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:21:37pm

re: #272 sod

So if Mann emails so and so and asks him for his raw tree ring data and gets a zip file in return, does he have a way of telling if that was the original data set or some later data set that had been transformed by some algorithm. Does the guy that set it to him know? How easy would it be to make a mistake and accidentally send the wrong data set?

You either agree, disagree, or don't know whether the data was handled as well as it could have been given. Whether or not the outcome is any different is irrelevant to my point.

You don't know how science works, if you think that only one person can corrupt the relevant historical data on the planet, and nobody will notice.

282 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:23:30pm

re: #279 albusteve

LOL!...like we are all watching a movie?

Yup.

283 Achilles Tang  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:23:47pm

re: #275 Sergey Romanov

Where is this from? I've seen no evidence they ever captured him.

It's all bullshit. If they had captured him it would have been on twitter and Youtube instantly. I couldn't understand why there were no pictures from the beginning. Now I know.

284 Kragar  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:24:08pm

re: #280 b_sharp

Too difficult to fuck a moving target.

Hold still for a couple of seconds.

"Oh Dear..."
"No deer. Ass too high, runs too fast."

285 b_snark  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:24:23pm

re: #281 Naso Tang

You don't know how science works, if you think that only one person can corrupt the relevant historical data on the planet, and nobody will notice.

There are quite a few out there who get their ideas about science from non-science or biased sources rather than from the scientists themselves.

286 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:24:46pm

re: #271 Killgore Trout

From what i can tell I think he was captured for a while but loyalist troops freed him. He won't be free for long if he keeps cruising around the city in a flashy motorcade. Next time he's captured he might not survive.

I think you're confusing Saif and Mohammed. The alleged Mohammed story is what I addressed above - the tale of his release by the loyalists may just be a story made up to explain why they don't have him.

287 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:25:01pm

re: #282 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

Yup.

and a swell comedy it is

288 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:25:43pm

re: #254 sod

It's been since the climategate emails came out that I read any of them and I didn't read all of them at that time either, but, one thing I remember being kind of surprised about was the seeming almost complete lack of control over data integrity.

They were basically just emailing zip files back and forth to each other was what I remember. No central repository. No software enforced versioning system. No checksums. No software source control.

I think if Mann went to a court of law to prove AGW it'd be thrown out due to improper handling of the evidence - ie. the data.

Please note I'm only commenting on the apparent lack of rudimentary controls that programmers and others use to ensure and verify data integrity, not on anything else.

It would be easy enough to go back to the original media on which the data were stored. You'd do that if it went to court.

In any case, scientific proof doesn't work like that. Scientific proof is cumulative. It is error tolerant. A measurement may be thrown off by any number of things---take several. A line of reasoning may be faulty---think about it from several angles.

As a Russian general said once, quantity has a quality all its own. The sheer mass of evidence in favor of AGW is overwhelming. Digit check sums and so on are not nearly as important when the message being communicated is massively redundant.

Besides, as another has already noted, the zip files came through just fine. Why lock the barn door when nobody steals that kind of horse? Scientists haven't had much trouble with people screwing with their data. Except, sometimes, from the inside. Mortals have mortal failings and there are always a few folk with PhD's and grants who just forge their data, plagiarize, and generally act badly.

We do better than Wall Street at catching them.

289 Digital Display  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:26:15pm

re: #264 albusteve

and AGW hit the mat like Sonny Liston...I don't question the science, I wonder what happens now...seems to me we should try to prepare for the worst, as a nation

I couldn't disagree more.. We are moving into a new age..More energy efficiency..More accountability for our Earth.. More Green.. And as a plus more jobs.. Our Company has gone totally green..We try but it takes time..I remember about 5 or 6 years ago we bar coded codes into parts that if we find our stuff in a creek years from now..We will be coming after you...It's in an Oracle database...We provide recovery programs for our customers to recycle..
Everything we do is green.. You can buy this expensive glass in our Cafe and you know what? So you don't use plastic cups or Styrofoam.. you can drink as much pop as you want the rest of all you life for only 25 cents a day.. Pretty sharp glasses and straws..Pretty customizable..Everybody that is cool has one *wink*
Every light in our office is automatic...so when you walk into the bathroom..It is dark..But only for a second...It's kind of creepy on a Saturday when nobody is at work..Where ever you walk lights turn on..
Walk down a long line of cubicles and lights are turning on falling you.. Like i said..kind of creepy

290 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:26:39pm

re: #283 Naso Tang

It's all bullshit. If they had captured him it would have been on twitter and Youtube instantly. I couldn't understand why there were no pictures from the beginning. Now I know.

Yeah. And I don't like being lied to.

291 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:30:28pm

re: #266 Sergey Romanov

Seems my doubts caused by lack of photos were justified after all. The rebels lied about Saif. The story about Mohammed escaping also cannot be trusted. Al Jazeera took a small interview from Mohammed by phone while in captivity, but we don't know if it was not anyone pretending to be Mohammed.

All's fair in love and war. Lying about the capture of Saif is fine with me if it speeds the fall of Gaddafi. I don't believe all the news flashes I see when they're war reporting.

292 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:30:30pm

re: #289 HoosierHoops

I couldn't disagree more.. We are moving into a new age..More energy efficiency..More accountability for our Earth.. More Green.. And as a plus more jobs.. Our Company has gone totally green..We try but it takes time..I remember about 5 or 6 years ago we bar coded codes into parts that if we find our stuff in a creek years from now..We will be coming after you...It's in an Oracle database...We provide recovery programs for our customers to recycle..
Everything we do is green.. You can buy this expensive glass in our Cafe and you know what? So you don't use plastic cups or Styrofoam.. you can drink as much pop as you want the rest of all you life for only 25 cents a day.. Pretty sharp glasses and straws..Pretty customizable..Everybody that is cool has one *wink*
Every light in our office is automatic...so when you walk into the bathroom..It is dark..But only for a second...It's kind of creepy on a Saturday when nobody is at work..Where ever you walk lights turn on..
Walk down a long line of cubicles and lights are turning on falling you.. Like i said..kind of creepy

great...for all that you will make little actual difference...AGW is facing a nightmare PR problem...a few insiders do what they can, the masses are indifferent and even hostile...who gives a fuck about math at this point...time to quit bickering over source data and try to move ahead

293 Lord Baron Viscount Duke Earl Count Planckton  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:31:21pm

re: #291 lostlakehiker

Lying about the capture of Saif is fine with me if it speeds the fall of Gaddafi.


LOL. Yeah, that will show them! /

pfft

294 albusteve  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:32:12pm

re: #290 Sergey Romanov

Yeah. And I don't like being lied to.

don't take it personal...it's a foreign revolution

295 Achilles Tang  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:37:14pm

I'm listening to Huntsman on Piers Morgan. I notice he uses the word "class" frequently. Entrepreneur CLASS and so on. Shades of Ayn Rand in the background?

Ooops, I forgot, he is a Republican.

296 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:44:11pm

re: #272 sod

So if Mann emails so and so and asks him for his raw tree ring data and gets a zip file in return, does he have a way of telling if that was the original data set or some later data set that had been transformed by some algorithm. Does the guy that set it to him know? How easy would it be to make a mistake and accidentally send the wrong data set?

You either agree, disagree, or don't know whether the data was handled as well as it could have been given. Whether or not the outcome is any different is irrelevant to my point.

Processed data is qualitatively different from raw data. The other researcher wouldn't have any difference telling the two apart. Any more than you would have trobuel tellign apart sectionsof this post that a proofed, and secitiosn I didn't.

297 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 6:55:04pm

re: #192 eachus

If you look up "hockey stick retraction" on Google, you will get lots of hits, including: [Link: www.ncpa.org...]

This flaw in methodology was also highlighted by Henry Pollack and Jason Smerdon (Journal of Geophysical Research, 2004) and led to a retraction by Mann (and Scott Rutherford) in the Journal of Geophysical Research (June 2004). In this article they admit to underestimating the temperature variations indicated by the proxy data since 1400 by more than one-third, which explains why their previous work failed to track the Little Ice Age. While admitting this error, Mann and Rutherford fail to recognize the extent to which it undermines their historical reconstruction and its relation to present temperature trends.

I didn't have a research career tied to the MWP or the Little Ice Age, but I did have friends whose funding was hurt and who were pressured to retract papers. Oops! Losing your funding for "only" a couple years can be pretty painful. Again, this is about the handle of the hockey stick and not at all about recent climate. But I knew that there were going to be royal battles about this.

For example: "The MWP was the result of a minor Milancovitch cycle that affected the Earth by substantially less than deniers would like to imagine..."

I'm not a denier, but I can point you at papers on the MWP in North and South America and Asia. Hmmm...

[snip]

But the one thing that has come out of existing models is that the current warming is at higher latitudes, with little or no warming at the equator.

Exactly. Models and reality fit hand in glove on that point.

[snip]

You might be right about MWP having been on a larger scale than was initially recognized. Scientific American had an article a while back about lagoon lakes and algae deposits that was relevant to that debate. But you're missing the big picture.

If Mann didn't recognize how big the MWP was, then it was a result of his having used other peoples' work, work that hadn't yet penetrated to the truth of the matter. MWP bigger, or smaller, Mann didn't do anything wrong. He wasn't lying, and there's STILL that hockey stick. The handle just has a bit of a wrinkle.

The conclusion itself is robust.

298 sod  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 7:16:46pm

re: #269 LudwigVanQuixote

ON what do you possibly base this? The source data was checked an rechecked by the entire scientific community. The National Academy has vindicated it as kosher. That is a much higher standard of proof than exists in any court of law. So is looking out the window in Texas. Care to explain the droughts for the last decade?

As to the so called fake controversy ginned up by climategate there was absolutely nothing - repeat nothing that showed any sort of misbehaviour on the part of the scientists.

Also for the record, if the ginned up false charges made by the right wing by taking quotes out of context is what you are using to doubt Mann then it should be pointed out that Mann is at Penn State - not East Anglia where the climategate mails came from. It doesn't affect him one bit.

You are something of a fool.

I wasn't trying to make any claims. The original post mentioned climategate and I simply stated that _I_ got the impression at the time, when browsing through the emails, that data was passed back forth without much apparent control.

I presume that the droughts in Texas are caused by Anthropomorphic Global Warming. That's what a consensus of scientists tell me. What that has to do with the process of recording, storing and sharing of data I don't know.

My entire original point was based on my impression of reading through some of the climategate emails.

We all go to a restaurant and have dinner. We all agree the food is delicious. I happened to see the head chef go to bathroom and not wash his hands. He may have washed them in the kitchen instead of the bathroom, I don't know, I'm not allowed in the kitchen, but I did see him leave the bathroom without washing his hands. I happen to mention this the next day and everyone tells me it doesn't matter because the food was delicious and nobody got the shits.

Are you telling me you've never been surprised about somebody's process? You've never thought, wow, I can't believe you're using Excel to track that?

That was the impression I got browsing through the climategate emails, basically, "hmmm, I thought the data would be a bit more tightly controlled."

I guess it doesn't matter as long as nobody gets the shits.

299 lostlakehiker  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 7:57:20pm

re: #298 sod

I wasn't trying to make any claims. The original post mentioned climategate and I simply stated that _I_ got the impression at the time, when browsing through the emails, that data was passed back forth without much apparent control.

I presume that the droughts in Texas are caused by Anthropomorphic Global Warming. That's what a consensus of scientists tell me. What that has to do with the process of recording, storing and sharing of data I don't know.

My entire original point was based on my impression of reading through some of the climategate emails.

We all go to a restaurant and have dinner. We all agree the food is delicious. I happened to see the head chef go to bathroom and not wash his hands. He may have washed them in the kitchen instead of the bathroom, I don't know, I'm not allowed in the kitchen, but I did see him leave the bathroom without washing his hands. I happen to mention this the next day and everyone tells me it doesn't matter because the food was delicious and nobody got the shits.

Are you telling me you've never been surprised about somebody's process? You've never thought, wow, I can't believe you're using Excel to track that?

That was the impression I got browsing through the climategate emails, basically, "hmmm, I thought the data would be a bit more tightly controlled."

I guess it doesn't matter as long as nobody gets the shits.


Most cameras today don't record the raw image. They process the data, using wavelets and transforms, and record information that allows a very good, though imperfect, reconstruction of the original picture. You wouldn't want to bring a photo, one taken that way with a digital camera, of a 2D bar code such as is used on airline or European train tickets, into court. For most other purposes, it's more than good enough.

Changing the topic somewhat, here's a thought. Online forums generally are known for short tempers and a tendency to be quick to anger. This one is way better than average but it's still not as polite as, say, the House of Commons. Your observations seem to me to have been made in good faith. I disagree that there's any real lapse; standards are different in science from what they are in, say, forensics because in forensics there will never be a second chance at the data, while in science, there usually is.

300 Dancing along the light of day  Mon, Aug 22, 2011 11:36:44pm

re: #274 LudwigVanQuixote

Hey, look who's here!
*smooch*

301 [deleted]  Tue, Aug 23, 2011 1:30:46am
302 Mickey Blumental  Tue, Aug 23, 2011 2:58:54am

Well, but the investigation was conducted by a Science group and we all know they are dishonest money grabbers. They should have let someone objective (who knows nothing about science) look into the matter. Like Glen Beck or something.

303 Obdicut  Tue, Aug 23, 2011 3:10:03am

re: #298 sod

Your 'impression' is not important.

304 tomg51spence  Tue, Aug 23, 2011 5:46:46am

Seems like a good time for the country to embrace nuclear power.

305 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Tue, Aug 23, 2011 7:29:32am

re: #257 b_sharp

Programmers coding for a big software development company are cogs in a well oiled machine. Scientists working on science will create software that does something specific on a small subset of data. The 'program' they create isn't so much an integrated app as a collection of utilities (applets). I converted a FORTRAN app that was more than 30 small programs into an integrated C app, so I understand not only the whys and hows of the scientist's work but the frustration of the programmer hired to unify the applets.

Programming for us is something we have to do in order to get on with our work. Experiments - good experiments at least are usually held together by duct tape. Little pieces of code get written as needed. There is little time for elegance. I feel for you. Even though when I have to code I can do it moderately elegantly, I would hate to have to turn such a thing into a real product.


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