winsor

I thought he was a Kenyan Muslim. Nah, he's an Hawaiian apostate. The unfortunate thing about Sharia is that, once he has stated adherence to Islam (as he did in Indonesia - and he still quotes the Koran rather glibly), to later claim to be a Christian is punishable by death. The "religion of peace" is more a religion of "rest in peace." BSBD, Winsor

You have taken a decisive side in regards to the discussion and it would be up to you to back your own findings with evidence. When you claim observe that someone is "illiterate" or that people who believes in climate change is are a "cult", then you are bringing a strong judgment and accusation stating the obvious. Wouldn't someone who teaches Physics want his students to bring compelling and conclusive arguments rather than relying on their prejudice? Please clarify - who are the students, and what is their "prejudice?" Did you not just say that youlectured at a University in Physics "for a few years"? Seems like a lot of blah blah as you refuse to bring any evidence to back any of your prejudices. Please lay off the hand-waving and get specific. To precisely which "prejudices" do you refer, and what evidence do you seek?

Backatcha Babe... http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/ You lost me. You link an article that supports the aforementioned contention on my part for what purpose? Do you suppose that my objection to junk science by one party somehow supports junk science by another party? Do tell.

The number of credible scientists among the voices clamoring for controlling "greenhouse gases" is vanishingly small. Add to that the fact that most approaches to mitigating the variable are brute force and ignorance at their worst, and the suspicion arises that the cure may be worse than the disease. Triage is important in addressing crises. Focusing on "climate change" with religious fervor at the expense of the more immediate crises we face is on a par with a first responder ignoring a patient's arterial bleeding in order to focus on their psoriasis. "Climate change" (or whatever is the preferred eco-hysteria) is a symptom of much more potentially disastrous problems, and anyone who considers it to be a primary concern is clueless. What the hell, if ignorance is bliss, who am I to ruin people's happiness? Since nobody lives forever, we are all fundamentally doomed from the get-go. Given that stupidity is our only inexhaustible, eternally renewable resource, I suppose I should applaud Algore for his ability to harness it so skillfully. BSBD, Winsor

And Izvestia means News. Old Soviet saying: "In Pravda there is no Izvestia, and in Izvestia there is no Pravda."

You have taken a decisive side in regards to the discussion and it would be up to you to back your own findings with evidence. When you claim observe that someone is "illiterate" or that people who believes in climate change is are a "cult", then you are bringing a strong judgment and accusation stating the obvious. Wouldn't someone who teaches Physics want his students to bring compelling and conclusive arguments rather than relying on their prejudice? Please clarify - who are the students, and what is their "prejudice?"

Aren't you guys also "technically illiterate"? Not hardly. In all fairness, I am degreed as an Engineer, so I do not really claim to be a Scientist. I did, however, teach University Physics for a couple of years, so I'm close. No. What I pointed out was that the climate change cult has latched onto one factor in a particularly complex system, with the tacit assumption that this is the only parameter of interest. It is a trivial exercise, left to the reader, to verify that this assumption is invalid. BSBD, Winsor

If you try to keep the work onshore, you are likely to wind up on unemployment - whatever tax bracket that might be.

In any event It is more data to go over This illustrates the key problem I have with the "Climate Change" crowd - the old "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Getting someone technically illiterate, such as Algore, to discover one factor in the equation and conclude that it prevails in all cases is one thing. Requiring professional scientists to adhere to such dogma to receive funding is another thing altogether. If someone living in Kansas was to conclude that the earth is flat, there would be considerable merit in their observation. Topographically, Kansas is substantially flatter than a pancake. Similarly, if someone was to note that the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere had an effect on global temperatures, that, too, would have merit in the same sense. However, for someone to then claim that CO2 concentration was the driving force in global temperature - to the exclusion of all others - more than is quorum is necessary to establish such a principle. An SISO (Single Input Single Output) system is the Holy Grail of System Theory. A great deal of effort is applied to decoupling various interactions, and the skill necessary to achieve even limited results is nontrivial. Any physician worth their salt will find amusing the claim that a given pharmaceutical is without side effects (even PLACEBOS have side effects). Thus, the rule of thumb that increasing atmospheric CO2 can be related to an increase in global temperatures is less definitive than the rule of thumb that the speed of an airplane is controlled by pitch and its altitude by power (try taking active then pushing the yoke forward to accelerate for take off...). When people cling to a model with religious conviction, the model becomes massively suspect. Calling those who wish to check the calculations "deniers" (heretics) calls into doubt the soundness of principle itself. A researcher who is not a skeptic has little to bring to the table. It would be nice if anything was as simplistic as Algore and his devout followers would have you think, but that is rarely the case in practice. If the sun burns out, I don't think putting lots of CO2 into the atmosphere will warm things up much. BSBD, Winsor

Masochist: "Beat me!" Sadist: "No."

When were SEAL teams used to murder American citizens? why would they? In the US congressmen can have "plane accidents" or "strokes" at the president's command. Just kidding, but thought I'd throw in one from each political party anyway to get the nanothermite people contributing Jesse Ventura has already told us 911 was an inside job. Well, a lot of the leadership of al Qaeda got their start fighting against the Evil Empire in Afghanistan- an effort supported to a large extent by the U.S.. Beyond that, giving credit to a U.S. entity for the organizational skills necessary to pull off a Grand Conspiracy is unrealistic. If they are evil, it is a product of incompetence rather than intent. BSBD, Winsor

I suspect you have confused two distinct principles. There is something of a "sweet spot" in taxation, where the rate is high enough to generate maximum revenues, but not high enough to stifle productivity. Go lower, and revenue suffers; go higher and you get a higher percentage of a much smaller amount, and revenue suffers. This is your basic point of diminishing returns. You then have people spending in a fashion that would be an insult to drunken sailors if you compared it to the spending habits of drunken sailors - drunken sailors quit spending when they run out of money. The spending patterns of those in power is more akin to a teenager with a no-limit credit card they do not have to pay for. Either that or a drunk in a casino with unlimited markers, who spends the night playing double-or-nothing. In either case, there is no correlation between expenditure and either necessity or affordability. The people who become legislators are often from the legal profession, whose knowledge of numbers is largely limited to working up a bill. There is no accountability for their excesses - beyond passing the tab to the taxpayers. I never graduated high school, but would guess you did. By the time I dropped out of high school, however, I had picked up enough skill with numbers to be able to compare debt burden with income, and the problem here is that our inexorable slide into receivership is only hastened by the innumerate approach to governmental budgeting. With apologies to Everett Dirksen - a trillion here and a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money. BSBD, Winsor

The rule of thumb in advertising when my father was active in the business was that exceeding an 8th grade level meant losing half your audience. By "audience" here, we are including only those who might be in the market for a car, house, beer and so forth, focusing on those beyond the 12th grade age group. Part of O'Bama's genius is being able to address morons without cluing them in to the fact that he is talking down to them. It is a pity that his genius is so severely limited in scope, given that his executive responsibilities pick up where his competence leaves off (not to pick on the little fella - this is true for most any current U.S. politician that comes to mind). BSBD, Winsor

I don't think "fair" or "fairness" has any bearing on how to run a succesful country. "Justice is incidental to law and order." John Edgar Hoover Similar concept.

Bingo.

Rule of thumb: If anyone has to tell you that what they propose is fair, it most assuredly is not. Similar concepts: If anyone takes the time to tell you that they are honest, they are not. If anyone tells you they are not an idiot, they are. When someone wants you to "do the right thing," they want you to do their bidding. etc.

Another recent Tennessee law bans teachers from discussing homosexuality, or from using non-traditional families in class exercises. Seems to be a pattern developing. Don So I guess any discussion of Romulus and Remus is out.

If Spiro Agnew gets in the race, Newt's toast.

The one with the buttstock is NFA.

And just think how many people DIE when under the care of physicians! Nobody lives forever. Well, that's a lame excuse. Comment, not excuse. People in the process of dying very often fall under the care of physicians. The fact that they still die is of no particular significance. If you are referring to people who die BECAUSE of the attention of physicians, then your argument has merit. You did not, however, make that distinction.

The term "assault weapon" is defined politically, rather than technically. An assault rifle is typified by the quintessential StG 44. "Sturm Gewehr" translates into English as "Assault Rifle," while the "AR" in AR-15 comes from "Armalite." The class of assault rifles falls between submachine guns and automatic rifles. A submachine gun is "sub-caliber" in the sense that it uses common pistol ammunition, is fully automatic, and is synonymous with "machine pistol" (e.g., Pistolet-Pulemyot, etc.). Though some submachine guns are capable of select-fire (semi or auto), many designs are full-auto only. An automatic rifle is typically fully automatic, but can refer to a self-loading/semiautomatic variant (M-14, FN-FAL/L1A1 et al.), and uses a full-patch cartridge (.30-06, 7.62x51, 7.92x57, etc.). The Browning Automatic Rifle was full-auto only - effectively a box magazine fed light machine gun - but most automatic rifles are select-fire - designed for semi-automatic use, with the capacity for full-auto when necessary. The Assault Rifle was intended to fill the niche between submachine guns and automatic rifles. Assault rifles use reduced-power cartridges, such as the 5.56x45 (varmint round) or 7.62x39, which allow for better control of full-auto fire but satisfactory power and accuracy for normal combat ranges. Giving up long-range capability is not as big a handicap as it would seem, since actually being able to hit a target at 400m+ is not as important in military operations as might be imagined. The benefits of full-auto are mixed. The illusion of better effectiveness all too often leads to dreadful marksmanship, as exemplified by the "spray and pray" and "Iraqui Death Blossom" schools of applied firepower. Bat Masterson's advice regarding how to survive a gunfight - "take your time, and don't miss" - tends to get lost along the way. At any rate, assault rifles are legal for those with the appropriate Federal license (it's tax paperwork, actually). Automatic firearms are a great way to turn money into noise, and having a lot of fun while doing so. BSBD, Winsor

And just think how many people DIE when under the care of physicians! Nobody lives forever.

ATLA supports the Democrats, and well more than 50% of practicing attorneys vote Democratic. Physicians, OTOH, tend to vote Republican.

He could beat the point spread, at the very least.

Frites are great with malt vinegar (at least the Belgian variety).