JoeWeber

Can we get it to flash or do the around the edges race thing? That would be cool. It is green, maybe it's something Brent figured out.

I suppose, um, but, isn't the green border shading a little unnecessary?

John, I was joking. It was a simple word play thing with the silly goal of getting Yoink to smile not to get you to frown. Don't be so serious.

You can believe that, I do not. I find some actions by some people to be so odious as to preclude some partial acceptance of them on another level. By posing it as you did you reduce it to a trivial exercise. It's not a case of refusing to like your otherwise wonderful neighbor, who is alway ready to help a friend, over the way he trims his hedges. Here we are talking about someone, our President, who might be doing you a solid by appointing your sort of judge or putting some coins in your purse but who also will carelessly, and on a whim, marginalize his fellow citizens, corrupt our nations institutions or, just to end a phone call, cause a genocide. Trump doesn't drive my opinions, as you example; my opinions drive my disdain for Trump.

Obviously.

You did. Unlike that miserable Kallend who said I was an arsehole.

Not at all. You once called me an asshole, so you have that still.

Ayn Rand, yo. Are you drunk posting? I am.

True: you dusted off the Hillary meme and promptly received what you claim to loathe. Perhaps the degeneration you see here is a reflection of the degeneration of our nations highest office. In fact, Trump is all that you listed and a whole lot more that is bad. I'm one who is beyond tired of listening to any defenses of his behavior. To wit: if you think he's a good president because of "A", then either you are a "B" or an ignoramus or both. I'm good with that. As far as the Professor goes, be patient. We're working with him. He's not yet ready to do a little stand-up but I feel a breakthrough coming.

Like Mattis? He's avoiding questions while shilling his book. In any case they own the officer cadre and the ranks. Not 100%, obviously. But don't believe for a second that our military will save us from this clusterfuck, anymore than the judiciary for that matter. Gott ist nicht mit uns.

You should be surprised. The Christian right owns our military just as they now own the DOJ and State Department.

Now, in fairness you did need to go to a school for marketing on the other side of the world to score a point but, hey, you need to start somewhere. And who knows, maybe that Chinese far side of the moon lander will find you another? You are on a roll, I'd have to agree. Sadly, there is this in the paper: PS Our best course of action is to adapt to the effects and to invest in R&D to develop new low carbon energy. But it's only one sentence and just a PS so nothing there. On another note, back in the day when I was working with the bird and bunny people to save the forests I met some real doozies. True believers who truly believed whatever was believed truly by whomever was truly persuasive that day. As the years passed by I noticed they didn't change much. They were always looking for something to believe in. Professor Sharp's story fits the mold.

Brent, this when you need to say, O.K, there is more to this than I thought.

That is the whole point, catastrophic AGW is predicted on the notion that once CO2 was all in, then other mechanisms would kick in and feed the feedback loop. Well that hasn't happened. So.... Now that's the problem with bottom fishing: you never know what you're gonna catch. That reply was not for you. I'm not going to continue this endless debate with you, Brent. I think I know where you are coming from and I simply have a different, and equally stubborn, view. From what I can tell what you say hasn't happened yet is now happening. You think otherwise. Let's count our chips later on when history is over.

I take no offense, far from it. I do not argue there is an equivalency, it was simply a clumsy use of a current term. I was told this picture was from the day they bombed Bad Vöslau, Austria.

Thank you. I fixed it for readability. "In fact I'm often baffled by the fact that a former bank officer who would never deny the effects of feed back loop interest persistently denies, or simply ignores, the not necessarily compounding feed back loop effects of rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2."

Not me. I definitely hope he gets blown up.

Not my position. A warmer climate causes CO2 and Methane to be released from thawing permafrost, for example. Let's continue the blanket analogy a bit further. At 800 blankets you'll have long since been suffocated by the sheer weight of them all. And depending on how gently each was laid you might never notice it was happening until it was too late.

Well, it must count a little that he was wronger in 2012 then in 2019. I don't think Brent is right on the issues. In fact I'm often baffled by the fact that a former bank officer who would never deny the effects of compound interest persistently denies, or simply ignores, the compounding effects of rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2. He's got a shit happens way of looking at the thing that is bothersome. But he's right, shit does happen. For example methane seeps from thawing underwater permafrost is todays happening shit. The point is that even were you to achieve the impossible and get him to agree that the entirety of the increase since 2010 was caused by burning fossil fuels he would still think it's peachy. I say he's not a denier because I believe he knows AGW is real. He just doesn't want this generation to pay for fixing the problem.

On August 27 he wrote this in reply to BIGUN: "I don’t deny climate change; I don’t deny that CO2 has some role. I question that a slightly warmer planet with CO2 levels that are well within pre/historical norms will result in an imminent existential catastrophe. I further question the efficacy of any attempts of mitigation." I think he might have said something similar to me that was also buried in the avalanche of crap that follows. I concede in advance that these sorts of statements by Brent are few and far between, but in fairness (and FUN!) he is under constant attack. He's just not the sort to yield an inch of ground in battle.

I'm not sure Brent is fairly characterized as a denier, even as regards AGW. He might argue degree, if you will, but not whether human caused CO2 emissions are contributing to an accelerated warming of the planet. As am I, he's more of a change is good and who knows what tomorrow will bring sort of guy. Where we differ is that where I've become quite comfortable with geologic time he sees no reason to wait for whats coming anyway, especially if it cuts into his fun today. He also simply rejects the idea that it's our hands on the thermostat. I refuse to say he's right, but he is definitely not incorrect. Leaving the Paris Accords was double down dumb for many more serious reasons than the futility of the effort. I'm not sure he sees that. Also, just saying that 500, 600, or even 800ppm of CO2 will be the bees, we then no longer have, knees doesn't begin to address how the holy hell we stop the accelerating increase once we arrive at happily ever after. To my mind that's the fatal flaw in the do nothing argument not which paragraph was missed when skimming the latest paper on the subject. Specifically, I'd argue that until we have the instructions, let's not take the goddamn planet apart.

There's just no way to sugar coat this: I agree with Brent. Do you now see what you've done John? It's not right. Hopefully those near you can do an intervention. Maybe forcing you to binge watch all 45 Monty Python episodes, except Jabberwocky obviously, would help. Maybe a little dress up for a Rocky Horror Picture Show? That sort of thing. That sort of anything. We're here for you. You can trust us.

They'd paint her a cultist in no time flat. I think this parsing of how many would vote for this person who is a _______________ , fill in the blank thing, is wrong. The majority will vote for a hetero white male. Now that's flat out stupid on so many levels, no question. But the only social wrong we should be focused on righting is the 2016 election of Donald Trump. If we can get rid of him there's a chance to get back on track. If we don't we're ______________ fill in the blank.

I'm thinking it will come down to a referendum on the Left. So far, we suck. We knew on day one how he won and how he would win again if we played the same ball game. Well, we are playing the same game and losing again. We do not yet have Trump on the ropes, but that won't stop the Dem's from ripping at each other at the next debate. It's never too late to make the right decision even if you're sure you're going in. And it's still not too late for a truly electable D Candidate to enter the race. But instead it's Gramps, Gramps and the school Marm heading down the stretch. Not good.

Winning. Right now we have Trumps potential impeachment to make us feel smart and the current field of Democratic Presidential hopefuls to make us feel stupid. Rather than either we should have focused on finding, and rallying around, a centrist candidate who could beat Trump.